SATA
ENTRY TYPE:
WORK TITLE: A TAKE-CHARGE GIRL BLAZES A TRAIL TO CONGRESS
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://www.gretchenwoelfle.com/
CITY: Cambridge
STATE:
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: American
LAST VOLUME: SATA 257
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born January 30, 1945, in Dunkirk, NY; daughter of Arthur (a business executive) and Ruth (a homemaker) Woelfle; married (divorced); children: Cleo, Alice.
EDUCATION:University of California—Berkeley, B.A. (English), 1966; Union College, M.A. (American studies), 1972; Vermont College, M.F.A. (writing for children), 2000.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Editor, teacher, and freelance writer. Interactive multimedia educational scriptwriter, 1988-98; children’s author, beginning 1992. Artistic residencies at Hedgebrook Writer’s Colony, 1992, Villa Montalvo, 1994, Dorset Colony House, 1995, Ragdale Foundation, 1996, 1997, 2001, 2002, and Byrdcliffe Art Colony, 1997.
AVOCATIONS:Urban agriculture, hiking, camping, singing, gardening, Chelsea FC supporter.
MEMBER:Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, Authors Guild, PEN Center USA, Biographers International Organization, Children’s Literature Council of Southern California, Phi Beta Kappa.
AWARDS:Magazine Merit Award for Fiction, Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI), 1997, for “Sail by the Moon”; SCBWI Anna Cross Giblin nonfiction research grant, 1997; Children’s Book Award shortlist (England), 2001, and Kate Greenaway Award finalist, both for Katje, the Windmill Cat illustrated by Nicola Bayley; Once upon a World Award, Simon Wiesenthal Center, Children’s Literature Council of Southern California Award for Nonfiction, Willa Literary Award finalist, Women Writing the West, Notable Social Studies Trade Book selection, National Council of Social Studies/Children’s Book Council, and Amelia Bloomer Project listee, American Library Association, all 2008, all for Jeannette Rankin: Political Pioneer; PEN Center USA Literary Award for Children’s Literature finalist, 2012, for All the World’s a Stage; Eureka! Silver Honor for nonfiction, California Reading Association, 2012, and Best Books citation, Bank Street College of Education, 2013, both for Write on, Mercy!
WRITINGS
Short fiction anthologized in Stories from Where We Live: The North Atlantic Coast, 2000, Stories from Where We Live: The Great North American Prairie, 2001, Stories from Where We Live: The California Coast, 2002, and Stories from Where We Live: The Great Lakes, 2003, all edited by Sara St. Antoine, Milkweed Editions (Minneapolis, MN). Contributor of fiction and essays to print and online periodicals, including Cicada, Cobblestone, Cricket, Faces, Highlights for Children, Spider, and Inkrethink.blogspot.com as well as features, travel articles, and art reviews to national and international publications.
SIDELIGHTS
Gretchen Woelfle was writing for educational multimedia projects when her mother-in-law sent her an audio recording of family stories dating from both eighteenth-and nineteenth-century Maine and Gold Rush California. Woelfle realized that these stories would make good tales for children and, although “it took me a while to learn the difference between anecdotes and stories, … several of these family stories finally appeared in Cricket, Spider, and Cicada magazines,” she later confided to SATA. Some also found a home in Stories from Where We Live, a series of anthologies published by Milkweed Editions.
Growing up in Dunkirk, New York, a small town on the Lake Erie shore, Woelfle enjoyed the outdoors and also read avidly. “Every summer I joined the library reading club,” she recalled on her home page, “and one year the librarian questioned me every day when I returned to take out four new books. She didn’t believe I could read that much. I was insulted!” After earning a college degree in English, she wrote for magazines in London, New England, the Midwest, and California and also raised two children.
Woelfle’s first book for children, The Wind at Work: An Activity Guide to Windmills, grew out of her concern over U.S. dependence on fossil fuels. “Since I love research as much as I love writing, I went after people, places, and things to write the windmill story,” she once explained. “I visited windmills and windmillers in the Netherlands, I drove across the American West, I toured a wind-turbine factory in California, and I spoke to engineers, historians, and windmill restorers and collectors.” Along with her text, Woelfle also includes activities—science and nature experiments, arts and crafts projects, musical activities, cooking and sewing projects, and story-writing, energy conservation, and community action projects—as well as lists of places to visit restored and working windmills to complete this 1,000-year history of windmills. To update readers, she created a new edition of the work in 2013, adding new data, images, and a discussion of controversies over the installation of wind farms.
Inspired by her research for The Wind at Work, Katje, the Windmill Cat became Woelfle’s first picture book. Illustrated by British artist Nicola Bayley in pastel-pencil miniatures base on Dutch Renaissance paintings, Katje, the Windmill Cat tells the story of a cat that is temporarily displaced when her family brings home a new baby. In Publishers Weekly a critic noted that Woelfle’s “engaging story” is portrayed “with warmth and imagination.” A Kirkus Reviews contributor cited the text for its “stately storyteller’s voice,” and Grace Oliff asserted in School Library Journal that Katje, the Windmill Cat is a “gentle, charming tale” with “simple, graceful prose [that] is a pleasure to read aloud.”
Woelfle delves into Elizabethan history in All the World’s a Stage: A Novel in Five Acts, and here she introduces a scrappy twelve-year-old orphan named Kit who makes his way to London. Trouble comes when the naïf is lured into the criminal underworld of a cutpurse gang that recruits him to pick pockets in a London playhouse. Kit is caught and offered a chance to redeem himself through honest work at the playhouse, the very place where William Shakespeare’s dramas and comedies are being staged.
“The conceit of organizing [ All the World’s a Stage ] … through acts and scenes in lieu of chapters sets the stage nicely for a dramatic tale,” noted a Kirkus Reviews writer. Writing in School Library Journal, Emma Burkhart commended Woelfle’s story as “well structured and interesting,” adding that “the language is infused with Shakespearean phrases sure to please fans of the Bard.” In Booklist Gillian Engberg noted the relevance of the preteen’s many adventures, writing that “the most compelling drama is Kit’s universal search for his calling and his shifting friendships.”
Woelfle has also penned biographies for young readers. Jeannette Rankin: A Political Pioneer recounts the little-known saga of the first woman ever elected to the U.S. Congress. Rankin won a seat representing Montana in 1916, four years before the nation’s women were given the right to vote by the nineteenth amendment to the U.S. constitution. Born on a ranch, Rankin attended college in New York City, became a pacifist, and was active in the women’s suffrage movement before her historic victory started her political career. “The high standard of writing is matched by the book’s format,” remarked Booklist reviewer Ilene Cooper in her review of Jeannette Rankin, the critic adding that the book’s design “offers interesting things to look at on every page.” A contributor to Kirkus Reviews also praised Woelfle’s work, citing it as “a welcome addition to the short list of titles for young readers about this important figure.”
In Write on, Mercy! The Secret Life of Mercy Otis Warren Woelfle illuminates the life of one of America’s first female historians. Born in Massachusetts in 1728, Warren was educated privately and went on to write anonymous plays critical of British imperialism. Her magnum opus, a history of the American Revolution published in 1805, is considered one of the first scholarly examinations of that war from an uniquely American perspective; in fact, its author knew many of the key figures, including George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson.
In Write on, Mercy! “Woelfle offers young readers a view of the colonial period that veers away from typical” military focused narratives, according to Booklist contributor Mary Russell, while in School Library Journal Heather Talty praised the work as “a good introduction to one woman’s life, and the place of her life in history.” “Woelfle’s lively and informative style keeps the narrative flowing,” remarked a Kirkus Reviews contributor, the critic adding that, together with works about First Lady Abigail Adams, “this title certainly fills a niche.”
Mumbet’s Declaration of Independence tells the story of an illiterate but indomitable slave, Elizabeth Freeman. Owned by the richest man in Sheffield, Massachusetts, Freeman—affectionately called Mumbet—dared to take her owner to court in 1781 to win her freedom. That decision, based on the new Massachusetts state constitution, set a legal precedent and soon after that slavery was declared unconstitutional in Massachusetts.
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Woelfle explores other narratives of Black Americans during the revolution in Answering the Cry for Freedom: Stories of African Americans and the American Revolution. The book, illustrated by R. Gregory Christie, tells thirteen different stories for middle readers and those slightly older. Some of the biographies involve people who fought for either the British or American forces, and others describe those who wrote about or spoke against slavery. These include both the well-known, such as Phillis Wheatley and Sally Hemings, and more obscure figures. Woelfle describes their lives and how they shaped America in its formative years, along with exploring the contradictions involved in a country fighting for liberty but being unwilling to free those in slavery. Timelines, bibliographies, and source notes are included.
Erin Anderson, writing for Booklist, called the book “outstanding” and an “honest look at the complicated, often hypocritical” ways Americans have talked about liberty. In Voice of Youth Advocates, Charla Hollingsworth wrote that Answering the Cry for Freedom is a “well-researched book that will make history relatable for students.” Hollingsworth believed that it will be an inspiration to those who “are forging their own path for equal rights today.”
In A Take-Charge Girl Blazes a Trail to Congress: The Story of Jeannette Rankin, Woelfle returns to the figure of Jeannette Rankin, the subject of Woelfle’s earlier Jeannette Rankin: A Political Pioneer. This picture book for early readers, illustrated by Rebecca Gibbon, portrays Rankin as a girl who got things done, in everything from taking care of siblings and animals on the ranch growing up to her adult activities as a trailblazing activist and congresswoman. Given Rankin’s many accomplishments and the limited space Woelfle has, she chooses to focus on Rankin’s advocacy for children and women’s suffrage.
The review for Kirkus Reviews appreciated Woelfle’s emphasis, arguing it will “likely make the book more accessible to young readers,” and it also praised the “energetic illustrations” and “robust backmatter.” Writing for Booklist, Connie Fletcher called sections of the book “riveting” and highlighted the illustrations for how they “jauntily convey period detail.” The result, for Fletcher, is a “lively biography.”
Writing about her writing choices, Woelfle was emphatic: “I love biographies. I’m curious about other people’s lives, what choices they make and why they make them, what challenges they face, the stumbles and wrong turns along the way, and how they recover from their mistakes.”
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Woelfle, an inveterate traveler, has visited many continents and cultures. “My travel inevitably informs my writing,” she once noted. “My life has been deeply enriched by other cultures, and I want to pass that on. Our world is connected by technology today, and I hope we can deepen that connection to include tolerance and appreciation of each other and the natural environment. That is why I write stories.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, September 1, 1997, Susan Dove Lempke, review of The Wind at Work: An Activity Guide to Windmills, p. 121; February 1, 2000, Ellen Mandel, review of Katje, the Windmill Cat, p. 940; February 15, 2007, Ilene Cooper, review of Jeannette Rankin: Political Pioneer, p. 91; March 15, 2011, Gillian Engberg, review of All the World’s a Stage: A Novel in Five Acts, p. 63; April 15, 2015, Mary Russell, review of Write on, Mercy! The Secret Life of Mercy Otis Warren, p. 60; February 15, 2013, J.B. Petty, review of The Wind at Work (new edition), p. 73; October 1, 2016, Erin Anderson, review of Answering the Cry for Freedom: Stories of African Americans and the American Revolution, p. 40; December 1, 2022, Connie Fletcher, review of A Take-Charge Girl Blazes a Trail to Congress: The Story of Jeannette Rankin, pp. 118+.
Children’s Digest, September, 2000, review of The Wind at Work, p. 26.
Kirkus Reviews, August 15, 2001, review of Katje, the Windmill Cat, p. 1223; February 15, 2007, review of Jeannette Rankin; March 15, 2011, review of All the World’s a Stage; March 15, 2012, review of Write on, Mercy!; December 1, 2022, review of A Take-Charge Girl Blazes a Trail to Congress: The Story of Jeannette Rankin.
Publishers Weekly, September 10, 2001, review of Katje, the Windmill Cat, p. 92.
School Library Journal, October, 1997, Steven Engelfried, review of The Wind at Work, p. 158; November, 2001, Grace Oliff, review of Katje, the Windmill Cat, p. 139; May, 2005, Heather Ver Voort, review of Animal Families, Animal Friends, p. 116; May, 2011, Emma Burkhart, review of All the World’s a Stage, p. 126; May, 2012, Heather Talty, review of Write on, Mercy!, p. 90.
Voice of Youth Advocates, December, 2016, Charla Hollingsworth, review of Answering the Cry for Freedom: Stories of African Americans the American Revolution, p. 85.
ONLINE
Cynsations, https://cynthialeitichsmith.com (June, 2011), author blog.
Declarations Resources Project, Harvard University website, https://declaration.fas.harvard.edu (May 30, 2017), “A Conversation with Authors Barbara Kerley, Steve Sheinkin, and Gretchen Woelfle.”
Gretchen Woelfle Home Page, http://www.gretchenwoelfle.com (May 20, 2013).
TeachingBooks Blog, https://forum.teachingbooks.net (March 14, 2023), author blog.
ABOUT ME
Growing Up
I grew up in Dunkirk, New York, a small town on Lake Erie. Many of my childhood memories relate to the weather. Long cold winters with heaps of snow. Sliding down the ice mounds on Lake Erie on flying saucers. Being oh-so-happy when spring came, and I didn’t have to wear an itchy snowsuit anymore. Diving through the waves on Lake Erie during the hot summers. Eating fresh chives and strawberries from my grandparents’ garden. Watching the farmers’ trucks roll into town filled with Concord grapes just as school was starting in the fall, and snitching a bunch from the trucks. The whole town smelling of grapes as they were made into juice and jam.
Sharing a story with Christine
I read a lot when I was young. Here’s a picture of me reading Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer to my sister, Christine. Every summer I joined the library reading club, and one year the librarian questioned me every day when I returned to take out four new books. She didn’t believe I could read that much. I was so insulted!
I majored in English at the University of California at Berkeley. Then I did editorial work and magazine writing in London, England, New England, the Midwest and Los Angeles California. I also wrote scripts for educational interactive multimedia programs. By this time I was married and had two children, and I began reading to them. It was a happy/sad day for me when Cleo and Alice learned to read by themselves, because they wanted to read their own books, not listen to me. They have always been very independent!
Becoming A Children’s Writer
One Christmas I received a tape of family stories from long-ago Maine, told by Granny Erskine, my grandmother-in-law. Many sounded like good tales for children. It took me awhile to learn how to create a good story – not just record amusing events. But eventually I began to sell my stories to magazines and book publishers.
I went back to school for a Master of Fine Arts in Writing for Children from Vermont College. Not only did I learn a lot about writing, but I made many clever writer friends. We call ourselves the Hive and have kept in touch by email for more than twenty years! I love writing for children. They are so open to new ideas, and they like to read their books -- perhaps my books -- over and over again.
When I'm not traveling around the world looking for stories, I live in Los Angeles, California.
I love to visit schools and libraries and talk about how about the fun and challenge of being a writer. You can email me about school visits, my books, your stories, your cats, or anything else that comes to mind. I'd be happy to hear from you.
The Hive: I'm in the top right corner
A Few More Quick Facts About Me
• I've got a little farm at my home in Los Angeles, with seven fruit trees, blackberries, passion fruit, lots of vegetables, and a tree drooping with dozens of avocados.
• My front garden dazzles with golden California poppies every spring.
• I once lived in a little thatched hut on a tiny island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
• I love to ride my bicycle - at home and around the world. I've cycled in Cuba, Vietnam, India, Sri Lanka, England, and Spain.
• My favorite sport is soccer and my favorite team is Chelsea Football Club.
• My son and daughter are grown up, and I've got three grandchildren to read stories to.
Guest Blogger: Gretchen Woelfle
March 14, 2023 in Guest Author Blog Posts
Jeanette Rankin: Following the Path of Her Life for A Take-Charge Girl Blazes a Trail to Congress: The Story of Jeanette Rankin
I love biographies. I’m curious about other people’s lives, what choices they make and why they make them, what challenges they face, the stumbles and wrong turns along the way, and how they recover from their mistakes. Writing biographies involves finding answers to these questions. This involves research – and lots of it. Many authors I know suffer from research rapture, a condition with no known cure. I am one of those authors.
My research for A Take-Charge Girl Blazes A Trail to Congress: The Story of Jeannette Rankin (Astra, 2023) was especially wide-ranging and captivating. A native of Montana, Jeannette Rankin lived from 1880-1973, nearly a century. I read all the adult biographies about her. She was involved in many of the social and political movements of the twentieth century, and I read up on the women’s suffrage movement, the Progressive movement, World Wars I and II, the Vietnam War, and the peace movement that spanned all those wars. I learned about her friendships with Jane Addams, Fiorello La Guardia, and other notable people.
I found photos online related to all that history, and to Rankin’s own life. And best of all, I read the transcripts of hours of interviews she gave in 1972 as part of the Suffragists Oral History Project at the University of California, Berkeley. Reading her own words, I could almost hear her voice as she recounted childhood events, important friendships, and the disappointments and successes of her public careers.
A problem with research is knowing when to stop. For then comes the task of structuring the biography – taking all that research and creating a story with a coherent beginning, middle, and end. Do you want a cradle-to-grave story, or a slice-of-life? I chose a slice-of life for Jeannette Rankin: from her childhood to the day she strode up the steps of the U.S. Capitol and took her seat as the first Congresswoman. (Pages of back matter gave information about the rest of her life.)
Scenes showing Rankin trying careers teaching, nursing, and caring for children
Illustration of Rankin holding a pendant that says "Votes for Women", surrounded by children.
But what was my narrative arc, the engine that drives the story? If people have heard of Rankin, they probably know her as a life-long pacifist and the only member of Congress who voted against the U.S. entering World War I and World War II. I felt this issue was too complex for a book for young readers. So I chose another issue close to Rankin’s heart: the welfare of women and children. This was a theme that children could relate to.
Once I found this theme for A Take-Charge Girl, I described scenes from her life to show where this concern began and where it led her. That meant leaving out big chunks of fascinating material. But creating a coherent story was my goal, not showing off how much research I had done. A picture book biography needs a narrow focus and few words – 1300 in my book.
A good biography – and a person’s life – includes more than actions and achievements. It involves the inner life of its subject: the character traits that define and motivate them. Biographies, like novels, also address the challenges and failures of their main characters. The times they live in determine some of these challenges, and their personality influences how they deal with them.
Jeannette Rankin took charge from an early age. I showed scenes of her tending to a wounded horse, and caring for her siblings. But as a young adult she faced the question: what did she want to do with her life? Marriage and childcare didn’t draw her. I showed her trying and discarding several different careers.
A visit to a settlement house for poor families in San Francisco opened a path for Rankin. She knew from her own family what children needed. She became a social worker to help poor children, but grew frustrated by the lack of public programs to serve them.
The women’s suffrage movement promised a way to empower women and influence lawmakers. For four years Rankin “took charge,” speaking out for suffrage and organizing women, despite fierce opposition from men. When she returned to Montana to support a referendum on women’s suffrage, she found success at last. Then came her biggest challenge – a run for Congress. She appeared to be losing, but when all the votes were counted, she had won!
A Take-Charge Girl presents scenes, enhanced by illustrations, from each stage of Rankin’s life. Rebecca Gibbon’s vibrant illustrations highlight not only the events of that life, but the boundless energy and optimism that propelled Jeannette Rankin to Congress, where no woman had ever been before.
Picture book biographies have flooded the children’s book market in recent years, and have brought to light many remarkable men and women who aren’t well-known. These books offer a multi-disciplinary window into history and language arts. Learning about real people gives a face to history. Biographies can serve as models for creative writing projects for upper elementary and even middle school students.
Three students have contacted me about Jeannette Rankin for National History Day projects. Two boys made a website and a girl made a documentary video, both of which are beyond my abilities. The following is a template for students to use to write a biography, but it could be used for other media as well.
A Classroom Biography Project
Students read several picture book biographies to see how different authors treat the genre.
Students choose a subject they admire. It doesn’t have to be a national hero. They can choose sports figures, scientists, inventors, people in the arts – alive or dead.
Used discriminately, the internet offers vast amounts of text and images, interviews and videos for students to explore. Of course, books are important too. This research should include information about the inner life as well the achievements of a subject.
Choose a structure for the story. Slice-of-life might be more appropriate for students: a narrative that leads to one significant achievement.
Narrate scenes that show the character of a subject, as she or he faces challenges on the road to success.
Use photos or original drawings to illustrate the project.
Share your story with your classmates.
Guest Post: Gretchen Woelfle on the Perks of an Itinerant Writer
Home » Guest Post: Gretchen Woelfle on the Perks of an Itinerant Writer
By Gretchen Woelfle
Remember those vocational quizzes they gave us in grade school? You write down what you like to do, and your perfect career pops up. I can’t remember what they told me I should become, but I figured it out on my own, decades later.
After many jobs circling the book-writing field – copyeditor, researcher, picture researcher, book and art reviewer, scriptwriter – I stumbled upon writing for children, thanks to a job layoff. And it fit me perfectly.
Two of my passions are reading and traveling the world (with a side order of hiking and cycling), and I shamelessly indulge them all on the job. The reading never ends. Before, during, and after writing a book, I continue to read books about my subject. The traveling usually comes before I begin writing.
My latest book, a middle grade novel, All the World’s A Stage: A Novel in Five Acts, illustrated by Thomas Cox (Holiday House, 2011) takes place in Shakespeare’s theater company in 1598-1599.
I took several trips to explore the Elizabethan footprint of the City of London, the original walled square-mile of the present-day metropolis. My daughter lived in London at the time and loaned me her extra bicycle.
The City, teeming with people in 1599, today houses financiers during the day and virtually no one at night. Bicycling through the deserted streets on a Sunday evening, trying to find relevant sites for my story, was an eerie experience. It felt like an Elizabethan time-traveler might round any corner and lure me into a hidden alley.
Guided London Walks took me to forgotten corners of Shakespeare’s London. The archivist of the Worshipful Company of Carpenters, housed on the same ground since 1429, led me to the library at Guildhall, scene of a frolic in my novel.
Not much sixteenth century architecture is left in London, so I took a twenty-five mile cycling trip to the Elizabethan Hunting Lodge in Epping Forest to soak up atmosphere.
Much of All the World’s A Stage takes place backstage in Shakespeare’s theatre. I took the normal tour of the new Globe and visited its museum, but that didn’t get me backstage. A phone call to the press office revealed that the theater was dark only one afternoon a week, but yes, they would give me a personal tour then.
I even managed to climb up to “heaven” (above the balcony) from where the gods descend. Essential to my research, of course, was my attendance at all the Shakespeare plays I could fit in. The company at the Globe is magnificent. Will would revel, I trow, in both its traditional and contemporary productions.
Any writer will tell you that only a small part of his/her research ends up in the final book. The Elizabethan Hunting Lodge didn’t make the cut in All the World’s A Stage, nor did the history of the Worshipful Company of Carpenters. But an unrelated (so I thought) trip to Aldebugh, Suffolk’s Moot Hall and a stunning skyscape that afternoon, did.
My first book, The Wind at Work: An Activity Guide to Windmills (Chicago Review Press, 1997) meant a trip to the Netherlands for on-the-ground research.
I visited the usual suspects: Zaanse Schans, a cool tourist destination with lot of working windmills; and the Kinderdijk for a boat ride past nineteen water pumping mills (which inspired my second book, Katje the Windmill Cat, illustrated by Nicola Bayley (Candlewick, 2006)).
Also tax deductible were days cycling to the Rijksmuseum, Van Gogh Museum, and Rembrandt’s House, all of which contain marvelous paintings, drawings, and etchings of windmills, some of which ended up in the book, and one (Rembrandt) on my office wall. No need to call Interpol – it’s a reproduction.
Most intriguing was my visit to one of seven hundred Volunteer Windmillers, all trained and licensed by their Guild, as he ran a restored windmill one Sunday afternoon. No other tourists around, just me and my windmiller discussing the finer points of history and engineering as the giant wooden gears creaked and groaned.
I learned things that no book had told me: Every self-respecting miller hung a lump of rancid pork fat from a rafter, to grease the gears. And to keep out woodworm, my windmiller ran his mill every weekend. The ubiquitous creaking and groaning makes Mama Woodworm avoid the mill and seek a still, quiet site to lay her eggs, which would otherwise hatch, eat the wooden gears, and destroy the mill.
A different sort of adventure awaited me back home in California: a private tour of a wind turbine factory in Tehachapi and a windy hike through a nearby wind farm on the Pacific Crest Trail. Those turbines are enormous and beautiful: sculptures in the landscape.
Some wind farm opponents bemoan the ruination of the view, but the Dutch windmills that we find so charming now, endured the same complaints when they were built. I’ll be writing an updated edition of The Wind at Work this summer, and searching out more wind turbine adventures.
I’m now writing biographies, and, while I didn’t choose my subjects for their places of residence, I have tracked them from Virginia to Nova Scotia, to the English countryside, and on to Paris, France. Tough job, I know, but hey, it’s my destiny!
Cynsational Notes
In the photo above, Gretchen and her illustrator, Thomas Cox, are standing at the Globe Theatre in London.
From the promotional copy of All The World’s A Stage:
Suddenly a hand gripped the back of his neck. “Cutpurse!’ Kit is caught!
Twelve-year-old orphan Kit Buckles, seeking his fortune in Elizabethan London, has bungled his first job as a pickpocket at the Theatre Playhouse where the Lord Chamberlain’s Men are performing. To avoid jail, Kit agrees to work for the playhouse and soon grows fond of the life there: the dramas on- and offstage. Things get truly exciting when Kit joins the plot to steal the playhouse from the landlord who has evicted the company.
Based on fact, this coming-of-age story offers a vivid picture of life behind the curtain at Shakespeare’s theater.
A Conversation with Authors Barbara Kerley, Steve Sheinkin, and Gretchen Woelfle
May 30, 2017
ConversationsDo you remember how you first learned about the American Revolution and the Declaration of Independence? Perhaps in the classroom, or on a visit to a historic site. Or, perhaps, through a book. Jean Fritz, who recently passed away, authored Will You Sign Here, John Hancock? and Can't You Make Them Behave, King George?, among many others. Illustrator Sam Fink put his own spin on the text of the Declaration to make it more readable (and entertaining) than the engrossed and signed parchment, remarking, "The words that made America can now be shared with people of all ages; and they can help us understand what the Founding Fathers created for all of us who have followed."
Emily Sneff talked to three authors of recent children’s/young adult books related to the story of the Declaration of Independence to discover their inspirations, their approaches, and their views on the importance of young readers learning about early American history.
Barbara Kerley, author of Those Rebels, John & Tom, was first introduced to John (Adams) & Tom (Jefferson) through her father’s love for a familiar musical, 1776: “He’d put the record on in the living room and turn the volume up enough that I could hear it in my bedroom upstairs. Many times, I fell asleep listening to the incredible lyrics.” Kerley took her interests in reading and storytelling and focused on writing for kids, explaining, “I love how young kids are curious about the world and how they feel that anything is possible... I especially love writing biographies as it allows me to share stories of people who have done amazing things.” As the introduction of the book phrases it, Those Rebels, John & Tom is “the true story of how one gentleman—short and stout—and another—tall and lean—formed a surprising alliance, committed treason, and helped launch a new nation.” Kerley began work on the book in 2008, and her opposites-attract treatment of Adams and Jefferson was inspired by modern political gridlock: “as I researched and wrote and revised, I watched our modern-day Congress get stalled, unable to compromise or collaborate on much of anything. I hoped that by framing the story of two opposites coming together in a common purpose, kids could learn about a time when Congress worked together for the good of the country.” Illustrations by Edwin Fotheringham emphasize the differences between Adams and Jefferson, and bring analogies to life; particularly memorable visuals include Congress sitting on the back of a snail (Adams described the business of the First Continental Congress as “Slow, as Snails.”), and Jefferson lunging at King George III with a quill dripping in ink. “I love finding just the right quote to capture the spirit of a moment in time,” Kerley remarked, “and Edwin has a wonderful ability to bring abstract concepts into the art in a humorous way.”
Those Rebels, John and Tom
Steve Sheinkin, author of King George: What Was His Problem? The Whole Hilarious Story of the American Revolution, started out writing history textbooks. “Ever since,” he remarked, “I’ve been trying to make amends by writing history books that kids and teens might actually want to read.” From the provocative title to the chapter called “Declare Independence, Already!”, Sheinkin accomplished his goal. The book boils down the Declaration of Independence to three basic points: “1. People are born with certain rights. 2. King George has taken those rights from us. 3. So we’re forming our own country.” before noting, “Of course, Jefferson’s words are a little better. Okay, a lot better.” King George was Sheinkin’s first book, and as he explains, he “wanted to get across all the information we want kids to know, but through stories, and where possible, with humor and comics.” For example, after quoting Washington’s general orders from July 2nd, 1776 (“We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die”), the book remarks, “No pressure, guys. Just save your country—or die trying.” King George: What Was His Problem? concludes with a section asking another important question, “Whatever happened to...?” Sheinkin explains, “I always like knowing what happened to folks after the story is over.” He includes the famous (John and Samuel Adams, for example), the infamous (Benedict Arnold), and the lesser-known (Deborah Sampson).
King George: What Was His Problem?
Gretchen Woelfle has written several books on lesser-known stories from the American Revolution, including Write on, Mercy! The Secret Life of Mercy Otis Warren, Mumbet’s Declaration of Independence, and most recently, Answering the Cry for Freedom: Stories of African Americans and the American Revolution. Woelfle was a scriptwriter and picture researcher for an interactive educational multimedia company before she started writing historical fiction for children, and says historical fiction “and biography are my favorite genres to read and write.” The story of Mercy Otis Warren led her to Elizabeth ‘Mumbet’ Freeman: “How could I resist? She was passionate, courageous, and virtually unknown in children’s literature.” In turn, research for Mumbet’s Declaration of Independence led to the thirteen stories included in Answering the Cry for Freedom. Woelfle recalls, “Reading about African Americans in the Revolutionary era, I came across all sorts of amazing life stories – men and women, enslaved and free, northern and southern. Some people are well-known, others obscure. I thought that writing a collective biography would bring to light the people in the shadows and illustrate the enormous impact the Declaration of Independence had on these very different lives.” By using actual quotes by or about African Americans wherever possible, Woelfle further enhanced their stories: “I always try to find the ‘voice’ of my subjects in their own words and add this to my narrative.” And she used primary sources to dictate the subjects of Answering the Cry for Freedom. Four wrote autobiographies, others wrote letters, petitions, speeches, and poems; people whose stories rely on anecdotes or imagined scenes didn’t make the cut. In the story of Mumbet Freeman (told in both Mumbet’s Declaration of Independence and Answering the Cry for Freedom), Woelfle reminds younger readers that African Americans “heard the claim that all people are free and equal... and they believed it.”
Answering the Cry for Freedom
All three of these authors believe the story of the founding is a story worth telling and worth reading, especially for younger readers. Sheinkin takes pride in telling the “origin story” of the United States: “It was a unique moment in history, and has inspired freedom movements ever since... I think the principles written into our founding documents set the bar really high – we’re still trying to get there. But the journey, the ongoing struggle to reach those ideals, to me that’s what American history is about.” For Woelfle, telling the hidden or overlooked stories provides important context for that journey. She explains, “If we want to understand both the progress and problems, we need to study the men and women who have created our history. What were their strengths and their failings?” As Kerley elaborates, “History is stories – true stories – about the things people have done. Learning about what people before us have accomplished can hopefully inspire us to accomplish something, as well.”
For More:
Barbara Kerley and Edward Fotheringham (ill.), Those Rebels, John & Tom, Scholastic Press, 2012 (Grades 1-5)
Steve Sheinkin, King George: What Was His Problem? The Whole Hilarious Story of the American Revolution, Square Fish (an Imprint of Macmillan), 2005/2015 reprint (Grades 3-8)
Gretchen Woelfle, Answering the Cry for Freedom: Stories of African Americans and the American Revolution, Calkins Creek (an Imprint of Highlights), 2016 (Grades 4-7)
Educator's Guide to Answering the Cry for Freedom
Woelfle, Gretchen A TAKE-CHARGE GIRL BLAZES A TRAIL TO CONGRESS Calkins Creek/Astra Books for Young Readers (Children's None) $18.99 2, 7 ISBN: 978-1-66268-012-0
A picture-book biography of the first woman elected to the U.S. Congress.
Jeannette Rankin (1880-1973) may not be a household name today, but Woelfle and Gibbon's book seeks to change that. Although some may pause at the use of the word girl in the title to refer to the first U.S. congresswoman, Woelfle wisely begins the narrative in Rankin's youth, then leads into her suffragist activism and her political career. The text as a whole grounds Rankin's ambitions in her determination to advocate for children, and such framing will likely make the book more accessible to young readers, as will the energetic illustrations. Gibbon's acrylic ink and colored pencil pictures have a homespun, folk-art quality to them, offering readers depictions of Rankin's early life in Montana (the state she eventually represented), her stints in San Francisco and New York, and, eventually, her time in Washington, D.C. Robust backmatter with an author's note, timeline, and bibliography fleshes out the necessarily spare account of Rankin's life, particularly in its documentation of her pacifist voting record in Congress and her peace activism during the decades after her final term. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A yes vote for this title's inclusion on children's bookshelves. (Picture-book biography. 5-8)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2022 Kirkus Media LLC
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"Woelfle, Gretchen: A TAKE-CHARGE GIRL BLAZES A TRAIL TO CONGRESS." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Dec. 2022, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A729072591/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=1ad62d2f. Accessed 20 May 2023.
A Take-Charge Girl Blazes a Trail to Congress: The Story of Jeannette Rankin. By Gretchen Woelfle. Illus. by Rebecca Gibbon. Feb. 2023.40p. Astra/Calkins Creek, $18.99 (9781662680120). Gr. 2-5.320.082.
At a time when voting rights are being attacked and suppressed, learning about the early struggles for women's suffrage in our country can be inspiring. This lively biography showcases one tireless activist, Jeannette Rankin from Montana, who became the first U.S. congresswoman in 1916 and whose fight for women to have the right to vote was key in ratifying the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. Rankin's story is made relatable to young readers through Woelfle's focus on how "take-charge" she was, starting as a child. She grew up on a Montana ranch at the end of the nineteenth century, riding horses, camping, taking care of her younger siblings, and even sewing up a life-threatening gash on a horse. The story expands into Rankin's social work, her belief that congressmen largely ignored the plight of children and the poor, and her belief that real change could be brought about only by gaining women suffrage. The section on Rankin's campaign for Congress, in which she crisscrossed 6,000 miles of Montana by train and horse, is riveting. The illustrations, done in colored pencils and acrylic inks, jauntily convey period detail. An author's note, time line, and suggestions for further reading round things out. --Connie Fletcher
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2022 American Library Association
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Fletcher, Connie. "A Take-Charge Girl Blazes a Trail to Congress: The Story of Jeannette Rankin." Booklist, vol. 119, no. 7-8, 1 Dec. 2022, pp. 118+. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A731042719/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=ddd2d8f9. Accessed 20 May 2023.
Answering the Cry for Freedom: Stories of African Americans and the American Revolution.
By Gretchen Woelfle. Illus. by R. Gregory Christie.
Oct. 2016.240p. Boyds Mills/Calkins Creek, $18.95 19781629793061); e-book, $7.99 (9781629797441). 973.3. Gr. 5-8.
Liberty is a difficult concept to define and becomes even more complex in the context of American history. Woelfle, an award-winning author of nonfiction, examines the challenges and contradictions of life for African Americans in the founding era--a time period supposedly defined by its quest for freedom. Short biographies of 13 eighteenth-century figures fill thematic sections on soldiers, women, and activists. The people included range from the obscure, such as patriot sailor Paul Cuffe, to the infamous, such as Sally Hemings, slave and mother of some of Thomas Jefferson's children. Using these biographies as archetypes, Woelfle asserts that African Americans were not the one-dimensional slave figures so often painted in history books, but rather represented a range of vocations and political philosophies. This outstanding book is not just a history of African Americans but rather an honest look at the complicated, often hypocritical definitions that Americans have ascribed to the idea of liberty from our earliest days.--Erin Anderson
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
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Anderson, Erin. "Answering the Cry for Freedom: Stories of African Americans and the American Revolution." Booklist, vol. 113, no. 3, 1 Oct. 2016, p. 40. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A467148042/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=ef40d4b8. Accessed 20 May 2023.
Woelfle, Gretchen. Answering the Cry for Freedom: Stories of African Americans and the American Revolution. Illus. by R. Gregory Christie. Calkins Creek/Boyds Mills, 2016. 240p. $18.95. 978-1-62979-306-1. Illus. Biblio. Timeline. Index.
The dry facts of history come alive through the personal stories of thirteen black people who lived through the events covered in this title. Author Woelfle and illustrator Christie share the stories of African American patriots of the American Revolution, an important and interesting part of history that is not often covered in texts. The book contains the stories of men and women, free and enslaved, who fought for their own freedom and the freedom of others. Some were born in Africa, others in America; some lived in the North and others in the South. All heard the cries of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," and wanted it to become a reality. Woelfle includes some stories of people who will be familiar to readers, like Phillis Wheatley and Sally Hemings, alongside the stories of people who are not as well known.
Answering the Cry for Freedom is a well-researched book that will make history relatable for students. The personal stories will inspire and guide many who are forging their own path for equal rights today. The back matter includes extensive information on each individual profiled.--Charla Hollingsworth.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 E L Kurdyla Publishing LLC
http://www.voya.com
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Hollingsworth, Charla. "Woelfle, Gretchen. Answering the Cry for Freedom: Stories of African Americans and the American Revolution." Voice of Youth Advocates, vol. 39, no. 5, Dec. 2016, p. 85. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A474768040/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=a95e219a. Accessed 20 May 2023.