Although, as I’ve explained in my acknowledgments, Mary Previte was not available for an interview, she did share some of her thoughts about Weihsien in an email message to me. Mary gave her permission for me to quote her words: What story wakes people up these days? Even in a wartime internment camp, children and God’s humble people turn a very ugly world into one where goodness triumphs over evil. How beautiful is that?…We children/students were blessed by our teachers who anchored us. Separated from our parents by warring armies, most of us were separated from our parents for five or more years. So our Chefoo boarding school teachers were our substitute parents. My…faith and hope [were] ignited by these missionary teachers who were also prisoners. Grown-ups turned challenges into games.
The Girl Guide Code focuses on positive thinking and putting others first. As an author and also as a person known for her sunny disposition, I wanted to explore what it means to be cheerful. Can a positive attitude help us deal with challenging situations? And, just as important, can cheerfulness sometimes get us into trouble by preventing us from seeing the truth? I’ve grappled with these questions while writing this book.
There were both Girl Guides and Girl Scouts at Weihsein. The Girl Guide movement originated in Europe in 1909; the Girl Scout movement began three years later in the United States. Because my Miss E. is British, I chose to use Girl Guides in this story.
A final word: the children in my story use the word coolies when they refer to the Chinese laborers who work inside Weihsien. Now considered a racial slur, the term dates back to the nineteenth century and was commonly used in India, China and Asia to describe laborers.
RESOURCES
Print
Farrell, Mary Cronk. Pure Grit: How American World War II Nurses Survived Battle and Prison Camp in the Pacific. New York, NY: Abrams, 2014.
Monahan, Evelyn M., and Rosemary Neidel-Greenlee. All This Hell: U.S. Nurses Imprisoned by the Japanese. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2000.
Tyrer, Nicola. Stolen Childhoods: The Untold Story of the Children Interned by the Japanese in the Second World War. London, UK: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2011.
Online
Association for Diplomatic Studies & Training. “Moments in U.S. Diplomatic History: Escape from Japanese Internment in China.” https://adst.org/2015/11/escapefrom-japanese-internment-in-china/#.WnDTfEusNAY.
“Captain’s Log.” This American Life, episode 559, June 26, 2015. Public radio podcast. thisamericanlife.org/559/ captains-log.
Girl Guides of Canada. “About Us: Conduct and Child Safety.” girlguides.ca.
Girl Scouts of the United States of America. “Traditions.” girlscouts.org/en/about-girl-scouts/traditions.html.
Nussbaum, Debra. “In Person; She Teaches Survival, Learned the Hard Way.” New York Times, Dec. 31, 2000. nytimes. com/2000/12/31/nyregion/in-person-she-teaches-survival-learned-the-hard-way.html?pagewanted=all.
Previte, Mary Taylor. “A Song of Salvation at Weihsien Prison Camp.” August 25, 1985. weihsien-paintings.org/Mprevite/inquirer/MPrevite.htm.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
On June 26, 2015, my friend (and editor) Sarah Harvey called and told me to turn on the radio. She was listening to an episode of This American Life, a public radio program. The episode, called “Cookies and Monsters,” told the story of a remarkable Girl Guide troop at the Weihsien Civilian Assembly Center in China during the Second World War. Following the Girl Guide Code of Conduct and maintaining a positive attitude helped these children survive a harrowing ordeal. “You have to write a book about this,” Sarah told me. So I did. I managed to track down Mary Previte, one of the Girl Guides who survived Weihsien, and whose story was featured in the radio broadcast. Though Mary was not available for an interview with me, I owe her a great debt, since her account was the inspiration for this book. Many thanks to Sarah for encouraging me to imagine life at the internment camp and for helping me get deeper into my story. Thanks to the rest of the team at Orca for being wonderful. Thanks to Dwight McIntyre for answering my questions about slaughtering a pig. Finally, thanks to my friend Leanne Kinsella for loving this story as much as I do.
Monique Polak is the author of more than twenty novels for kids and young adults. She has also written two nonfiction books for kids (Passover: Festival of Freedom and I Am a Feminist: Claiming the F-Word in Turbulent Times), as well as a board book for toddlers. Monique is a two-time winner of the Quebec Writers’ Federation Prize for Children’s and Young Adult Fiction. In addition to being an active freelance journalist whose work appears regularly in the Montreal Gazette, Monique teaches English literature, creative writing and humanities at Marianopolis College in Montreal.
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