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[CCBC-Net] Primary Sources: Harper Lee Up Close
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From: Tessa Michaelson <tmichaelson>
Date: Mon, 18 May 2009 09:06:20 -0500
For the remainder of May, the CCBC-Net discussion will focus on Kerry Madden's new biography of Harper Lee, /Up Close: Harper Lee/ (Viking, 2009). We are pleased to welcome Kerry as our special guest and look forward hearing more about her experience researching and writing this book.
/Up Close: Harper Lee/ is an illuminating look at the life of the author of /To Kill a Mockingbird/. From her childhood growing up in Monroe, Alabama, in the 1940s and 1950s, to her life as an aspiring writer in New York City in the late 1950s and 1960s, to her desire for privacy in the wake of /Mockingbird/'s publication that she has maintained to this day, Lee's life, and the spheres in which she has lived it, make fascinating reading in Madden's book.
>From the foreword to /Up Close: Harper Lee/, Kerry Madden shares this
revelation on page 15:
Harper Lee wrote in /To Kill a Mockingbird: /"Real courage is when you know you're licked, before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what." The more I began to work on her biography, the more those words began to haunt me. I realized I might very well be licked, with my subject not willing to talk and so little published about her---except for one unauthorized biography. So to find real courage to write this book, I knew I needed to go to the heart of Harper Lee country. I wanted an understanding not just of the author but also of her home and the people who know her. It was the only way I knew how to write the story.
/Up Close: Harper Lee/ a not only an absorbing story, but an amazing journey. To begin our discussion, I'll ask Kerry to outline her trips to Alabama for us and to share a bit about some of the faces and places she experienced.
Tessa
Date: Mon, 18 May 2009 09:06:20 -0500
For the remainder of May, the CCBC-Net discussion will focus on Kerry Madden's new biography of Harper Lee, /Up Close: Harper Lee/ (Viking, 2009). We are pleased to welcome Kerry as our special guest and look forward hearing more about her experience researching and writing this book.
/Up Close: Harper Lee/ is an illuminating look at the life of the author of /To Kill a Mockingbird/. From her childhood growing up in Monroe, Alabama, in the 1940s and 1950s, to her life as an aspiring writer in New York City in the late 1950s and 1960s, to her desire for privacy in the wake of /Mockingbird/'s publication that she has maintained to this day, Lee's life, and the spheres in which she has lived it, make fascinating reading in Madden's book.
>From the foreword to /Up Close: Harper Lee/, Kerry Madden shares this
revelation on page 15:
Harper Lee wrote in /To Kill a Mockingbird: /"Real courage is when you know you're licked, before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what." The more I began to work on her biography, the more those words began to haunt me. I realized I might very well be licked, with my subject not willing to talk and so little published about her---except for one unauthorized biography. So to find real courage to write this book, I knew I needed to go to the heart of Harper Lee country. I wanted an understanding not just of the author but also of her home and the people who know her. It was the only way I knew how to write the story.
/Up Close: Harper Lee/ a not only an absorbing story, but an amazing journey. To begin our discussion, I'll ask Kerry to outline her trips to Alabama for us and to share a bit about some of the faces and places she experienced.
Tessa
-- Tessa Michaelson, Librarian Cooperative Children's Book Center School of Education University of Wisconsin-Madison 4290 Helen C. White Hall 600 N. Park St Madison, WI 53706 Phone: 608-890-1332 Podcast: 712-318-9988 FAX: 608-262-4933 tmichaelson at education.wisc.edu http://www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/ http://www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/podcasts/podcasts.aspReceived on Mon 18 May 2009 09:06:20 AM CDT
