Kristin Levine is the author of two historical novels for young readers, The Lions of Little Rock and The Best Bad Luck I Ever Had. She lives in Alexandria, Virginia.
Q: One theme in both your novels is race relations. Why did
you select that as a topic on which to focus?
A: When I was in elementary school my mostly-white
neighborhood school was paired with a mostly-black school from across town.
When I asked my parents why I had to take the bus to go to
4th grade, they replied with great enthusiasm that this was a great opportunity
for me to be with and learn from people who didn't look exactly like me and
hadn't had exactly the same experiences.
I always remembered their enthusiasm for the idea of
integration. And thinking back on my own elementary experiences, it IS the
different people and experiences I remember most fondly.
Q: Why did you choose historical settings for your novels,
and how did you select those two particular time periods?
A: The truth is, I'm kind of lazy. The Best Bad Luck I Ever
Had was inspired by my grandfather's memoirs growing up in Moundville, Alabama.
So for that book, I picked that time simply because it was when he was a kid.
My mom was born in Little Rock, Arkansas. I actually was
planning to set The Lions of Little Rock during the year of the Little Rock
Nine, but when I went to Little Rock to interview some people, I heard so many
interesting stories about the "Lost Year" that I decided to set my
book during that year instead.
(But not until I had written almost an entire first draft
set the year before - I had to throw out a whole bunch of pages and start over
again!!)
Q: Do you have a particular favorite character that you've
created?
A: Oh dear, that's kind of like asking about my favorite
child! Let's just say I really liked Dit (the narrator from Best Bad Luck)
because he was the first character I had ever written that felt like a real
person to me.
Writing about him also felt like, in a way, getting to know
my grandfather, who I had never known well when he was alive.
I also like Marlee, because she took SO long to reveal her
personality to me. I wrote an entire draft of Lions where Marlee had no trouble
talking at all.
It wasn't until my editor complained that she didn't really
like Marlee's voice yet, and I remarked to myself in a huff, "Well, fine
then. Maybe she won't have a voice at all!" that I came up with the idea
of Marlee not liking to talk. And that, of course, made her entire character!!
Q: Your books are described as being for kids around
middle-school age. Why did you pick that age range?
A: I think I like to write for kids in middle school because
books were so important to me when I was that age. It's a stressful time and I
loved knowing I could always escape to a book.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: Well, after writing about my grandfather and my mother,
my dad started dropping hints that HE had had a really interesting life too.
So my next book, The Paper Cowboy, is about a boy living
outside of Chicago in the early 1950s. When his sister is burned in an
accident, he has to take over her paper route. He also has to deal with
McCarthyism when he accuses a shopkeeper in town of being a communist, and
realizing that he sometimes acts like a bully at school. At least that's the
plan, if I manage to pull all those themes together. It should be out fall
2014.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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