readergirlz is a literacy and social media project for teens, awarded the National Book Foundation's Innovations in Reading Prize. The rgz blog serves as a depot for news and YA reviews from industry professionals and teens. As volunteers return full force to their own YA writing, the organization continues to hold one initiative a year to impact teen literacy. All are welcome to "like" us on Facebook!
Showing posts with label Laurie Halse Anderson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Laurie Halse Anderson. Show all posts
1. I am writing this list in Muscat, Oman. I've had the chance to visit
several American schools overseas in the last couple of years and am
having a blast exploring new cultures.
2. I ran a marathon in 2011.
3. I finally got to hang out with Stephen Chbosky (Perks of Being a
Wallflower) and am happy to report that he is a super cool guy.
4. I have become obsessed with mint lemonade.
5. I want to write a fantasy, but have not yet figured out how to do it.
6. I'm working on the text for the SPEAK graphic novel that should be published in 2016.
7. I love my life.
Want to know more secrets about your favorite authors? Keep checking this blog all month long to celebrate the seven-year anniversary of readergirlz!
Certainly in Revolutionary times, women's roles were marginalized. Do you think women are still kept out of the light at all? Do they get their due in terms of the ways they help shape today's world?
Hello readergirlz! Today's Featured Title is the very last of February, and our theme of Loyalty. I'm so happy to be going out with a bang via one of my all-time writer heroines, Laurie Halse Anderson, and her book, INDEPENDENT DAMES: What You Never Knew About the Women and Girls of the American Revolution.
Listen up! You've all heard about the great men who led and fought during the American Revolution; but did you know that the guys only make up part of the story? What about the women? The girls? The dames? Didn't they play a part? Of course they did.
Here's what Laurie has to say:
Remember the Ladies Or Else!
Too often our understanding of the American Revolution comes bowdlerized by Victorian-era sentiments. This is why we’ve misunderstood the role of women during the Revolution for so many generations.
Women were a vital part of the founding of the United States. Their participation ran the gamut: from taking over businesses and farms, to organizing and participating in boycotts, raising money, spying, smuggling, fighting, healing, feeding, and weaving a ocean’s worth of home-spun fabric. And they did it wearing long skirts that usually had a few kids clinging to them!
Staying home to knit? Not so much.
My favorite dame in the book is 9-year-old Susan Boudinot, who, when served tea at the mansion of the royal governor of New Jersey, tossed the foul beverage out the window. And then there was Elizabeth Burgin, who helped 200 POWs escape from their prison ships in the dead of winter. Gumption!
Juggling the layers of storytelling in DAMES; the narrative, the speech bubbles, the mini-bios, the time line, and the back matter sometimes made it feel like I was writing an epic novel instead of a picture book. But when I saw Matt Faulkner’s sketches of my clever and stubborn dames, everything fell into place.
When you pick up DAMES, be sure to check out the acknowledgements page. There you’ll find the names of 22 women – all of them grandmother of mine - who lived during the Revolution. Being able to share the stories of their world with today’s readers gives me goosebumps!
Ooh, I've got goosebumps now, too! Here's a pic of Laurie at a Valley Forge reenactment. Love her commitment to research (it also looks like she's having a darn good time)!
Want to learn more about DAMES? Catch the snazzy book trailer:
Thanks so much for joining us, Laurie! And thanks for being so committed to stories about strong, complicated women!
