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From: Repartee1 at aol.com <Repartee1>
Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 07:48:29 EST
A NORTHERN LIGHT, in this northern light Wisconsin time, haunts me with its insights into the roles for women.? Jennifer Donnely's book is a recent Michael L. Printz Honor Book for young adults--but I found bits of factual history, a lively coping protagonist, connections with differing levels of society and of bravery.? Young women readers should find it well-written and haunting, too.
Here is an excerpt (no interviewer's name was attributed) from the? Barnes and Noble interview:
"What inspired you to write this story? JD: First and foremost, Grace Brown's story. The one told about her by friends, family, and eyewitnesses, and the one she told in her own letters. When I read those letters, I was deeply upset -- grief stricken, actually -- that such a kind, funny, perceptive, decent girl had been trapped by her circumstances, and then murdered because there was no way out of them. Mattie was born, in part, because I wanted to change the past. I wanted Grace's death to have meaning. And I wanted her death to allow someone else to escape her confining circumstances and live her life, even though Grace herself didn't get that chance. Your portrayal of everyday life in the early 1900s is so real and vividly detailed. What kind of research did you do for this book? How long did it take you to write the story? JD: I consulted oral histories, histories of the area written by local residents, tax records, photographs, newspaper clippings, a Cranberry Lake farmwife's diary, court transcripts of Chester Gillette's trial, old camp menus, old
postcards and autograph books-most of which were made available to me by the Town of Webb Historical Society and the Adirondack Museum. I also used stories told to me by my great-grandmother; my grandmother, her brother and sister; my father and my uncle. These stories were accounts of how my upstate relatives -- all Irish immigrants or their children -- lived, worked, and played in and around the western Adirondacks. Some were sober descriptions of the hard, everyday lives of poor farmers, hotel workers, and woodsmen, and some were out-and-out whoppers. I knew one from the other and I didn't care, I just loved the telling."
Betty Ihlenfeldt
Received on Sat 20 Nov 2004 06:48:29 AM CST
Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 07:48:29 EST
A NORTHERN LIGHT, in this northern light Wisconsin time, haunts me with its insights into the roles for women.? Jennifer Donnely's book is a recent Michael L. Printz Honor Book for young adults--but I found bits of factual history, a lively coping protagonist, connections with differing levels of society and of bravery.? Young women readers should find it well-written and haunting, too.
Here is an excerpt (no interviewer's name was attributed) from the? Barnes and Noble interview:
"What inspired you to write this story? JD: First and foremost, Grace Brown's story. The one told about her by friends, family, and eyewitnesses, and the one she told in her own letters. When I read those letters, I was deeply upset -- grief stricken, actually -- that such a kind, funny, perceptive, decent girl had been trapped by her circumstances, and then murdered because there was no way out of them. Mattie was born, in part, because I wanted to change the past. I wanted Grace's death to have meaning. And I wanted her death to allow someone else to escape her confining circumstances and live her life, even though Grace herself didn't get that chance. Your portrayal of everyday life in the early 1900s is so real and vividly detailed. What kind of research did you do for this book? How long did it take you to write the story? JD: I consulted oral histories, histories of the area written by local residents, tax records, photographs, newspaper clippings, a Cranberry Lake farmwife's diary, court transcripts of Chester Gillette's trial, old camp menus, old
postcards and autograph books-most of which were made available to me by the Town of Webb Historical Society and the Adirondack Museum. I also used stories told to me by my great-grandmother; my grandmother, her brother and sister; my father and my uncle. These stories were accounts of how my upstate relatives -- all Irish immigrants or their children -- lived, worked, and played in and around the western Adirondacks. Some were sober descriptions of the hard, everyday lives of poor farmers, hotel workers, and woodsmen, and some were out-and-out whoppers. I knew one from the other and I didn't care, I just loved the telling."
Betty Ihlenfeldt
Received on Sat 20 Nov 2004 06:48:29 AM CST
