Q&A with Lynne Cheney
about Our 50 States: A Family Adventure Across America?
Q: Your books make history exciting to children. Were you inspired by any books that you read as a child, or read to your children, or grandchildren?
A: I love to read Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd to my little grandchildren and The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein to all of them. These books inspire me because of the way they not only reach children, but touch adults as well.
Q: Was it difficult to decide which of America’s great cities, historical sites, landmarks and natural treasures to include in Our 50 States: A Family Adventure Across America?
A: Yes, very hard. I think we got in the most important sites in every state, but there are a couple that aren’t in the book that I wish we’d had room for.
Q: Do you have a favorite American landmark?
A: There are so many, how can I choose? If absolutely forced I’d say the Statue of Liberty, but then there’s Mount Rushmore and the Golden Gate Bridge and all the natural wonders: Niagara Falls, the Tetons, the list goes on and on. Aren’t we lucky to live in such an amazing country?
Q: Now that you’ve worked with Robin Preiss Glasser on several books, has the collaboration process evolved or changed at all?
A: We work very well together and have since the beginning, but our experience on previous books means that we understand each other very well by now. Really, I sometimes think she can read my mind! What a joy to collaborate with a person of such talent. I can’t imagine whom else I could have worked with on a project as big and complicated as Our 50 States.
Q: What message do you hope your young readers take with them from your books?
A: I hope they understand how amazing this country is, how varied, how beautiful, how free. We live on what Winston Churchill once called the “sunny uplands” of history, and I hope my books help children begin to understand that.
Q: What inspired you to write your first children’s book?
A: My grandchildren, first and foremost. When you have little kids in your life, it’s fun to communicate with them in different ways about things important to you, and history is very important to me.
Contributor: Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing
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Updated 12/27/06
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