Book Review: Hellie Jondoe

Hellie Jondoe
Randall Platt
Historical
Grades 7-10
216 pages

Maybe it’s the fault of the countless hours I spent reading Anne of Green Gables and its sequels, but I am a sucker for orphan stories.  A lot of children’s lit, especially historicals, feature children who’ve lost one or both parents and are forced to either fend for themselves or care for younger siblings.  My own work in progress is no exception.  I guess I love the redemptive quality of many orphan stories, the idea that you can lose the person or people who love you most but there are others willing to love you as well.

Hellie Jondoe ain’t your average uplifting orphan story.

Hellie is a street arab in 1918 New York City, a thirteen-year-old girl on the brink of becoming a young lady but who must pretend she’s a boy so her older brother, Harry, can keep her with him in his gang.  Their parents are long dead, and their world is full of pickpocketing, petty thieving, alcohol, and the prospect that if Hellie becomes too attractive, she might turn into a prostitute.  Partly by way of looking out for her and partly for selfish reasons, Harry sells Hellie out to a religious group who put orphans from major East Coast cities on trains headed west.  The hope is that the children will be adopted, but not all children find loving families.  On the train, Hellie meets Lizzie, another orphaned teen who is missing an eye, and Joey, a baby with a clubfoot.  Though Hellie fights getting adopted with every street-smart trick she knows, she, Lizzie, and Joey end up on a ranch in Oregon owned by the formidable Scholastica Gorence.  Though the arrangement is anything but a cozy family set-up at first, Hellie learns things about herself, Lizzie, and Mrs. Gorence that draw them closer together, even as tragedy is poised to strike.

Hellie’s street-wise vocabulary makes the story both believable and a delight to read.  She is anything but the charming, humble orphan of so many children’s books, but she is also more than a run-of-the-mill juvenile deliquent.  Author Randall Platt avoids the easy stereotypes of orphans and street kids to create a cast of well-rounded characters.  The short chapters are packed with action and smart remarks, along with mounting tension when the reader learns an important secret long before Hellie does.  As for the historic value, Platt covers so many elements of the times, from the war to the nature of crime, from women’s liberation and sufferage to Prohibition, from orphan trains to the Spanish flu outbreak.  There is also a great contrast in eastern city life and the rural west, a contrast that still exists but was even greater in the early years of last century.

Hellie is a delight, and I am so glad to have gotten to talk with the author as well.  Stay tuned for her interview on Wednesday and a chance to win a signed copy on Friday!

Austin SCBWI Conference

As a writer, I like to attend at least two conferences a year to keep up-to-date on the publication industry and to make contacts.  My first for 2010–Destination Publication: An Awesome Austin Conference for Writers and Illustrators, hosted by the Austin, Texas, regional chapter of SCBWI.

Held Jan. 29-30, the conference started with an optional Friday night dinner at the historic home near downtown Austin of writers Greg Smith and Cynthia Leitich Smith.  I recommend participating in an event like this, especially if you’re from out-of-town as I was and don’t know many people at the conference.  The social time gave me the opportunity to meet fellow writers and conference faculty, making the following day of speakers and presentations much more enjoyable.

Author Liz Garton Scanlon (left) and illustrator Marla Frazee discuss their picture book ALL THE WORLD.

On Saturday, attendees heard from editors, agents, and writers through presentations and private, previously paid critique sessions.  As with most conferences, there was a wealth of information.  Presenters agreed that the publishing business is an industry in transition and it will take time to see how it all pans out.  Agent Mark McVeigh encouraged the audience not to “fear digital media,” saying that when the price of the Kindle reader drops and kids buy it, the industry will start to change.  Authors will make more money on the books they sell and will sell more books.

The morning keynote by Newbery Honor author of Hattie Big Sky Kirby Larson (a favorite here at The Damsels), kept us all chuckling as she talked of her journey to publication. Especially encouraging to me was the message to keep at it when you have a block or rough patch in your current work-in-progress.  “When I’m feeling really frustrated, I need to stay put,” Larson said.

Other sessions I enjoyed included Arthur Levine/Scholastic editor Cheryl Klein’s discussion of books for children and young adults, and former Farrar, Straus & Giroux editor Lisa Graff’s presentation, “Write Like an Author, Revise Like an Editor.”  One of Graff’s points gave me much to think about: “As you read through your story, you should have an emotional reaction to it.”

I learned a lot from illustrator Marla Frazee and author Liz Garton Scanlon as they discussed their collaboration on the 2010 Caldecott Honor winning picture book, All The World.  Since I knew nothing about working on picture books, it was interesting to learn about the decisions an illustrator makes in depicting a story or that an author makes in rewriting stanzas.  All The World is a lovely book.  Check it out.

Finally, local Austin authors reported on their recent successes in publishing.  One of these, Jacqueline Kelly, is the 2010 Newbery Honor winner for her historical novel, The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate.  The Damsels will devote a week to Kelly and her book in March.  As usual, there will a contest for an autographed copy of Calpurnia.  Don’t miss it!

Internees of War

I promised a follow-up to the Guests of War post to explain the other, more sinister reason my dear protagonist and her little sister had to leave England in 1940.  And just to go by the titles of these posts, doesn’t “internees” sound a little darker than “guests?”  Like the accomodations aren’t quite as plush?

England’s panicked response to the war went deeper than just shipping children out of the cities and hanging blackout curtains in windows.  In January 1940, the government began rounding up British residents born in Germany, Austria, and Italy.  Like the Japanese-Americans who were taken from their homes for no reason other than their ancestry, these “enemy aliens” had committed no offense other than being born in the wrong country.  They were taken to northern England for questioning, and while most went home within a few days, some stayed in detention centers on the Isle of Man.

Some of these internees were Jews or members of other groups Hitler

Into the Arms of Strangers--great book and documentary about the Kindertransport and how Germans were treated in England

 persecuted.  A few were even Jewish children who came to England from Germany on the Kindertransport trains in 1938 and 1939, but who had come of age during their time in England.  Refugee status apparently didn’t exempt you from the questioning, but one curious loop-hole did: for the most part, German women who had married English men were not questioned.  (This was discovered by my fabulous roommate-at-the-time, Megan the Amazing Librarian-Wizard.)  Probably sexist views of the time that these German women couldn’t do anything to sabbotage England’s war efforts, but I’m sure these women were grateful.

General public sentiment was all for the internments early on, or at least looked the other way.  After all, Germany was the enemy and might invade at any moment.  But one incident in July 1940 reversed this opinion.  Several internees who had been kept on the Isle of Man were put on a ship, the Arandora Star, which was bound for the British dominion (and formal penal colony) Australia.  The ship, which was British but full of German citizens, was torpedoed by a Nazi U-boat and sunk, killing one-fourth of the passengers.  Internments stopped after that, but suspicion still ran high.

My girls are the products of an English father and a German mother, and the discovery of the internments was one that set my whole story into motion.  Their German housekeepers are passengers on the Arandora Star and after their father dies, their mother is terrified the questioning will start again and she will no longer be protected.  They are saved from being “internees of war” and become “guests of war” instead, and for almost five years, I have tried to imagine what that dicotomy must have been like.

The every day…from the past

If you’re anything like me, finding an old box full of papers–deeds, bills, bank statements, mortgage papers–gets you extremely excited!  Especially when they’re dated as early as 1905.  Some of my finds were too precious to keep in the box for just me to see.  So throughout the next couple months I’ll be sharing with you some of the treasures I’ve found: the, as I’m calling it, every day stuff…from the past.

I particularly love this one for many reasons. 1) Notice the hand writing! 2) This is from 1905, but the original form still had the "eight hundred" on it which they crossed off and filled in "nine" and 3) the words "in the year of Our Lord."

click to enlarge image

Guests of War

In a recent post, I credited a trip to London in 2005 for inspiring my three WWII-era novels.  The idea came to me after visiting the Imperial War

My photo of the Imperial War Museum, London

 Museum, where I’d strolled through a temporary exhibit called “The Children’s War.”  It told how WWII affected British children, including those who lived in big cities, those who were sent to the countryside, and those who were sent abroad.  My protagonist and her sister are the last of these, often termed evacuees, “seavacuees,” or “war guests.”  And in case you care, like I came to, here’s a rundown of what happened.

Picture it: London, 1939.  England and France have watched Germany take over Austria and Czechoslovakia without much bloodshed, but Poland is next on Hitler’s list.  They issue warnings, saying there’s no good reason to invade a nation with no military power like Poland, but those warnings fall on the deaf ears of a madman.  If he’d go after Poland, mighty England might be next, and the British children will be turned into little Germans before their parents’ eyes.  If you’re a parent living in a major British city, what are you going to do?

Not sit back and take it, that’s for sure.  As early as September 1, two days before England and France declared war on Germany, the English government organized a mass evacuation of children from London to the

photo of Julie Allen, from her bbc.com article

countryside, which was less likely to be bombed.  Children who remained in London and other cities were given gas masks that made them look like mutated elephants.   Residents of London “blacked out” their houses every night with boards and heavy curtains to keep all light from escaping into the sky so as not to alert a Nazi pilot flying overhead.  Fire fighters and air raid wardens patrolled the streets at night, keeping watch for enemy planes and homes with light showing through.  Sirens sounded at any sign of an attack, calling all residents to seek shelter in their basements, the London Underground, or Anderson bomb shelters constructed from aluminum siding.  Road signs were removed to confuse any Nazis who managed to cross into England, though of course it confused the English as well.

But not much came from this early panic.  The British called the first eight months “the phony war,” because the invasion they had prepared for had yet to happen.  It hit closer to home when the Nazis took over France in May 1940.  England then lost her most important ally, and the Nazis was only a few miles away across the English Channel.  Now the English had reason to fear an invasion, and many parents didn’t feel their children were safe enough in the countryside.

That spring and summer, thousands of children were evacuated abroad.  A government program known as the Children’s Overseas Reception Board sent children to English dominions, including Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.  Though the government program could not send children directly to America, thousands of children went there, staying with family, friends, or complete strangers.  Companies such as Kodak and Hoover, which had offices in both England and America, set up exchange programs where English employees could send their children to live with employees in America.

Some children traveled with their mothers or nannies, and some boarding schools evacuated their staff and students together, but most children went alone.  The evacuations ended when the ocean liner SS City of Benares was torpedoed by Nazi U-boats on its way to North America on September 17, 1940.  By then, the infamous London Blitz had begun and while London was bombed nightly for over 53 nights, Germany never occupied any of Britain except the Channel Islands to the south.  The invasion so many parents feared never came about, but by then their children were overseas and it was safer to keep them there.

For further reading, I highly recommend Jessica Mann’s book Out of Harm’s Way, which helped greatly when I began writing my first book about two sisters who spent the war on the other side of the ocean from their mother.

But there is an even darker side to why my girls had to leave England, and I will go into more detail about that next week.

Contest: Hidden Voices

One aspect I really liked about Hidden Voices was its time period.  Very little has been written about 1700s Venice and it was very enjoyable to read about that time.  I also loved the history I learned about Vivaldi–it made me pull out my classical cds and listen to music as I read.   So this month to win a copy (not signed) of Hidden Voices by Pat Lowery Collins tell me about a composer you’re fond of and what your favorite piece is by that composer.  Or to be entered in the contest you can also leave a thoughtful comment in response to my interview with Pat.

Interview with Pat Lowery Collins

Everyone welcome Pat Lowery Collins, author of Hidden Voices: The Orphan Musicians of Venice, a historical novel that takes place in Venice, Italy during the 1700s.

1- Hello Pat.  Welcome and thank you for taking the time to stop by Damsels in Regress to talk with us.  So I’m going to jump right in and start off by asking what drew you this particular setting?  It’s a very unique time period that we’ve seen very little written about in children’s historical fiction.

I was inspired by a comment on a classical music station that Vivaldi wrote his vast array of concertos in order to showcase the orphans of the institution where he taught. Presumably, their musical skills would help them find husbands or employment. It seemed amazing to me in this age when the arts are downplayed in the curriculum, that the orphans in all of the Venetian ospedali were taught to play an instrument and it was considered one of the most important parts of their education.

When I dug more deeply, the notion of the foundling wheel appealed to me, as did the fact that the ospedale was primarily a girl’s school, the dynamics of which are very familiar to me. I was also immediately drawn to the challenge of portraying the lush beauty and 18^th century life of baroque Venice.

2- In your author’s note you talked about the research you did for this novel from reading books to websites and even a trip to Venice.  Tell me a bit about the trip.  How much did it help you with your research and in writing the novel.

I had definite goals when I set off for Venice: to see where Vivaldi lived and worked and to learn as much as I could about his life, the life of the orphans under his tutelage, and the period. I knew that without being able to adequately set the scene and place the events, there could be no novel.  Such institutions as the museum of the 18^th century, Ca’ Rezonnico, and the Doges’ Palace, gave me an intimate view of the furnishings, embellishments and flavor of the times.  The name of Rosealba is actually taken from that of a famous pastelist, Rosealba Carriera, whose paintings adorn the Ca’ Rezonnico. I also needed to see St. Mark’s Square and what views would be possible from the windows of the Ospedale della Pietà. While in Florence, which I visited as well, I came upon a display of musical instruments of the period and a wonderful illustrated book describing them all.

Book Review: Hidden Voices

Hidden Voices: The Orphan Musicians of Venice
Pat Lowery Collins
Historical
Grades 9-12
340 pages

Hidden Voices: the Orphan Musicians of Venice, by Pat Lowery Collins is a story about three orphan girls whose search for love pulls them in different directions.  Hidden Voices follows the lives of Anetta, Luisa, and Rosalba living at the Ospedale della Pietà, an orphanage renowned for its extraordinary musical program.  Set in early 1700s Venice in a time where choices for women were limited these girls’ musical talent offers them a chance at a better life.  The girls want more than what is offered though.  Anetta rejects marriage, Luisa longs for the love of a mother who abandoned her and Rosalba dreams of a forbidden romance outside the walls of the Ospedale.

Told through alternating viewpoints, Hidden Voices follows each girl as they try to obtain their dreams.  The author does a wonderful job of giving the girls distinct voices and personalities that are true and believable.  The reader can relate to them as their struggles are universal and carry through time.

Hidden Voices is a fictional novel based, in part, on the eighteenth century Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi.  Through Anetta, Luisa and Rosalba, who excel in voice and instrument, the novel seamlessly weaves in the history of Vivaldi’s early musical career.  The setting is wonderfully portrayed.  Venice comes to life on the pages from the orphanage to the streets and even the country side, Hidden Voices paints a vivid picture of life in the early 1700s.  While full of descriptive passages that bring 18^th century Venice alive, the novel does have a slow beginning.  Give it time.  It’s a historical novel well worth the read.

And a little side note: I love the book cover.  I’ll pick up a book just because the cover catches my attention and this one encompasses everything the novel is about.  Lovely.

Different Historical Period: Jennifer

If 1830s Rural New England didn’t exist…

When Emilie suggested we write about a time period different than the one we’re currently obsessed with, my problem wasn’t thinking of another time period, but narrowing it down to just one!  The reason I decided to write a time travel series was so I could explore all the time periods that fascinated me.  As you all know, my first novel in the Abigail Wenworth Series covers 1830s rural New England, which I must admit is my favorite.  However, in the other novels I plan to explore 1900s California, Medieval France, 1600s Virginia, 1875 New York City, World War II France (the resistance) and 1920s Chicago (given in no particular order).  I have a wide variety of interests when it comes to history.  One of these is more near and dear to me than all the others though—1870s New York City.

I first became interested in the history of New York City when I learned that ancestors from both sides of my family immigrated there.  My first trip to the city left me a little starry-eyed and full of questions.  The biggest question being: How did New York come to be?  That started me on a three month research spree, which in turn left me fascinated with one particular time period: the 1860s through the 1880s.  My mom’s side of the family had emigrated here from Ireland around the time of the potato famine, and my father’s side would arrive from Germany in the early 1900s.  Yet neither of those eras drew me in.  My fascination lay in that twenty year span where life was changing drastically in New York City–mainly because of immigration, but also due to the advance of technology.  The first subway (albeit not large and soon abandoned) was built.  The Brooklyn Bridge was under construction, sweatshops ran with few to no restrictions on how workers were treated and tenement houses filled lower Manhattan.  The Statue of Liberty wouldn’t be built for years, and Central Park was still “under construction.”  It was the everyday life that once again drew me in.

Most historical novels are about “everyday life,” but they use major historical events as a backdrop: the Revolutionary War (Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson), the Holocaust (The Devil’s Advocate, by Jane Yolen), and War World II (Ten Cents a Dance, by Christine Fletcher) to name a few popular choices.  Maybe because so much has been written on those topics my attention is drawn elsewhere.  Like 1830s in New England, New York City in 1875 isn’t a widely popular time period for historical books.  So to me, those are the time periods I want to know more about.  They’re the ones I feel compelled to write stories for.  They’re the ones that get me so excited I can’t stop talking about them (even after people start tuning me out, my dear friends and parents ).  Give me the ordinary over extraordinary any day when it comes to a historical event.  I guarantee that’s the event I’ll be drawn to.

Different Historical Period: Tricia

I’ve never really thought about writing in a different time period. If I did, though, I would follow an “art through the ages” path. Art history is a love of mine and I included Impressionist painting as part of my story line in An Inherited Evil.

Isabella d'Este, painted by Titian

Renaissance art would probably be the first stop on my journey—and where I’d spend the most time. The wealth of art in the 15th and 16th centuries, with its changes in painting, sculpture, and architecture, would provide a number of possible story ideas. Plus, the politics of the age, where rival families vied for wealth and power, is an ideal backdrop for magic.

The other factor I’d search for in a historic time period is the rise of strong women. People like Catherine the Great, tsarina of Russia in the 18th century, or Isabella d’Este, the wife of the ruler of Mantua in the early 1500s are fascinating. Both were skilled politicians and leaders who promoted culture, the arts, and in Catherine’s case, education. And they did it in times when men held most of the power and privilege.