Mel is Mel Boring, moderator of this interview with Pegi Deitz Shea, and Web Editor of the ICL Web Site.

Interviews are held every other Thursday evening for two hours, beginning at 9 CANADA/
Atlantic Time, 8 Eastern Time, 7 Central Time, 6 Mountain Time, and 5 Pacific Time.

Pegi: Oh my goodness, a waiting list! Hi, writermom, what’s your real name? Are you that crazy lady in Florida?

Pegi: Well that's where my mom lives. Hey Chris, didn't you write in when I was here last?

Mel: On this autumn evening we WARMLY WELCOME you to the ICL Chat Room for a chat with Pegi Deitz Shea on the topic of "Picturing History in Picture Books." Pegi has mastered the writing of historical and biographical picture books, with her latest, Liberty Rising, out from Henry Holt just last month. It's the story of the construction of the Statue of Liberty, and in that book, as well in all of her other picture books, Pegi Deitz Shea has written the STORY that most interests children. Pegi has also written a biographical picture book about Noah Webster, of dictionary fame. And in 2006, Pegi will have another picture book out, this one a biography, Patience Wright: Wax Sculptor and Revolutionary Spy. Pegi, we feel very fortunate to be able to have you in our chat room again-A WARM WELCOME from all of us!

Pegi: Thanks! I'm excited to be here again. Hello everybody!

Mel: Pegi, update us, will you, please, on what you've been up to in writing since you were last our Chat Guest in March, 2004.

Pegi: I have dug into my novel, Abe in Arms." It's about a boy who was a former child soldier in Liberia, heavy stuff, so I always mix things up with lighter material such as KidzCourt, a middle-grade novel we're close to a deal on, and funny Young Adult poems about jobs.

Mel: Abe in Arms, is that title a play on words in any way? J

Pegi: Of course it is! You can't keep a good poet down!

Mel: HA! How early can you remember a fascination with history, and social studies in general?

Pegi: My dad was a high school history teacher, so it's in the genes. But I remember being fascinated by visiting Oklahoma when I was 8, in 1968--quite a year of history in the making. But in Oklahoma, I saw real Native Americans, saw real Native Oklahomans! And I began to appreciate diversity in our present as well as in our past.

Mel: How did this fascination manifest itself as you grew up through grade school?

Pegi: I had a fabulous history teacher in grades 6-8 and she taught French too, which I'm fluent in. This was the early 70's—she brought a TV into class and we watched the Watergate hearings, debated the ERA. She taught us that we are part of history, we're living it.

Mel: Did you major in history during college?

Pegi: No, I had a double major in English and Mass Communications, but if you think about it, most literature is history by the time I read it and is about a time gone by. After college, I wrote business stuff, press releases, a lot of nonfiction—and got paid very well for it, mind you—way more than today's magazine rates.

Mel: Did you ever work in a field that involves history?

Pegi: Well, the TV industry involves projects that are historical, and I did a lot of interviews of the pioneers of TV in the late 40s and early 50s. I appreciated their breaking of new exciting ground.

Mel: So how did you get to where you are now? Writing for kids?

Pegi: I got married! Seriously, when I got married to the wonderful, brilliant and humorous Tom Shea, he got a job at the University of Connecticut—Go Huskies!—(sorry).

Mel: Quite all right!

Pegi: When we moved to Connecticut, I started looking for a writers critique group, since I had been in groups since I was 18. The one I found had children's literature writers in it, and after about a year of reading my poetry for adults and listening to their work for children I knew I wanted to try too.

Mel: Tell us about the poetry you've written, too.

Pegi: I was writing the stuff my mother used to white-out in literary magazines! But I do have poetry for children, and it's quite safe. Three of my books are poetry—all very different. One was a narrative of narrative poems about a beach visit. One is a free verse narrative poem (New Moon). And one is a board book verse. I've had groups of poems and individual poems for adults accepted. One of these days, I would like to publish a book of poems for adults.

Mel: You could, you should, Mel said poetically!

Pegi: We're getting off topic, Mel, aren’t you supposed to spank me or rap my knuckles?

Mel: No spankings, no knuckle-rappings, you're doing VERY WELL, Pegi! Did you write historical literature right away early in your writing career?

Pegi: Thatta boy!

Mel: THANKS!

Pegi: No, though The Whispering Cloth was historical, as it was set in the late 90s. It wasn't until I had a career slump in the late 1990s that I, duh, remembered that I had written more than 200 articles at my tender age of 37, a hundred or so for newspapers, a hundred or so for trade magazines in the film industry. So I said, why not try nonfiction for kids. I got in touch with Chelsea House, and said give me women’s' sports book. I really bit the bullet—very low pay—flat fee, no royalties. But it got me published in a new genre, and in a new age group—middle grade. They asked me if I'd do The Impeachment Process. You're thinking, hmmm, juicy topic. But what really grabbed me was that the colonists were always trying to impeach the British-appointed governors. It reintroduced me to history—the American Revolution era. As a 5th-6th grader, I was mucho into the Civil War. But the personalities involved in the Revolution are just monumental.

Pegi: Yes, I've been told that even my picture books are used in high schools. Really, they're tight short stories, and are much more interesting than another chapter in ye old yellow textbook.

Mel: THAT is a SUPREME compliment to your picture books, Ma'am!

Pegi: Tanx!

Pegi: Yes! That's the problem with such a huge number of possibilities. I concentrate on the characters who are making the history. Tell their story from their point of view. For instance, Noah Webster's main contribution was his effort to unify colonists and early Americans with language. That's the story "in his story."

Pegi: Good, I was just looking at my notes for tonight and came across that advice again.

Pegi: My first book, Bungalow Fungalow, was a chronological telling of a boy's week at his grandparents' beach house. But instead of each page having prose sentences, each page had a poem that told one particular episode or story in that visit. A hugely important example of the same technique is Karen Hess's (former ICL student, by the way) Out of the Dust. The whole book is one girl's story about her experience in the Dust Bowl 1930s, but each page is a poem, as if written in a journal.

Mel: So Noah Webster wrote his dictionary as a way to pull colonists together around language—who'd've ever thought?

Pegi: Yes! He was the man behind changing British spellings to American ones, not "colour" but "color"; not "theatre" but "theater". He had a lot more wacky spellings, totally phonetic ones, but they didn't catch on, like "laf," instead of "laugh".

Mel: "Laf" makes MUCH more sense—"I'm sorry it didn't catch on!" Mel laffed. J

Pegi: Well, Noah and Mercy Otis Warren were given to me by my writing colleague and dearest friend, the author of many biographies for Lerner Publishing, Susan B. Aller. She said she'd always wanted to do biographies on these two, but couldn't see herself making the time. So I asked, "Can I do them?" (I'm never afraid of asking anything, so be careful). She marched upstairs and brought me down about eight books on each of them. She was happy to get them out of the house. But you see, I live near Hartford, where Noah grew up. So he's a local hero. And Merriam-Webster is just 20 miles north, in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Mel: WHAT an opportunity to be handed to you—a GOOD friend, indeed, is Susan B. Aller!

Pegi: So I had amazing access to archives, Noah, and his house—which is now a museum, and private collections at Merriam-Webster. I could not NOT do the book. The more I read about Noah Webster, the more I loved him. He was the editor of New York City’s first daily newspaper, he founded a welfare and insurance system in Hartford, Connecticut, which is known as the Insurance Capital of America. He wrote the first epidemiology of yellow fever, I believe, and his book spurred on the creation of the sewer and sanitation system in New York City. Whatta guy!

Mel: Noah Webster seems like such a stuffy old scholar, Pegi. What did you DO to help children of picture book age to relate to him?

Pegi: I took umbrage that so many books portrayed him as stuffy and egotistical. A person who accomplishes that much in a lifetime must have a huge ego, must be able to weather negative feedback, must have confidence in himself and his speaking and writing abilities. He was quite the author! His articles proposed many of the freedoms we now take for granted, such as the right to a free education.

Mel: You must've done some word play writing about that likeable old Noah, didn’t you, Pegi?

Pegi: Yes, he was a deer—I mean dear—okay, back to your question, though. Noah was famous for shirking his farm duties and hiding with a book as a child. I really tried to bring out the unceasing curiosity of this man. I mean, the guy knew more than 20 languages.

Mel: WOWSER!

Pegi: And only five of those languages were actually taught to him in school.

Pegi: I grew up with four brothers, and if you didn't make yourself known, you'd be living under the couch!

Mel: I LOVE IT!

Pegi: My husband says, "You can't get, if you don't ask. So what if they say no?"

Pegi: No, I love plumbing and electricity! Honestly, my book Ten Mice for Tet was done totally via the Internet. The publisher, Chronicle Publishing, is in San Francisco, the illustrator and the man who embroidered all the illustrations were near Hanoi, and my friend Cindy was working in Hanoi. It was an amazing experience. I do identify with Patience Wright, the Quaker wax sculptor who opened her own business in London just before the outbreak of the American Revolution, and became a spy. She's my kind of gal. I'd like to think I'd be like her back then.

Mel: I was going to ask about Patience Wright. What about her did you feel deserved a picture book?

Pegi: She was an awesome babe! In the words of Emma Lazurus, who wrote the poem for the Statue of Liberty, Patience Wright was "a mighty woman with a torch."

Mel: That says it ALL, coming from Emma Lazarus!

Pegi: I got a great sense of her from her letters, most of which are at the University of Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia Historical Society, I believe. She and Ben Franklin were friends. Remember, he was ambassador to England, then he fled to Paris, sailed home—he was all over the place. Patience was a mom, too. Once she got established in London, she sent for her kids, who helped in her business. Two of her children had careers in art; the only boy Joseph designed our first national coins.

Mel: An AMAZING family! You’ve written a picture book about the history of sugar. That seems like a large and widespread topic. How did you narrow it down, Pegi?

Pegi: A few years back, I bought the book Sugar Blues. Among its chapters on the ill health sugar causes, was an intense discussion of how sugar powered the slave trade, even before America was colonized by Europeans. African slaves were caught and transported to the Egyptian cane fields, as well as fields in other Mediterranean countries producing sugar. So this was a precise focus in the whole sugar story.

Mel: You’ve mentioned before finding the STORY to tell in nonfiction, as the most effective way to write historical nonfiction. Tell us how you did that in your The Carpet Boy’s Gift, please.

Pegi: In The Carpet Boy’s Gift (Tilbury House 2003) I used a historical incident and built a fiction around this real life character. That's being done a bit more. See, you can still have the freedom of fiction, as long as you keep the nonfiction facts of this particular scene, or person, or incident that really happened. A Pakistani boy, Iqbal Masih, escaped from a carpet factory where he had been enslaved for about five years. He hooked up with an advocacy group, liberated thousands of other children and received international awards for his work. At the age of 12, in Pakistan, he was assassinated. Now, there had been a biography of him, and other nonfiction works. But there was one phrase in my research about him that stuck out. It went like this: In killing Iqbal, they made a thousand Iqbals. This was spoken by a young girl, I believe. So my approach was to show the legacy that Iqbal inspired. I found the tiny seed of hope in a tragic circumstance. Eve Bunting did something similar in her Caldecott-winning book, Smoky Night, illustrated by David Diaz. For a child on the scary nights of the Los Angeles riots, his story was about caring for his cat, and making a special bond with another victim of the riots. There are soooooo many stories in our past, stories that will motivate children to be better people. Picture books can do that, because they have the visual power to penetrate the media-overload with kids. Phew--sorry for the soapbox speech.

Mel: Oh, au contraire, THANK YOU for your DETAILED answers!

Pegi: I was fortunate that Chelsea House had strict rules about citing sources of direct quotes. They wanted copies of the pages where those quotes appeared. So that was a good practice to begin—not only documenting where I found the information, but also showing it in its original context. Document everything as you go along. The worst thing is to have a librarian reminding you that your book is overdue, returning it like the good little library customers we are, only to find out a month later that you never wrote down the page, and the bibliographical information. A friend keeps all those notes on separate index cards for each book.

Pegi: Definitely. Most "institutional" publishers like Enslow, Lerner, Lucent, and Chelsea House have ongoing series of, say, female athletes. A great query would acknowledge that series history and propose an athlete they haven't done yet, e.g. the pole vaulters—that event was just opened to women in the last few years—wide open field. Or Michelle Wie, the young golfer. Send some clips showing your interest and experience in writing for children, and a specific niche (maybe it's science instead of sports). Look at their catalog, find a hole, and offer to plug it. These publishers are open to new writers. As I said above, they don't pay much, but you can amass credibility that way. A few published books launches you out of an editor's slush pile.

Pegi: I coach soccer too!

Mel: You DO?! When do you eat and sleep?

Pegi: And make time for my family, especially my husband—it helps that we both do most of our work at home and are flexible (in many ways, mmmmmmm).

Pegi: Seven wonders of the world—I'm afraid that's been done—but for what ages? There's your "in." When I took my kids to the Statue of Liberty two weeks before 9/11, I saw that there weren't any recent picture books on the Statue. There were books for older kids, but the only picture book they had was by Betsy Maestro and Giulio Maestro in 1986. So I used that information to sell my proposal. Et voila! So for the seven wonders, what age group market is most open?

Mel: GREAT suggestions, Pegi!

Pegi: I got my first children's book sale on my own; however it came as a suggestion during my writers' group meeting. There was a jostling of editors, and Dinah Stevenson had just joined Clarion. Usually editors can't "bring" their projects from one house to another. So she pretty much was open-armed to new talent. Incidentally she edited my first novel, Tangled Threads, winner of the Connecticut Book Award! So, being in a critique group really helps in getting editorial contacts. About agents, I have had three during my 16-year career in children's literature, and only one had ever sold anything. But they did introduce my work to a lot of editors who may not have looked at my stuff had it not been at the advice of agents. I'm sorry that it takes an agent these days to get through to editors. It's not the editors' fault.

Mel: Dinah Stevenson, for those who may not recognize her, a STELLAR children's editor!

Pegi: Omigod! She edits Karen Cushman, Linda Sue Park, Jim Murphy. I'm in awe of her. Here's a good fact: She rejected versions of my novel manuscript twice over a period of six years before accepting the manuscript. That was the sixth total draft. Then she put me through four more drafts! But when I compare the novels she has edited with the novels published by other publishers. I'm amazed at how tight Clarion novels are. Not a word is wasted. Dinah's a gem. I should add that her editing staff is top notch too!

Pegi: You know, someone should really write something like that. All I can recommend is to read, read, read history and biographies for kids. Jim Giblin and Jim Murphy are fabulous reads. Read Cobblestone Magazine and some of the other publications in the Carus/Cricket Publishing family. Many of the institutional publishers I mentioned earlier have strict guidelines for manuscripts, essentially what they want in each chapter. Start at the library studying several books by a publisher like Lucent (Thomson Gale), see if you like their formats, and compare them with the formats of other institutional publishers.

Mel: A question from your former student, Pegi:

Pegi: Hi Chris! Chelsea and most of the other institutional publishers don't publish fiction of any kind, but they do publish nonfiction books on up-to-date issues, like teen health problems, teen parenting. Really, there are so many nonfiction opportunities at these publishers. Take 'em on!

Pegi: Librarians are the best! They also receive School Library Journal, Booklist, Horn Book, and other publications that are business reading to them. Take advantage! They usually save publisher catalogs for at least six months. Librarians are a treasure. Tell them what you are working on—children’s literature in general—and they will pull the best examples for you, give you all kinds of resources. Librarians want to be loved!

Mel: They are SO LOVEABLE!

Pegi: It depends. I always used to when I was starting off, and it helped, and I have to say that my agents submitted simultaneously as well (hoping for auctions, situations in which different publishers bid against each other to buy your book!). However, I now have cherished individual relationships with book and magazine editors to whom I offer exclusive rights to consider a piece for 60 or 90 days, before submitting widely. I have a pretty good sense of what manuscript may work for a particular publisher or editor. So I try not to submit things they can't use. And here's a freebie, which fits with tonight's topic: Henry Holt the publisher has said that, yes, they are still looking for nonfiction picture books, but they must be able to be enfolded into the elementary school curriculum.

Pegi: Both. Look at their successful series in their catalogs. Query about whether these series are "open" to new books. They'll probably give you a "wish list" of topics to choose from.

Mel: Pegi, do you have any suggestions for hot topics in historical nonfiction for us to query and/or write about?

Pegi: OHHH! Got your pen ready? Here are some eras/topics in history that are really wide open: In general, many non-war eras: USA 1900-1915; Post-Civil War/Industrial Revolution—think of the inventions and innovations following the Civil War. A president—not Lincoln—was assassinated, South American history, acknowledging the Hispanic markets, children growing up in European colonies all over the place—the Caribbean, South America, Africa, India, Indochina. Delve in the Dark Ages of Europe—it's gross—kids will love it!

Pegi: Correct. Some agents charge a little reading fee of say $25, but don't pay anything more than that. An agent makes his or her money on commissions ranging from 10 to 20 percent.

Pegi: Yes, magazine credits will show your professional stature and help get you out of the books submission slush pile.

Pegi: This is an interesting question, because I have gone both ways—taking a topic from the age 8-12 market down to an age 6-up market; and taking a 6-up story to the 8-12. It all has to do with "story". What is the main story of your subject, Patience Wright, for example? Okay, her childhood facility in art plus her naughtiness (combined with the fact that, as a Quaker, she was among the few educated girls in the colonies), uniquely prepared her for spying. Kids love spy stuff. Publishers Weekly just did a whole article on all the spy series coming out now for middle- grade boys and girls. Now this is just a happy marketing coincidence that my picture book could help create readers for this sub-genre—but I'm not complaining! Ok, back to downsizing it for young readers. It's not so much vocabulary choice, as it is putting chronology and cause-and-effect in place. Kids are good with serial action. If you look at their stories, it's like: this happened, then that happened. I've got to give them that, but give the illustrator enough to fill in the emotional spaces, the background challenges (for example, the effect cold weather has on the wax that Patience used for sculpture). I hope I answered your question.

Pegi: Tanx!

Mel: Pegi, I read that marketing led to your contract with Holt for your picture book, Liberty Rising: The Story of the Statue of Liberty. It seems like such a common topic that the market would be saturated with books and articles about this monument. How did you make YOUR book GO?

Pegi: A nonfiction, or specifically a historical picture book, still needs to have a beginning, middle and end, story arcs where the main character initiates action, is repelled or challenged, then overcomes that challenge. The story must also work in the picture book structure, meaning there have to be many illustrative possibilities—drama, scene changes, comings and goings of characters, suspense toward the end, and resolution—a closure that not only relieves the reader, but makes it "safe" to read over and over again, knowing that any main character—like Edouard de Laboulaye—wins in the end.

Mel: How did you get the ideas for the historical picture book manuscripts you're currently working on? (Noah Webster, Mercy Otis Warren, The Story of Sugar)?

Pegi: I talked about how Susan Aller handed Noah and Mercy to me on a platter. But the sugar story idea is more interesting. I have some health problems—chronic Lyme disease and thyroid disease, and diabetes runs in our family. So I decided to go as non-sugar as I could. I bought some cookbooks, and nonfiction books and some were quite militant about sugar's story—all the tragedy it has caused. So I tried to remain objective about the growth of the sugar crop, its role in the Crusades and other history chains. I definitely had to write about negatives—the slavery and disease. The book really lends itself to a collage illustration, but I haven't been able to convince an editor to buy it yet, even with the present spike in type 2 diabetes in kids! Trade editors think it's too much like a library book. I guess I have to jazz it up somehow.

Pegi: That's funny. It certainly wasn't from the books I grew up with in the 60s. There really wasn’t much of a choice. I went to Catholic schools, and our libraries only had nonfiction. Our public library didn't even have a children's section until after I was too old for it. But I did love my Dr. Seuss, feeling that he made words like toys, and he had such power to invent new words! I probably got my sense of plot from him. Like many adults, I thought that writing children's books was a piece of cake, and that it wasn't "literature" like Wordsworth and Woolf and Hemingway until I joined that critique group in Connecticut. I listened for a whole year before I tried to write anything for kids. It took me that long to realize that yes, writing for children was a worthy aspiration, and hoping I was up to it. Since I was a poet first, I naturally thought to start with poetry.

Pegi: Unless there is valid research showing that subject's childhood, a true nonfiction is impossible. But there are publishers who do "a story about Christopher Columbus as a boy." In fact, such a book was the only children's book about Noah Webster ever! And it was published in the 1970s, I think, when books—even nonfiction—for kids was considered watered-down oatmeal.

Mel: Pegi Deitz Shea, we ALL so MUCH appreciate all that you have given us tonight by way of tips and suggestions and pointers about how to write historical and biographical picture books! It's easy for anyone to see why you've been a favorite Chat Guest here, by the easy manner you have in answering our questions so thoughtfully, and so completely. All of us should be more able than ever now to write the kinds of picture books that you have become so practiced at. There is still so much we would like to talk to you about, and I'm wondering, would you be willing to come back yet AGAIN in the future to talk with us, Pegi?

Pegi: I'd love to!

Mel: Pegi Deitz Shea, THANK YOU again for all you've taught us here tonight! We all wish you well in the children's book authoring that is yet ahead of you. And we will already be looking forward to your next Guest Chat with us. THANKS for coming tonight!

Pegi: U'R Welk!

Mel: Goodnight, EVERYchildren'sWRITER!