Deborah Hopkinson has written more than 40 books for children, including the new middle-grade novel A Bandit's Tale, which takes place mostly in 1880's New York City. Some of her other books include Follow the Moon Home, Beatrix Potter and the Unfortunate Tale of a Borrowed Guinea Pig, and Courage & Defiance. She lives near Portland, Oregon.
Q: How did
you come up with the idea for A Bandit's Tale and for your main character, Rocco?
A: I have
written two previous historical fiction books for young readers: Into the Firestorm was set in San Francisco and The Great Trouble takes place in London,
and I wanted to place the next story in New York City. Rocco grew out of
reading accounts of young street musicians, including a boy who had run away to
Central Park.
Q: The book
includes some historical figures. What did you see as the right blend between
history and fiction as you were writing the novel?
A: I wish I
knew the right combination! Often I have to cut out aspects of history that are
absolutely fascinating to me, but don’t necessarily move the story forward.
It just so
happens that sometimes events coincide, though. Henry Bergh, the founder of the
ASPCA who does appear in A Bandit’s Tale actually did die during the Blizzard
of 1888, just as he does in the book.
And
apparently during that same storm Jacob Riis, the pioneering photojournalist
whose photographs of the tenements on the Lower East Side captured the public’s
attention, hatched the idea for his book, How the Other Half Lives.
I realize I
may be the only one who loves these sort of coincidences, so I try not to
overdo them in the storyline!
Q: What kind
of research did you need to do to write this, and what surprised you most in
the course of your research?
A: I love to
consult the work of scholars in my research, and I read biographies of Riis, as
well as works on street musicians, pickpockets, and immigrant communities.
I find it
enormously helpful when writing fiction to walk around in the neighborhoods
where my story takes place. In this case I walked all over the Lower East Side
and Greenwich Village.
I also went
to museum collections to read letters written by Henry Bergh and read 19th
century annual reports on site at the New York Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Children.
I think the
Bergh papers were perhaps the most surprising. In his papers I encountered
letter after letter where he brings specific street conditions to the attention
of the public works department. And, most surprising of all, he got polite
responses time after time, though I am sure the folks there were thinking, “Not
another letter from Mr. Bergh!”
Q: You've
written fiction and nonfiction, for different age groups. Do you have a
preference?
A: What I
like best, actually, is alternating from one to the other. I love writing in
both genres but it’s always nice to switch it up.
Q: What are
you working on now?
A: Right
now, actually, I am beginning to write my third nonfiction title set in World
War II (the second, DIVE! comes out in September). Then I’ll make use of that
same research for a spy novel for kids set in London in 1944.
Q: Anything
else we should know?
A: Well, I
guess it’s obvious that I love history. But I also think that although many
young readers gravitate to fantasy, humor, or realistic fiction, they can get
excited about historical fiction too. I encourage parents to read books along
with their children.
I’m a big fan of the work of Steven Johnson,
who wrote a nonfiction title about the 1854 cholera epidemic entitled The Ghost
Map, which inspired my historical fiction book, The Great Trouble. His popular
PBS Series How We Got to Now includes an episode on Light, which features Jacob
Riis.
I didn’t
know about this series when I wrote A Bandit’s Tale, but I highly recommend it
to readers of all ages who want to know more about how technology – in this
case the invention of flash photography – changed lives.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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