Dream Within A Dream

It’s June 1953, the Cold War is in full swing, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg’s have just been executed on charges of committing espionage, and under the influence of Senator Eugene McCarthy (R-WI), certain books deemed to have secret communist themes are being removed from the State Department, and overseas embassies.   Now, though, summer vacation has just begun and Richard Bradley, 14, can finally get away from the bullies at school and lose himself in the pile of books he’s put together, beginning with a reread his favorite Robin Hood. Well, until his mom takes it away now that it has been determined too subversive, and she would know, since Richard’s dad is. K a G-man, working for the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover, who seems to agree with everything Senator McCarthy says. But Richard’s father also is suffering from PTSD as a result of his wartime service, and Richard seems to be the only one who realizes it. And he is trying to redeem himself after a failed FBI mission that Hoover bla...

By the time Mattel rebranded the historical dolls from the American Girls collection, my Kiddo’s doll days were behind her, so I didn’t really pay attention to what was going on with any of these new dolls until I read that Molly, the WWII girl on the home front, was being retired. Molly was the fun favorite in our house, and we were sad to see her. Now, however, there’s a new WWII girl in the American Girls collection and her name is Nanea Mitchell, a 9 year old girl who lives on the island of Oahu in Hawaii. She has two older siblings, a sister named Mary Lou, 15, and a brother named David, 17. Their mother was born on the island and is Hawaiian, and their dad came from Oregon and is white.   It’s 1941 and Nanea would like her parents to stop treating her like a baby and give her more responsibility. With the help of her friends, Lily, who is Japanese, and Donna, who is from California, Nanea decides to enter a contest that requires contestants to do a number of nice things for o...

My Kiddo's old VHS *** Contains Spoilers *** It's been 70 years since the movie Miracle on 34th Street was released in theaters, but for me, it has always been the go-to movie that ushers in the holiday season.  The film was actually made in 1946, so it still the sense of the country coming out of its war-time deprivations. People were still hungry - not so much for turkey and all the trimmings, but for peace and prosperity. But Miracle on 34th Street is also a cautionary tale about the kind of commercialism doing without for so long can lead to, while still celebrating the idea of the American Dream - a family, a house in the suburbs - all it takes is a little faith. So, you could say that he real underlying theme of the movie is simply Peace on earth, Goodwill towards all people. The movie opens with the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. The man hired to play Santa is found drunk by a charming, elderly, gentle well-dressed white bearded man, whose name just happens to be Kris...

In Refugee , Alan Gratz has seamlessly woven together the stories of three refugee children and their families from different time periods and different places in the world and brought their harrowing experiences together as each flees their homeland in the hope of finding safety and freedom elsewhere. On Kristallnacht in 1938 Berlin, Nazis enter and destroy contents of the home of the Landau family, terrorizing Josef, 12, his younger sister Ruth, his mother, and arresting his father, Arron. When his father finally returns home, he is a broken man after spending time in Dachau. Luckily, the Landau family has secured tickets and the needed visas to emigrate to Cuba.   On board the MS St. Louis , a luxury passenger ocean liner, the Jews fleeing Nazi Germany are treated well all the way across the Atlantic, but for Josef, the trip also brings stress. His father refuses to leave their cabin, insisting it is all a Nazi trick to send them to a concentration camp. When Josef turns 13 on ...

I can still remember watching the 1984 Winter Olympics held in Sarajevo, especially that stunning performance of Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean ice skating to Bolero, for which they earned perfect scores down the line. Yet, less than 10 years later, that once beautiful city was under siege by Serbs and Bosnian Serbs, a blockade that lasted from April 1992 to February 1996, with daily sniper shelling and mortar attacks.   Flowers for Sarajevo is based on a true story that came out of the siege. It is narrated by Drasko, a young (fictional) boy who works with his father, Milo, selling flowers in a bustling marketplace in Sarajevo, one where Serbs, Croats, Muslims, and Christians mingle and shop together. But overnight, Drasko observes, everything changes, Sarajevo is being torn apart, and men, even his father, are being sent to the battlefield to fight. Suddenly, merchants who were once friendly when Milo was there, have become mean and are pushing Drasko aside, forcing him into ...

Last weekend, I was in Hershey, PA for the 2017 KidLitCon. where I was on a panel discussing Historical Fiction with these other distinguished panelists:  fellow blogger Sondra Eklund ( Sonder Books ), and authors Alexandria LaFaye ( Walking Home to Rosie Lee, Worth  and more), Celeste Lim ( The Crystal Ribbon ), and Michael P. Spradlin ( Prisoner of War, The Enemy Above, and the Young Templar series among others). I thought the discussion went really well, and I had made some handouts but didn't have enough for everyone, so Karen at Ms. Yingling Reads  suggested I post a copy online. I decided I would also post my notes, as well as the handout, in case readers might find it useful.  Historical Fiction Panel Notes:  What is historical fiction?   "The dead are invisible, they are not absent" Hilary Mantel quoting St. Augustine of Hippo The Guardian " Hilary Mantel: why I became a historical novelist " In 1828, the historian Thomas Babington Macaulay arg...