>> Welcome to the National
Book Festivals Great Reads from Great Places brought to
you by the Library of Congress and its affiliated
Centers for the Book. This is the history edition
created by the Centers for the Book of Louisiana,
Nebraska, South Dakota, Tennessee,
and Texas. >> Rebekah: Well,
hello, everyone. Welcome, welcome, welcome. We're so glad you
can tune in virtually to the 2021 National
Book Festival. I'm Rebekah Manley and I direct
the Texas Center for the Book at the Texas State Library
and Archives Commission. The Texas Center for
the Book is an affiliate of the Library of Congress. The Centers for the Book
help carry out the mission of the National Center, which
is to promote books, reading, libraries and literacy
nationwide. Great goals, huh? We always promote our
state's literary heritage by putting the focus
on books and authors with a connection to our states. Each year as a part of our
participation in the Library of Congress National Book
Festival, we each choose a book with a local connection. And this is part
of the Great Reads from Great Places initiative. So please check that out and
learn more about it at read.gov. Today we're speaking with
our Great Read authors and editors from several states. They were invited by the
affiliate Centers for the Book from Louisiana, Nebraska, South
Dakota, Tennessee, and Texas. All of the selected books shine
light on significant people and events in history. Whether written for children
or adults, as fiction or nonfiction, thus we're
calling this panel Great Reads from Great Places,
History Edition. So we want to get
into the discussion because our authors are ready. But first let me tell you a
little bit about these authors and editors and their books. Representing Louisiana is
the unique graphic history, Monumental: Oscar Dunn
and His Radical Fight in the Reconstruction
Louisiana by Brian K. Mitchell. Monumental tells the incredible
story of Oscar James Dunn, a New Orleanian born
into slavery who became America's first
black lieutenant governor and acting governor. Like his book's subject, Brian K. Mitchell is
a New Orleans native and he's assistant professor
of history at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and
an associate faculty member at the Institute on
Race and Ethnicity. Welcome, Brian. Nebraska's selection is
Your Bridge to History by Portia Love, Preston Love. Written to intentionally plant
the seed of literacy and history in our youth, Your Bridge to
History takes children ages six through nine along with
the Black Votes Matter tour across American south. With us today is Preston
Love, a long time community and political activist
who teaches Black Studies and Politics at the
University of Nebraska Omaha. Representing South Dakota
this year is I Survived the Children's Blizzard,
1888 by Lauren Tarshis. This entry into the New
York Times best selling, I Survived series follows
11-year-old John Hale as he experiences one of
the deadliest blizzards in American history which
killed hundreds including many school children. Lauren Tarshis is senior vice
president editor-in-chief classroom of the Classroom
Magazine edition at Scholastic. And her first picture
book comes out this fall. Welcome, Lauren. Tennessee has chosen Light in
Hidden Places by Sharon Cameron. This book tells the
extraordinary story of Stefania Podgorska, a
16-year-old Polish Catholic who, along with her six-year-old
sister Helena, risked her life to save 13 Jews hidden in their
attic even while four Nazis were living in her house. Shannon Cameron --
Sharon Cameron is a No. 1 New York Times best selling
author whose honors include the selection of the
Light in Hidden Places for the Reese Witherspoon
Book Club. Finally from my home
state of Texas comes Marfa for the Perplexed by
the late Lonn Taylor. This is the compilation of
50 short historical essays about the people of
Marfa, Texas, a small town in the U.S. Mexico borderlands. Taylor was a historian who
worked for more than 20 years at the Smithsonian Institution
and wrote many of the pieces in this book as columns
from Marfa's local paper, the Big Bend Sentinel during
the last years of his life. Marfa for the perplexed
is represented here today by Taylor's editor, Tim Johnson. All right, ya'll. Thank you for that patience
while we went through each of those very important
but quick bios. So, you know what, Brian? We're going to start with you for the first question we're
going to ask each of you. So this year's theme for the
National Book Festival is Open a Book, Open the World. So we want to know what
that theme means to you? So Brian, what's a book
that opened the world to you and how do you hope your book
opens the world for readers? >> Brian: I would say J.R.
Tolkien Fellowship of the Ring. I was a huge Tolkien
fan as a kid and I could have emersed
myself in different worlds. And these different worlds
had different languages and different histories. They had their own geography. They had their own ethnicities. So any of the problems or any
of the worries I might have in my reality, I could
escape that reality briefly in the form of a book. >> Rebekah: Thank
you for that, Brian. So what -- what do you hope
that your book would open for the world for your readers? >> Brian: Well, one
of the things -- the book starts out
very biographical. It's starts out with a story
about me in second grade. And one of the things that I found very interesting
was I heard very little about African American
in history as a child in my classroom. So when confronted
with the reality of black leadership during
Reconstruction my teacher had no idea that there had been a black
lieutenant governor let alone three black lieutenant governors
for the State of Louisiana. And it opens about that world
and there's a huge segment of our history that isn't
readily available to students. And right now we're
fighting a battle and the battle's happening
in state legislatures and in school board meetings. Whose history gets to
be told and what parts of American history
are passed on as a part of our national narrative? So I think it's really
important that books like Monumental are presented and they show us how diverse
our backgrounds actually are. American's a tapestry and I always tell my students
American history's a tapestry that is composed of all of
the people that are here. And if you pull that thread, each community represents
just a thread that's within that tapestry. >> Rebekah: That's beautiful. I like the idea of pulling
the thread of the tapestry. Sharon, we're going
to go to you next. So what's a book that's
opened the world for you and then how do you hope
your book will open the world for readers? >> Sharon: Well, it is so funny
that you chose me next actually because I got my
answer taken already. I am an enormous Tolkien fan. I knew I loved your
bookshelves, Brian. I just knew it. Yes. I have probably read -- I believe I've read Lord
of the Rings now about 46 or 47 times in my life. I love -- I love those stories. And, you know, I thought for
a long time about what is it about Tolkien's writing
that so makes me want to go there again and again. And it's for all the
reasons, you know, actually that were just
stated but I also realize that for me it's because when
I was reading those books, I didn't think I
was reading fantasy. Something inside me felt
like I was reading history, something that was real and just
happened to have been forgotten, a world that we had forgotten. And I think that is
what drew me in so hard. And that is what draws me
into history right now. Stefania Podgorska has been my
hero for about 23 years now ever since I saw -- just
happened to turn on my TV during Holocaust
Remembrance Week and see her on my screen. And she told me on
-- through the film about being a young
16-year-old Polish Catholic girl who was destitute and alone. She was in sole charge
of a six-year-old sister in a Nazis occupied
town during the war. And in the middle of the night
there was a knock on the door and on the other side of the
door was a young Jewish man who had just jumped
from a moving train that was taken him
to a death camp. And he said, please hide me. And Stefania and Helena chose
to hide him and they chose to hide his brother and
then his brother's fiance until they had thirteen Jews in
a hidden space in their attic. And that's when the Nazis
commandeered their house and moved in. And so there were thirteen
Jews in an attic directly above a bedroom where
four Nazis were sleeping. And there were two girls,
16- and six years old to stand in their way. And they were amazing. They were amazing. Their story is such a story of
courage and sacrifice, of love and just humanity that
it changed me forever. And I think that getting
to write a story like this that is true that most
people don't know, I think it says something
very important. But first of all it
opens the world to us because it not only allows us to
learn facts about the Holocaust, you know, everybody needs to know what happened
during the Holocaust and we need to know these facts. But it allows us to
walk in their shoes and feel what they felt. And we might forget the
facts but that feeling, when you feel another
person's triumph, when you feel their pain, that
you are not going to forget. And I think that that makes
stories like The Light in Hidden Places, like the
Podgorska sisters not stories actually about history but
they are stories of now. Because the hate that died
with Hitler did not -- the hate that caused the
Holocaust did not die with Hitler. It is alive and well and
thriving in the world right now. And so their choices
challenge us. What are we going to
do right now today to stand up against hate? And it is a privilege to write
one tiny piece of literature that addresses that question. >> Rebekah: Yeah. I think for the concept of
attaching feeling to history, which I think is not necessarily
always an easy task even though history can have big feelings. Tim, we're going to go to you. So how do you think Lonn's -- well, what's a book
that's opened the world to you personally? And then how do you think
Lonn's book will open the word for readers? >> Tim: Well, I will answer
this question in the spirit of Lonn Taylor, it is a book
that opened the world to me but I think it -- and Lonn and
I never talked about this book but it was important
to him also, but there was a book called
With His Pistol in his Hand by the great Texas historian
and folklorist Americo Paredes, which came out in
the mid-20th century. And it's about this historical
figure Gregorio Cortez who -- about who many songs were
written, corridos in particular so Spanish language folk songs. And this book is -- was a way
of investigating the sort of -- the experience of
Mexican/Americans in a late 19 and early 20th century
in Texas, especially, borderland south of Texas. And in a way it relates to
the book in that Paredes sort of addresses the fact that much
history for Mexican-Americans in that region was traveling by
word of mouth and through song. And the book was actually
sort of withheld in a way, like it existed for a different
community for a long time. And Paredes is just sort
of situating this sort of historical figure within the
context of the legend and sort of what it meant to -- what was
at stake for history and told in sort of alternative ways. And so the book is -- it's a version of thinking
about alternate kinds of repositories for history. And the sort of role of
story in our cultural life and the way it contributes to
our identity and how, you know, certain communities have
to live under this sort of status of contestation. And the way in which things
like song and so forth have in some ways not received
the kind of respect that they probably deserve for what they have meant
historically for people. Anyway, Paredes was very
significant and this is sort of the interesting thing about him was he combined
folklore historical and historical methodologies to
sort of situate these traditions in a way that many people could
understand and appreciate them. So the people who -- he's
writing in a kind of register that if you're interested
in music you could enjoy but if you're also a historian
and you have a sort of standard of methodology there,
you can also appreciate. So I think that was Lonn
Taylor's Marfa for the perplexed and a lot of his work sort
of shares that sort of broad and I think democratic sense
what your source material is, how you relate to
communities, and how you -- where your work is coming
from and who it is going to. And try to situate yourself
to be aware of all these -- the different ways in
which, you know, you can -- you have to be aware of
who you're addressing and who you're not addressing
when you -- everything. Word choice and the
manner of presentation and how the work is distributed
in the world and so forth. And indeed that was
really inspiring about Lonn and it definitely resonated
with Americo Paredes work, which meant a lot to me
when I was a teen-ager. It opened up history and also
kind of the way in which all of those sort of alternate forms of storytelling coexist
in the world. >> Rebekah: Well,
thank you for that. And I promised I didn't tell Tim
to say that but With His Pistol in his Hand was actually
our 2014 Texas Great Read. So that's really cool. I like that Lonn Taylor is going
to be beside him on that list. >> Tim: Me too. And then I would say that
Marfa for the Perplexed just to finish the -- to
answer the second question. You know Lonn was someone
who worked at the Smithsonian for two decades and
so of course -- and during that time he
published traditional sort of scholarly books and articles. One really beautiful book
about The Star Spangled Banner, The literal Flag that
Inspired the National Anthem. But in his retirement
and he was also a person who was really interested
in music and as I mentioned all these
other forms of, you know, the ways in which history
relates to all of our lives and the way in which everyone
has a stake in history. In his retirement,
when he retired to West Texas he
basically took up this role and the role newspaper where
he was writing the stories on a weekly basis,
which are like 500 to 1,000 words in length. They're very brief. And they were addressing
figures and moments in history that a lot of people
don't really think of. They're not formal -- generally
in the conventional sense of Texas history to be honest. And had a lot to do with
Native American history and Mexican-American
history, and events and things that might seem very vernacular or quite folkish,
I guess to people. But he -- they became the
real center of his attention. And not only that but he
-- he relied on, you know, correspondence, family
correspondence and in particular our local
library essentially has something we call The
Junior Historian Files. In the middle of the 20th
century there was a teacher at the high school that
asked the children to speak with their parents
and grandparents about their own memories. And in particular this
was very important because in the beginning part
of the 20th century, our town, which had been founded by -- in
the late 19th century as a kind of train stop, has a major sort
of arrival or influx of people from northern Mexico after
the Mexican Revolution. And these people's
stories had not been a part of this refounding
narrative of Marfa but there were definitely
there in the stories of the Junior Historian Files. And so they had never
been found in a book. They basically were
just like loose -- like assignments
that kids had made in middle school
and high school. And Lonn found a way to
really sort of shine light on those stories and to
involve them in significant ways in these -- in the chapters -- what became eventually
the chapters of Marfa for the Perplexed, but
which were also appearing in our local newspaper. And I think that the
book does something which the newspaper was
also doing in this instance, which is to just to really
demonstrate that people -- everyone has a stake in
history that his sources, a person who worked for the
Smithsonian institution -- his sources were
like 12-year-old kids who were writing in
the 40's and 50's. And they had something
very significant to say and their writing had character
and it had, you know, in 2020 or 2015 or whenever these were
published they still could speak to us very significantly
about the nature of our place. And I think that, you know,
that's something to be -- it's very useful
to be reminded of. >> Rebekah: Thank you, Tim. Well, Lauren, so what's a
book that's opened the book -- opened the world to
you, and how do you hope that your books open
the world to readers? >> Lauren: I just loved hearing
from Brian and Sharon and Tim, and I feel as though I'm
going to pick up on some of their themes with a
slightly -- don't worry. I don't have a Tolkien
invention here. But I did not read a book
cover to cover till I was 14. And then the first book
that I figured out how to read was A Tale of Two
Cities by Charles Dickens, which didn't exactly open
my world but it showed me that I could actually
read books. And it wasn't until I was 30
years old, when I was kind of working at Scholastic in the
magazine division where I remain to this day, when I was forced
by my boss at the time to take on the role as editor
of a magazine for third and fourth graders. And the requirement was
a deep understanding of children's literature. So I leveled with him and
I said I am not the person to take this job because
I never read any -- I mean I read A Tale of Two
Cities and then I moved forward. I didn't go back
and read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
and Charlotte's Web. And so he looked at me kind
of quizzically and he said, well, just go read them. So I, you know, I went on a
binge and read dozens and dozens of classic children's books
and then moved, you know -- moved into, you know,
more current ones. And really the first one I
read was my childhood copy of Charlotte's Web that
my parents had given me and that I had never
been able to read. And that really was the book
that opened the world for me. I fell so madly in love with
these stories for this age group and that love became
more and more passionate with each book that I read. And that opened my entire
life for me, really. My career as a children's
author. It took me ten years to figure
out how to write a novel for kids once I decided
I wanted to. But I think that for
me my I Survived series and the Children's Blizzard
is one of now 21 books that I've written and I'm
continuing to write them. The mission of the book really
picks a lot on what Brian said and Sharon said and
Tim has talked about, which is that I tell children
history is not facts and dates. History is stories
of ordinary people like you and me and the idea. And that history also is -- we all can give our voice to
history so just what Tim said, this idea of these,
you know, these 12- and 13-year-old children in the
40's and 50's being the source of record for this
important event in history. It really resonates with me. The mission of my
series is to, you know, I do an enormous
amount of research -- I'm looking at Brian's
backdrop there and, you know, I have like a dizzy amount
of, you know, piles of books. I travel to every place
that I write about. I undertake, you know, a
research project that is -- that probably could fill
one of Sharon's books or one of Brian's books. But -- but my goal is different. My goal is to really
open doors for kids to take complicated stories
whether it's an enslaved child who was caught up in the
Battle of Gettysburg, the Revolutionary War, the
iconic blizzard, you know, during the time of
Western expansion. And keep them comprehensible to
children, especially children who don't consider themselves
readers, who unlike Sharon and Brian, were not huddled
under their covers reading Lord of the Rings when
they were children. A lot of my readers are fragile
readers, striving readers. And I think that I
remember how it was for me being deeply
curious about the world, wanting to be a part of
conversations but because of my own reading
struggles feeling shut out. So that is, you know, that is
really what keeps me writing this series. And the children's blizzard book
was especially -- it was just -- it was an incredibly special
experience for me in my travels to Dakota to North Dakota and
South Dakota and the number of people that I got to
speak to who had memories that had been handed down
to them of this blizzard that happened in 1888. And meeting people all
across the State and then -- though my books are
historical fiction, my characters are fictional,
trying to infuse my book -- this book and all of the books
of my series with the voices of the people whose stories
I either hear first-hand through my travels
or that I discover in historical societies or, you
know, memoirs, letters, etc. >> Rebekah: Thank
you so much, Lauren. And it makes me really think -- I mean there are lots of
different panels with lots of different themes
with different states but the history panel
that we're in right now and opening the world up to
readers is really profound. Preston, I'm excited to
ask you these questions. The theme of this year's
National Book Festival is Open a Book, Open the World. And I want to know what's a book
that's opened the world to you? And then how do you hope
your book will open the world to readers? >> Preston: Say, I'm
excited to be able to answer and the circumstance
and so honored. As an author of my very
first children's book, this is a double honor. And to be in the midst of these
wonderful other authors is a great honor. Well, I -- you know what? With all due respect
for the question, I'm hoping that this children's
book will open the world to the children. And it has opened
the world to me in that I was not an
aficionado of children's books. I just loved children. But I really have greater
respect for children's books and the impact that
they can have. And so that is part of it. But my objective was almost the
exact, except for the audience and opening the world
was for the kids. Opening the world of literacy. And then also to planting
the seed of their own, in some cases, their own
African American history. The book is being read
by all ethnicities now. And so it's opening the world
to our youth and we're hoping that because of the book,
they will have the desire to dig deeper and learn more about literacy as
well as history. >> Rebekah: Brian, we're
going to go to you. I'd like to ask you what
was your personal connection to Oscar Dunn? >> Brian: I'm an
ancestor of Dunn so Dunn is one of my ancestors. So I'm related to Dunn
distantly and that helps this -- the narrative of the story
because Dunn had been forgotten. There was very little research
that was being done on Dunn. Most of the research was done
before the 19 -- by the 1950s. And the dissertation that
I did that initially -- that would become
the book revived sort of the discussion of Dunn. And people began teaching,
using the dissertation. And I got a call from a young
man just outside of Columbus, Ohio and he and his
father called me, wanted to thank me
for writing it. And he was in middle school. So I asked why are you reading
a dissertation in middle school? And he said, well, I loved it. So you quiz the kid and
he actually read it. So at the end of the conversation I asked
how could I improve this or how can I make it more
digestible for young audiences? And it was that young
man who said, you know, I like to read comics and I
like to read graphic novels. Could you make it into
a graphic history? And I had a professor who
wrote really the first graphic history, the first real
graphic history, Trevor Getz and it's called Albina
and the big Men. And using sort of that
template we went from, you know, with learning sessions, a
glossary, timelines, maps. We include a lot of those
features in the book so it can be -- it can
translate into a middle school or a high school classroom. >> Rebekah: Thank
you for that, Brian. And I'm actually going to mix
it up and go back to Lauren so you don't have to
wait until the very end. We're going to mix
it up a little bit. So, Lauren, I want to
ask you how have ideas about teaching western
expansion to children changed? >> Lauren: It changed a lot. I was writing my series
for ten years and I also -- the work that I do for I
Survived is very much connected to the work I do in
magazines at Scholastic. You know, the company -- Our Scholastic, the
children's publisher, which turned 101 this year,
we were founded in 1920 with a single magazine
for high school students. And the mission of
the magazine was to help children understand
themselves in the world and to help them to
become clear thinkers and have an understanding of
the facts that they would need to be members of a democracy. So and now we have 25
magazines and they are -- they cover, you know, and they're actually these
beautiful rich digital products but they still have
that basic mission. And I think what we've -- you
know, I've been there 30 years and to watch how we have
-- how we have changed -- how our ideas about
how we should talk about American history
re-centering American history so it's not just on,
you know, white people from the western -- from Europe. The -- so my story is a
pioneer story absolutely. But as I was researching this,
I was very focused on wanting to convey to children what
was here before the 1800's, that this was a land where
there were millions of people. There were people who
were speaking hundreds of different languages,
of all different cultures. That were people inventing
new types of agriculture and new art forms and
telling gorgeous stories. And each one was
completely different. So the idea of being able
to slowly shift how we talk about our country without,
you know, and, of course, here we are in the middle of this just terribly toxic
fractious debate, which is, you know, I think
absurd given that -- as Brian said, our
history, what's wonderful about our country
is its diversity. And the idea that
it is this tapestry. I love the way you
said that, Brian. And each single story is
a thread in that tapestry that makes us stronger
and more, you know, more resilient as a nation. So I think that -- that being
able to talk about a West -- you know the history of
America, to be able to -- to really be in awe
of the people who settled Dakota territory. You know, these families
who went, often under false pretenses, had
been, you know, kind of tricked by railroad advertisements, you
know, describing this garden of Eden where anything grew and
then found themselves in a place that actually was known as
the great American desert that native peoples
had never even -- knew not to settle on because
of the extreme weather. And yet, built -- you know,
were able to make a go of it. I think you can honor their
resilience and their grit without -- while
still acknowledging and sharing the stories
of the native peoples who were forced off their lands
and the genocide and devastation that took place in, you
know, as part of our history. So it's a lot. And I think, you know, teaching
it at an age appropriate way, not laying this on the
feet of kindergartners. But being comfortable
celebrating that and sharing -- sharing -- sharing our diverse
history and also understanding and teaching the lesson
that our ideas can evolve. And that doesn't mean that it's
-- there's no shame in admitting that the way that
we've been talking about history has been too
limited, and embracing. And so I think that's just
such an important message and it's pretty heartbreaking
to me to see where we are at this moment. >> Rebekah: And on the
subject of researches and I'm going to
go to you, Sharon. So how do you use and
access primary resources for your historical research? >> Sharon: Well, I have to
say that researching The Light in Hidden Places was a
very different experience from any of my previous books. And you know, this is a
bit of a departure for me. I've written fantasy and
ustopia and little sci-fi and all kind of different
things. But I've always researched
all of my books, I guess, in a very Tolkien-esq way,
now that I think about it. As if they were real. As if this was a true history. And I tried to be that
detailed, you know, with the world that I created. In the case of Stefania
and Helena Podgorska, these were two real people. And I was very, very lucky to make contact with
Stefania's son. The beautiful ending of her
story is that she married one of the men that she saved and
they had a son, Ed Burzminski, who I was able to
make contact with. And I went and met with him and
he shared stories of his mom. He allowed me to read his
mother's unpublished memoir that she had written
about her time in the war. And he took me to meet Stefania. I -- I -- it is such an amazing
thing to happen in your life. And I don't think it
happens to people very often that you actually get to sit
at the feet of your heroes. And she was in the very
last months of her life. She had dementia. She did not know she met me. I will never ever
forget meeting her. But I was then -- after -- just three weeks after she
had passed away actually, Ed, her son, and my husband and
I all got on a plane and went to Poland to rediscover
her life. And it was a very
emotional, raw time. I got to meet Helena
who was still in Poland. I got to meet with children
who had survived the attic. We went to the attic. We walked the streets. We went to the concentration
camps. And I found that that research
not only obviously incredibly informed the book. You know, being able to access
those things so firsthand was -- I think probably something
that will never happen to me in the same way again. But I found that not only did it
just inform the book and make it as real as it could be, but
it actually also changed me. It changed me as a person. And, you know, touching on
what I talked about before, I went to Poland
thinking I wanted to share this story
of my hero, Stefania. I wanted to -- I wanted everyone to know what this incredible
young woman chose to do and the risks she took
during the Holocaust. And when I came out of Poland, that was not the book I
wanted to write anymore. I wanted to write a book that helped the reader feel one
young woman's experience during the Holocaust, and experience
the challenge that I think that that feeling
brings to our own lives. So in my case, accessing those
primary materials was key. But it not only opened
up the book, you know, to me and showed me the
book I wanted to write, it changed me as
a person as well. >> Rebekah: Turning -- Tim,
I promise we're going to get to you but Sharon, what you
said really made me think more about Brian's book. And Brian, as Sharon was talking
about, you know, wanting readers to remember feelings
and true characters, I want to know how you
want Dunn to be remembered in Louisiana and as well. What are you hoping
for readers to or anyone just to keep hold of? >> Brian: Well, Dunn
represents a shining point in American history, a point
of great hope and promise for the African American
community. And it also shows the
humanity that exists. A lot of times when
we talk about slaves or the enslaved African
Americans, what with we -- the way they're represented
is very flat as if, you know, you were born a slave,
you died a slave. And you hear of very
little growth. And an idea they could have
been someone who's a genius who was born as a slave
or a great politician that was born as a slave. And then yes, there's the
Frederick Douglass narrative and then Sojourner Truth. But we know so little
about Dunn and he's utterly so important to American
history. I mean he's the first
African American considered for the vice presidency
of the United States. He's one of the earliest
judges in Louisiana history. He was seen by democrats and
republicans alike at a time that is just as polarized
as we are today as like one of the few honest men in the entire political
arena in the state. So the idea that you can
have political rivals but they admire you as a
person and they see value in what you have to say
is extremely important. And a lesson that we
should really be passing on to our children right
now in the polarized time that we live in, that look,
yeah, everybody's going to have different
opinions but we have to remember what we're
aspiring to, you know. That we're one nation and
we're trying to find greatness and maintain that greatness. >> Rebekah: Thank
you for that, Brian. Tim, so why is the book
called Marfa for the Perplexed and what is so perplexing
about Marfa? >> Tim: Well, you know, I
will say Marfa over 20 years or so has undergone a kind of
a transformation to the extent that it was a place that
very few people knew about 20 years ago and now
it's a place that gets a kind of a lot of coverage in
things like the New York Times and in lifestyle and
design magazines. And it became for
a certain group of people kind of a cool place. All of that is pretty
perplexing to begin with. And there's also, you know,
if you arrive in Marfa without having heard
any of that, you know, you've not read anything in
the New York Times about art and so forth and you don't have
a sense of this physical place, I think it's still kind of
perplexing because, you know, we're at the northern end
of the Chihuahuan Desert. There's a vast expanse here. You have traveled, you know,
we're like 200 miles away from a population center. And you arrive to this place and I mean there's this
interesting combination -- there was very beautiful
buildings built in the early 20th century through maybe the
mid-20th century at which point there was a
population of 10,000 people. And then there's
some sort of evidence of military outpost
and so forth. And now there's only
2,000 people. So it's a town that has
been sort of fixed up, sort of still a little bit empty
compared to the number of -- you know, it's --
there's a lot going on that's sort of hard to read. It's like, okay, how is there
this beautiful town in the midst of this place but it seems --
it's been fixed up to the time that it was before where in
2020, it looks like 1945. So there's -- that's
all very perplexing. So I think the important
thing to say also, which is the real
subject of the -- how Lonn was trying to undo
this perplexity is that a lot of people treat this as though
it were the middle of nowhere. And that -- look
how in the middle of nowhere there's this
extraordinary cool place with these beautiful buildings
and they think two things. One, this is -- or
might say a few things. Wild west, railroad town, or there was an artist
who saved it. And the art -- and then the
artist people came and they -- you know, so all that stuff,
which are the general forms of explanation to resolve
people's being perplexed are just totally unsatisfying. And so I think a lot of work
needs to be done so there's like both the people who are
perplexed and need to address that perplexity in
a legitimate way. And so I think that's
both why it's called Marfa for the Perplexed and it's
also sort of the purpose of the book is to say,
okay, there's no such thing as the middle of nowhere. There are some very interesting
people who are given a lot of credit for the way the
town looks and feels today, but there's a lot,
lot more going on here and the relationships
are more complicated and to get a better
sense of where you are -- to orient yourself in this place
you need to do some reading. Or you need to sit down
and listen to some stories. And they -- those stories -- I think this is something
that other people have talked about as well as like some of
these stories are very painful. There's a significant
amount of trauma. We're talking about, you
know, the train arrives here with basically the military. And they establish the large
Anglo-American ranches. And this also has
to do with the fact that the military is
addressing the Apache, the Lipan Apache people. And some of the first
groups that come to fight the Lipan Apache
are the Buffalo soldiers. So we're talking about American
history in a very complex and very difficult way. And Lonn was jumping -- was just
going right there and he did it in a way that almost
everyone could read. And to some extent you
could sort of appreciate -- and this is sort of
a complicated word, but you can sort of -- there
was a way of, like, oh, my God, he's sort of letting us in on
a lot of the stuff and a lot of voices are coming in, and
the complexity is present. And I think that's very
helpful, especially for a place like Marfa, which is treated
like it's the middle of nowhere so [inaudible] was
almost ahistorical. But I think -- and for
the country at large like we all know this feeling
that the history is very complex and we're getting very
oversimplified versions of what happened and
what is happening. And anyway so that's why --
I think it's like for Marfa, but that's also in general. Like it's okay to
feel perplexed. It's okay to feel overwhelmed. It's okay to feel afraid
even of the history. But you can do it. You can actually -- we
can read these stories. And we can, you know, it's
important for us to do so. >> Rebekah: Thank you for that. Thank you. Now, Preston, what -- you
talked about it a little bit but feel free to use this
chance to talk about what was in the back of the book
like you are saying. What was your motivation
for writing? >> Preston: Well. My motivation came --
is very straightforward. I'm a frequent speaker
in high schools and I'm a university
professor here at University of Nebraska here in Omaha. And I look and talk
to young people, high school, middle
school, a lot. And what I found is that they
don't know African American history that includes
and underline and bolded, the African Americans
don't know their history. And so because of that, long
story made short, I initiated and take 40 to 50 high
school kids every year on a civil rights tour,
all expenses paid. We take them to all of the
iconic civil rights venues to teach them their
civil rights history. After having done that for
several years I began to realize that I needed to plant the seed
earlier for our youngsters. And that's why I wrote the book. And so that's where the
heart all comes together. >> Rebekah: We're
almost out of time. But I have a final question
for all of you and I'm going to start with Lauren
because we know that your first picture book
is coming out this fall. I'm going to ask each of
you what you're working on or what's coming out next
or what you're working on or anything you're
writing that you feel like you want to talk about. So Lauren, let's start with
you since it's a natural step. >> Lauren: I'm working
on two things right now. My first picture
book is coming out and it is called Only My
Dog Knows I Pick My Nose. But it's really not about that. It's really a book
about self acceptance and unconditional love
that I created with one of my friends who's an artist. But I'm also working on
an I Survived book that's about a really fascinating train
history story that is set in -- it's 1910 in Wellington,
Washington in the Cascades. And there was the deadliest
avalanche in American history that happened in 1910 where
two trains that were stranded in a blizzard were
swept off into a ravine. And it's one of those stories
that isn't told, you know, that we haven't really -- that
hasn't been widely shared. And it's one of those
stories that opens up so many different doors into
different aspects of history. So I'm really enjoying
the research on that one. >> Rebekah: I love the
range on that, Lauren. >> Lauren: It's true. It's definitely -- it
was much more delightful to be writing my doggy book than
to be plunged into the depths of the -- the death and
destruction of avalanche. And I also have a
Texas book coming out, which I almost forgot
to mention, which comes out in
a couple of weeks, which is about the
Galveston hurricane. That's my next I Survived
book that comes out. And so I was in Galveston. I was not able to
visit Galveston. It was the first place that
I've written an I Survived story about that I didn't get to
visit before I started writing because of the pandemic. But because of the
extraordinary recordkeeping of the Galveston
Historical Society there were so many resources and extremely
generous people who were willing to work with me remotely. And then I was able to go right
after I finished writing it, things finally opened
up so I got to go and experience Galveston with
this entire picture in my mind, maybe it's like what Sharon
experienced going to Poland. So that was sort of a
mind-blowing experience in a way that I really enjoyed. Because it was, again,
the first time -- of course, I had seen pictures
and videos and talked to people and read all these
different accounts, but then to walk the streets,
see the Gulf of Mexico, you know, lapping
ashore very innocently. That was an amazing experience. >> Rebekah: Yeah. Preston, what is next? What's something that
you're working on right now or that you want to work on? >> Preston: Well, I
-- I'm working on -- well, first of all, I must
say that my wonderful honor of having this book
as an award book but I wrote another
book, which is bilingual. It's the same book bilingual. But I'm thinking of translating
the book into other languages because of the reception
that I'm getting from other language kids. And so that I'm working
on for sure. On the tour that was designed
for the high school kids of which the book is designed
from or comes from, we -- at the time that I wrote
the book we were not going to Mississippi. And so I may add Mississippi to
the book in a different edition. And also as it relates
to one of your questions because my eyes have been opened about children's books
I have lots of new ideas about children's books
that will coincide with my passion to teach. >> Rebekah: Well, it sounds
like there's a lot more to come. Sharon and Brian, we're
going to get to you but Tim, I want to make sure we
don't leave you out so if you could be thinking
of a book that maybe is in your collection
as a publisher or a book that's coming out or
what you want to direct us to. We're going to let
you answer this too. I just want the wheels
to be turning. Sharon, let's go to you. >> Sharon: Yes. So I have -- I have a
busy fall coming up. I have the paperback
for The Light in Hidden Places out
on September 7th. And then I have a new book out
on October 5th called Bluebird. And Bluebird is probably one of the most complicated research
projects I've ever done. It is about two pieces of
mostly forgotten history in 1946 that were sitting side by side. One is Project Bluebird which was a top secret CIA
program begun just at the end of the war coming into the
beginnings of the Cold War that was based directly on
human medical experimentation that had been going on in
Doc Ow [assumed spelling]. And it was created
for the purposes of trying to mind control. They really thought
they could do it. And they were doing
these experiments on unwitting American citizens and they were hiring Nazi
war criminals to do them. And that is Project Bluebird. And sitting side by side with that is a program
call Powell House, which was a program run by
Quakers in the upper east side of Manhattan in a mansion. And it was for refugees coming
to America and it was a program that would basically emerse
new immigrants in an atmosphere of unconditional love. And it was a program that was
so socially ahead of its time in terms of race relations,
religious organizations. It brought together the
Jewish organizations, the Christian organizations,
both Catholic and Protestant, the Harlem churches where
they ate dinner once a week. All of these people
were banding together to welcome new Americans
into America. And it was just -- it was just
such an incredible experience to write this story
of light and dark. And now I'm going to
work on art forgers in Amsterdam and baby smuggling. >> Rebekah: Whoa. Okay. We're going
to end with Brian. So I'm going to go
to you next, Tim. What's a book you
want to tell us about? >> Tim: In the fall
I have a book coming out called Al Rio/To The
River, which I've made with my friend the
artist Zoe Leonard. It's a book in two
parts and we've made it over the last five years or
it's sort of a publication in two books or two
books in one publication. One is photos that Zoe
took between Ciudad Juarez and El Paso in the
Gulf of Mexico. So that part of the Rio Bravo
Rio Grande where it is made to serve the function of
international boundary. And sort of the photographically
explore sort of the different pressures that
the river is under as it tries to sort of, like, play this role or all the different roles
that we make it play. And then there's a second
volume, which is essays and poems and conversations
by a variety of people from primarily the U.S.
and Mexico but a few people from other parts of the world. And it's sort of conceived
of as a kind of a variety of approaches to the river
where the river is the sort of center rather than the
sort of edge of something. And, you know, so yeah,
that's basically how it is. And that's a part -- that's -- comes out in November and there
is exhibitions, which relate to the photographs which will
be circulating in the U.S. and Mexico and elsewhere
from 2022 to probably 2025. >> Rebekah: The idea
of the river as a center and not the edge. Brian, we're going to end
with you on this question. And then I'll do the little
wrap-up that we have written. So please tell us
what book would you like to talk to us about? >> Brian: Once again I'm
very much like Sharon in that it seems that we're
both perpetual researchers and we're always
working on projects. So I have three projects that
are in the works right now. The first is called
Taking West Rock. And West Rock was the small
black community that sat at the bottom of Little
Rock's wealthiest community. And it provided that
community, the wealthy community with maids, landscapers. And after the Brown decision,
the city decides to try to take West Rock from
the black community that lived there
and relocate them. So it will be the telling of
the story of this community, how it was founded,
how it was moved and how West Rock even though
it was moved survives today throughout the institutions
that were there. The next book is a
fantastic book -- history book on Little
Rock also. And this deals with the
1860 decision to kick all of the free blacks out
of the State of Arkansas. So Arkansas' the only
state that has the history of having evicted its entire
free black population. And I -- for two years I
tracked all of the people that I could find where
they went, you know, what were their lives like
and I want to tell the story of this forced migration. And the last book is a
project that I've worked on. I've done a number of books
and papers and journal articles on the Elaine Massacre. But I'd like to create a
book that tells the story of the Elaine Massacre
for younger audiences. >> Rebekah: And all of you virtual viewers
I'm sure you've written down at least three books
that you're wanting to -- maybe not published yet but will
be published or is out there. I just want to say thank you so
much to each of our panelists for being with us today. You know, I know we're on
Zoom but it does take work to bring everyone together
and we all make the time. It's just been so great. This has been a wonderful
and enlightening conversation about the importance of history and the many ways we
share it with readers. Honestly more depth than I
could have even hoped for. All of us at the Center for the
Book Affiliates in Louisiana, Nebraska, South Dakota,
Tennessee and Texas, we thank you all. We thank today's panelists
for your time and expertise. We also thank our
audience members. You know. Whenever you're
watching us or joining us for our Great Reads from
Great Places History edition and we hope that you will
explore the events pages on loc.gov and enjoy
the many more programs in the 2021 National
Book Festival. All right. Thank you so much.
