Karen Cushman asked Gennifer Choldenko, “My newest book, War and Millie McGonigle, started with a place: South Mission Beach, San Diego, where my husband grew up. You, too, have written books set in a place alive and rich. Will you share some insights into place in your story, Al Capone Does My Shirts?”

Q: Did you choose the setting first, before characters and plot? Did the story grow from the place or did the place grow from the story?

Choldenko: It was an intriguing fact about the setting, which launched the series Tales from Alcatraz beginning with the book Al Capone Does My Shirts. What happened was I read a newspaper article about kids who grew up on Alcatraz when there was a working penitentiary on the island. As soon as I read that article, I knew I wanted to “be” one of those kids. The way I get to “be” someone other than myself is to read a book about someone else or write a book about someone else. And since there were no middle grade novels about kids who lived on Alcatraz because their fathers were guard at the prison up top, I got to work.

Q: How/where did you find the details that brought your place to life?

Choldenko: The research which brought the series to life came from a myriad of sources. I volunteered to work as a docent on the island, read handwritten accounts of life on Alcatraz from a hole in the wall library on Alcatraz, scoured the National archives for information, spent weeks in the personal archives of Chuck Stucker, who grew up on the island. I interviewed dozens of guards who worked on the island, convicts who had been incarcerated on Alcatraz, adults who had grown up on the island because their fathers were guards, and GGNRA rangers who had spent years or sometimes decades researching Alcatraz. And then I read every book I could get my hands on about the place.

Q: Did the place enrich the story, or did it create limitations? Did you have to change details about the place?

Choldenko: The Alcatraz setting enriched the story beyond my wildest dreams. There is a virtual treasure trove of curious and intriguing information about Alcatraz. There was no need to fictionalize when the truth itself was so fascinating, so I tried to stick closely to the facts. That said, there were occasions – especially in the later books in the series – where I took creative license.

Q: What would you like us to know about the place you chose for your book?

Choldenko: I love when I get reader letters like the one I received a few days ago:

I am a 70-year-old grandmother who loves your Tales from Alcatraz. I introduced the first book to our 12-year-old granddaughter, and she was hooked immediately! She quickly devoured the entire series. At age 12, our grandchildren get to choose a place to visit in the U.S. and we take them there on a special trip, just the three of us. Because of her love for your books, she has chosen Alcatraz!

When I read Karen Cushman’s book Catherine, Called Birdy I believed I lived in the Middle Ages in an intensely visceral way. And that experience made me fascinated by that time frame in a way I had not been before. Perhaps I flatter myself here, but I hope this alchemy might happen for the girl whose grandmother is taking her to Alcatraz. So, what do I want my readers to understand about Alcatraz Island? History is riveting and historical fiction can bring it to life in your mind’s eye.

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Thank you to Gennifer Choldenko for this close-up look at the unique setting for her Tales from Alcatraz books!

Learn more about Gennifer Choldenko.

Learn more about The Tales from Alcatraz.

In other words, I asked, as Anita Silvey did, “What difference does a children’s book make in the midst of all of this political calamity?” Feeling distraught and discouraged, I went where I so often go for guidance—to my fellow writers. And I received generous, loving, thoughtful, eloquent responses.

Will Alexander recommended music; Ginny Wolff, laughter; Susan Hill Long, imagination; and David LaRochelle, honesty and kindness. Susan Fletcher found “sideways wisdom” through her writing. Margi Preus reminded me just to put one word after another, and Anita Silvey, like the rest of us, does it for kids. Susan Cooper and Gennifer Choldenko wrote about hope and Marion Dane Bauer, wonder. Jen Bryant, Dorothy Love, Avi, Karen Blumenthal, and Nikki Grimes stressed the need for engagement and writing out of our struggles.

I now add them to my company of inspirations, people whose words keep me afloat, like Mary Oliver:

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.

Like Gwendolyn Brooks, Pulitzer Prize winning poet, in her “Speech to the Young”:

Say to them,
say to the down-keepers
the sun-slappers,
the self-soilers,
the harmony-hushers,
“Even if you are not ready for day
it cannot always be night.”
You will be right.
For that is the hard home-run.
Live not for battles won.
Live not for the-end-of-the-song.
Live in the along.

Like Berthold Brecht, poet and playwright whose words found me in this dark time:

In the dark times
Will there also be singing?
Yes, there will also be singing.
About the dark times.

Yes, there will be singing about the dark times. With our voices and our words. In this dark time, whatever we may write will come from that place. And as the 1st/2nd century Mishnah sage, Rabbi Tarfon, whose quote is calligraphed and hanging on my wall, said: You are not required to complete the task. Neither are you free to abstain from it.

You must stay drunk on writing, said Ray Bradbury, who has so often said what I need to hear, so reality cannot destroy you.

The upshot is my despair and anger have not passed. Until we live in a perfect world, I imagine it won’t pass. But thanks to all who offered wisdom, compassion, and inspiration, I can write despite such feelings. Or maybe because of them. And because of you.

Now excuse me, I have a book to finish.

I have received thoughtful and inspirational answers. I’m happy to share them with you here over the summer. I’m posting them in a random order, as I received their responses. If you have your own thoughts about these questions, I hope you’ll comment.

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Gennifer Choldenko writes:

There’s no doubt we’re living in trying times. I’m still reeling from the shock of yesterday’s news, when a new affront, even more disastrous, pops up on my phone. If fiction writers concocted the events in today’s newspaper, the plot would be hair-brained, Gerry-rigged and completely unbelievable. The characters leading our country would be too simple, too clearly deranged. Readers would not suspend their disbelief.

But the question is … how do I write during these confusing and troubling times?

From an intellectual standpoint I could say we have to write because otherwise we’re allowing the evil to wrap its fingers around our hearts and our minds. The Boston Marathon has gone on every year since the bombing in 2013. Ariana Grande is planning a benefit concert for Manchester. Charlie Hebdo is publishing every Wednesday just as it did before 2015.

We have to write because otherwise we’re pushing the mute button on our muses. And it is our voices that will set us free. And though I believe this, that isn’t really why I’m writing well right now.

I’m writing well because the worse things get, the more important writing is for me. Writing is my refuge. It’s the place I go to hide from the world.

I write for years trying to deepen my understanding of the complex environment of my characters. And in the universe I create, my characters grapple with skewed or upside-down morality such as we are experiencing today.

But when I’ve gone through the rough and tumble, uncovered the secrets, fears, lies, and downright insanity of my stories at the end, there is hope. I write for that hope. I need it now more than ever.

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Gennifer Choldenko is the author of the Newbery Honor book Al Capone Does My Shirts and the two books that continue Moose and Natalie Flanagan’s story. She writes novels and picture books, the most recent of which is Dad and the Dinosaur, illustrated by Dan Santat. Visit Gennifer Choldenko’s website.

Answer:
A Room Made of Windows, Eleanor Cameron—part of a series about Julia Redfern who lives in Berkeley in the 1920s.

We Were Here, Matt de la Pena—YA that “follows a journey of self-discovery by a boy who is trying to forgive himself in an unforgiving world.”

The Al Capone books by Gennifer Choldenko

Island of the Blue Dolphins, Scott O’Dell