Q&A with Lynne Cheney
about A is for Abigail: an Almanac of Amazing American Women
Q: What inspired you to write this book?
A: In the 1970s, when I first started writing for general audiences (rather than academic ones), I often chose women for my subjects: Alice Paul, Mrs. Frank Leslie. One of the first pieces I wrote, I remember, was about Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman doctor, and it was anthologized in a grade-school textbook that my daughters used. Well, they were very impressed. I think it was the first time they understood that a product resulted from all the hours I spent writing at the dining room table. And they loved knowing Elizabeth Blackwell's story. When I was thinking of a children's book to follow America: A Patriotic Primer, I remembered that experience and thought of all the stories there are to tell about American women and their accomplishments.
Q: And you're working with Robin Preiss Glasser again?
A: Yes, and her illustrations are as wonderful for Abigail as they were for America. I told her the other day that I always have high expectations for her illustrations-and that time and again, she surpasses them.
Q: How do you two work? How do you create a book?
A: The easiest way to explain it is that I come up with the concept for the book, give it a broad outline, and write the prose; then Robin draws and paints and illustrates the words. But, in truth, it's a more cooperative process. Robin and her sister, Jacqueline Preiss Weitzman, offered suggestions on the outline; Elisabeth Irwin, my research assistant, and I, had thoughts about the illustrations. There are a lot of moving pieces. There is a lot of give and take. I feel fortunate to work with someone like Robin who is so easy to talk to and so full of good ideas.
Both Robin and I are lucky to have a terrific team at Simon & Schuster helping us, beginning with Brenda Bowen, the book's editor, and Lee Wade, its designer.
Q: Is this a book for girls?
A: Yes, and for boys, too. Whether you're talking about founding mothers like Abigail Adams; or Civil War women like Clara Barton and Susie King Taylor, who nursed the wounded; or brave women like Evelyn Cameron, who helped settle the West; or astronomers like Maria Mitchell, or performers like Fanny Brice and Mahalia Jackson, or athletes like Jackie Joyner-Kersee, the women in this book are people that will be interesting and inspiring to all kids. You know, I've never thought that we benefited only from same-sex role models. Just as George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King Jr. can inspire girls, so Anne Hutchinson and Harriet Tubman can inspire boys.
Also, this book brought home to me how important fathers are in encouraging their daughters to aspire. Maria Mitchell would never have become an astronomer without her father, for example. Since boys are likely to be dads someday, it's important that they know how many possibilities the world offers both women and men.
Q: Tell me about the "I" page.
A: "I is for Laura Ingalls and other girls of America's past." We usually think of Laura Ingalls Wilder, of course, the author of the Little House books, but I wanted to call attention to her living in the big woods and on the prairie and in Walnut Grove, Minnesota, to make the point that kids are part of history. I sometimes think we mistakenly leave the impression that adults are the only ones creating our national story, and it's more interesting for children if they see the part that those who are young have played.
Q: Do you have a favorite letter in the book?
A: Well, let me talk about Y as a letter I was especially glad to include. "Y is for Rosalyn Yalow and women in science and math." We have many women who have achieved marvelously in these fields, and I don't think kids know about them, so I was really glad to tell about Grace Murray Hopper, who made important advances in computer science, and Gertrude Elion and Maria Goeppert Mayer and others who were Nobel laureates. It's really important to overcome the stereotype that women's achievements in math and science are limited.
Q: What about a favorite character?
A: Where to start? Emily Dickinson is pretty wonderful, hardly ever leaving her house in Amherst and yet writing beautiful poems that seem to encapsulate the universe. Elizabeth Cady Stanton is a favorite, too. She and her friend Susan B. Anthony worked for fifty years to get the vote for women. Stanton wrote and spoke and agitated and also managed to raise seven children. There's a little girl on the "I" page whom I'm very fond of. Her name was Fannie Peck and she walked the Mormon Trail to Utah when she was seven, most of the time barefoot, because she was trying to save her shoes for Sundays. I love her story-and not just because she was my great-great-grandmother.
Q: Are there any other surprises like that?
A: There is one on the Z page; a softball star named Marjorie Dickey. Her team from the tiny town of Syracuse, Nebraska, won the state championship three times, beating teams from big towns like Omaha. Twice they made it to the national semifinals. The story of the Syracuse Bluebirds could be a movie. Dickey later married and had three children, one of whom is now vice president of the United States. She taught him to pitch, and he was a pretty good baseball player in his youth.
Interview provided by Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
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Updated 12/27/06
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