Girl with Brush and Canvas
Page 22
Q: What do you think is the impact of reading about long-ago history for today’s young people?
A: Reading stories about people whose lives seem so different from ours—people of other cultures or other times—helps young people to appreciate differences and begin to understand our shared humanity.
Q: Tell us about your own childhood.
A: My father used to tell me stories when I was very young. That led me to believe that I, too, could make up stories, and I began to do that as soon as I learned how to write.
Q: Did you read books about the past?
A: Odd as it sounds, I did not. In fact, the only books I remember are the Uncle Wiggly series that was published long before I was even born. That kindly old rabbit gentleman with rheumatism and his housekeeper, a muskrat named Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, apparently made an indelible impression on me, and have absolutely nothing to do with any of the more than sixty books I’ve written in the past fifty years.
CAROLYN MEYER moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, soon after a trip to an artists’ colony in Taos that lasted eight months longer than expected. Like Georgia O’Keeffe, she was inspired by the stunning beauty of the place. She is the bestselling, award-winning author of numerous novels for children and young adults, many of them about courageous women of the past. Her books include Girl with a Camera: Margaret Bourke-White, Photographer and Diary of a Waitress: The Not-So-Glamorous Life of a Harvey Girl. She currently lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Visit her at readcarolyn.com.
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