Q & A with the Author & the Illustrator of THE MEMORY QUILT + A Teen Review + A Giveaway

To follow up on Georgie Bartlett's review of THE MEMORY QUILT, (Monarch Educational Services, 2024) here are author and illustrator interviews, a teen review, PLUS more!

INTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR LORI KEATING

CAROL: What were your hopes for this The Memory Quilt?

LORI:  I see The Memory Quilt as a catalyst that sparks deep conversations about death with children. My hope is that it will engulf them in a world where vivid colors interweave, where soft whispers and tearful laughter coexist harmoniously. Along this journey, they will experience the bittersweet fragrance of memories lingering in the air and feel the comforting warmth and hope that can emerge from the depths of grief.

CAROL: What was your inspiration for writing The Memory Quilt?

LORI: During a dinner with friends, we heard about their son's passing and how his brother repurposed his clothes as memory quilts for the family, which he gave as Christmas presents. This touching story stayed with me for years until I finally wrote The Memory Quilt. 

CAROL: Did you know of a young child who died?

LORI: Sadly, I have known multiple children who have passed away at very young ages.

CAROL: Why did you not mention why Jason died?

LORI: To connect with individuals who have experienced the loss of a child, I deliberately omitted Jason's cause of death. Regardless of the circumstances, grief is a universal experience that we must all navigate.

CAROL: Are the children based on anyone you know?

LORI: Grace and Jason are inspired by children who have gone through a difficult experience of loss. However, the two characters are not based on any specific individuals.

CAROL: Can you tell us about your publishing journey? How long did you work on it and how did you find Monarch?

LORI: It took several revisions and ample feedback from critique partners before The Memory Quilt was ready for submission. It wasn't my first attempt at breaking into the publishing industry. It all began with my debut novel, Butterfly Ink, which is scheduled for release in June 2024. Despite facing initial rejections from various agents, I finally discovered Monarch Press through a fellow critique partner who had recently signed with them. After submitting my manuscript, Jen Lowry, the publisher requested a full manuscript and then offered me a publication deal. Two months later, I found out that Jen was starting a new imprint, Caterpillar Books, which specializes in picture and chapter books. After I submitted several stories, Jen ultimately selected The Memory Quilt.

Becoming the first Caterpillar author is an exceptional honor, and the journey of collaborating alongside Jen has been an incredible privilege.

CAROL: What was your experience working with the Alyssa?

LORI: Alyssa is a skilled digital artist and a joy to work with. She even conceived the cover idea that portrays Grace reminiscing about her moments with Jason, clutching the quilt. Her stunning illustrations brought the story to life.

CAROL: How did your Christian faith influence this story?

LORI: My faith plays a significant role in shaping the stories I create. All my stories are designed to meet the needs of children, whether it's to help them deal with grief, provide a moment of levity, impart new knowledge, or allow them to see themselves in a story that relates specifically to their unique experiences.

                                    🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋

INTERVIEW WITH ILLUSTRATOR ALYSSA GRIZENKO

CAROL: Can you describe the process of creating the illustrations?

ALYSSA: I created the illustrations from both the written words of the story and from some notes that Lori had written about how she imagined the scene. Then I worked up the rough drafts and began the process of completing full illustrations for each page. Sometimes I would have a different idea for a scene than what was written in Lori's illustration notes, so I would run the idea by Lori to see which direction the illustration should go.

CAROL: Was the subject matter personal to you or difficult in any way?

ALYSSA: I loved the concept of a memory quilt to celebrate and remember the life of a loved one. My grandma was a quilter and I found myself thinking of her as I worked on the illustrations.

CAROL: As you worked on the illustrations, what were your hopes for the children who will read this book?

ALYSSA: My hope is that children experiencing loss would recognize that they are not alone in their grief. One of my favorite parts of Lori's story is that Grace's mom actively helps her daughter to process these painful emotions.

A TEEN REVIEW

The Memory Quilt is a story about loss.

We live in an age where loss, hurt, war, and general inhumanity are prevalent and on the rise. Because of this, wouldn’t it be wise to acquaint children - the next generation - with these weighty topics? We want them to be prepared.

Lori Keating’s book puts forth the topics of death and loss gently in the character Grace, who makes a quilt out of her deceased friend Jason’s old clothes. She makes the quilt as a gift for his grieving parents.

As Grace makes the quilt, she’s forced to remember the times she had with him, which makes her sad, but she learns to look to the future with hope and joy (giving the gift to his parents).

Overall, the illustrations fit nicely with the book. They are clear and easy to understand and support the story. Thank you, Lori Keating for this book! -Janelle Ekpo

THE TRAILER 

THE GIVEAWAY

If you are interested in winning this book, please leave a comment by December 18 along with your email address if you are new to my blog. If you share this on social media or sign up for my blog, I'll give you an extra chance to win. U.S. addresses only.

Congratulations to Gail Hurlburt who won The Double Crossing from my last giveaway. 

A TAKE-CHARGE GIRL Blazes Her Way To Congress: The Story of Jeannette Rankin. A REVIEW, 2 INTERVIEWS, and a GIVEAWAY

 From the moment the reader opens this book, she will know that Jeanette Rankin was a hard worker. As a teenager, Jeannette was someone who was as quick to help a hurt horse as she was to help her mother care for her six younger siblings. 

She was a "take-charge" girl.

REVIEW

Jeannette grew up in Montana, but in 1907 when she was 27 years old, she visited San Francisco. When she saw the destitute conditions of the residents in the tenements of Telegraph Hill, she pitched in to help the children. 

That's when she got her first big idea: she would become a social worker and help improve the lives of children and their families.

But, she soon realized that social work alone was not enough to change the lives of suffering families. She wondered, who had the power to improve health care, living conditions, and social services for the poor? Then she realized--it was the lawmakers.  But they were all men and didn't care about these issues.

In 1910, Jeannette threw herself into the suffragette movement and spent four years giving speeches all across the country. Along with other like-minded women she printed leaflets and organized meetings.

In 1914 Jeannette wrote to every (male!) voter asking them to support a woman's right to vote. After they won Jeannette had her next BIG idea. 

She decided to run for Congress.

She and her siblings sent postcards to every woman in the state. Jeannette Rankin clubs were formed. She vowed to improve labor, and housing conditions and to improve health care.

After a day of fretting and worrying, Jeannette found out she had won. She was the first Congresswoman in the United States!

On April 12, 1917, Jeannette strode into the Capitol to take her seat in the House of Representatives. 

BACK MATTER

There are seven pages of back matter which teachers and librarians will love. These include a not-so-positive poem that appeared in the NY Times shortly after Jeannette won her congressional seat, a timeline of her life, and a bibliography.

1917
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeannette_Rankin

AUTHOR INTERVIEW

Author Gretchen Woelfle is not new to writing about trailblazing women. She has written several other historical books as well as an award-winning middle-grade biography about Jeannette Rankin. 

Carol: Can you tell us a little about your research journey? What were some of the highlights?

Gretchen: Jeannette Rankin lived a long life: from 1880-1973. A TAKE CHARGE GIRL covers just a slice of that life, her childhood through to April 2, 1917, her first day in Congress. 

My research began conventionally, reading biographies and histories of women’s suffrage. Then I ordered the Jeannette Rankin Papers from the Schlesinger Library, at the Radcliffe Institute. They arrived on microfilm at my local library and I spent days browsing through Rankin’s newspaper clippings, official and personal letters, speeches, and articles which gave me anecdotes and quotes to add to the narrative. Photos online from the Library of Congress, the Montana Historical Society, and the University of Montana showed the times, places, and fashions that Rankin favored. 

But best of all were transcripts of hours of interviews she gave in 1972 as part of the Suffragists Oral History Project at the University of California, Berkeley. I read dozens of stories in her own words, describing her Montana childhood, her years in New York studying social work, her four years traveling the country giving thousands of suffrage speeches, enduring insults and abuse from men, befriending other progressive women, feuding with a few women’s suffrage leaders, and collaborating with her brother and four sisters.

I wrote a middle-grade biography, Jeannette Rankin: Political Pioneer, published in 2007 by Boyds Mills/Calkins Creek which covered her whole life.  That book was well-received, winning several awards, and appearing on Best Books lists. But eventually, it went out of print and Jeannette Rankin faded from bookstores and library shelves. 

I didn’t like that one bit! So I asked Carolyn Yoder, my Calkins Creek editor if she’d consider a picture book biography of Rankin. You see the result. 

Carol: That is fascinating! I never heard of an author being able to do that before. What challenges did you face distilling down your middle-grade biography to a picture book?

Gretchen: This format meant focusing on just one period of her life and one of her passions. I bypassed her lifelong commitment to pacifism, feeling that was too complex a subject for younger readers. Instead, I created a narrative arc that began with her caring for her younger siblings, moving to her social work with disadvantaged women and children, to political action to give women a voice in choosing leaders to pass social welfare laws and to become one of those leaders in Congress.

I showed her actions expanding from the personal, to the public, then to the political, driven by her unflinching determination to take charge of her own life, and blaze a trail for others to follow. That is the heart of the story I chose to tell.

ILLUSTRATOR INTERVIEW

Rebecca Gibbon lives in the U.K. but that doesn't prevent her from illustrating subjects from American history and culture.

Carol: Can you tell us about your choice of palette and favorite materials?

Rebecca: To be honest, I don’t actually think about the palette, I’m drawn to different tones of blue and shades of red. I actually used a lot of sepia brown ink, which is quite appropriate as all the photographs from that time period I used for research were in sepia.

I use a combination of acrylic inks, colored pencils, and gouache. The inks are so versatile and a little goes a long way. They can be used neat, like acrylic paint, giving a bright, intense coverage or watered down for more of a loose, watercolor effect. I also like using my fingers & thumbs to make unusual marks, so I look quite a mess after a day in the studio!

Carol: Please tell us about your research process. Is it hard being in Britain and illustrating an American story?

Gretchen: I love the thrill of delving into history when researching a new book, it takes me on a journey and I learn so much from it. I have many books on Edwardian fashion, the History of women’s rights, and old advertising books from the 1900s that I have amassed from past projects. I looked at vintage postcards of Montana & California, magazines, and advertising snippets and I use Pinterest as a scrapbook, trawling through images to find room interiors, fashion, hairstyles, pastimes, anything, and everything. I become completely immersed in that world and become so familiar with the subject, that by the time It’s been sent to the publisher, I feel like I’ve lost a friend, as I’ve spent months drawing and painting them. 

Before the internet, researching a project was trickier & more laborious, as information was harder to find. But so much information is available online, it makes things so much easier. Being British, there were some aspects of American History I had no idea about, such as how many stars and stripes there were on the USA flag in 1910…. But now I know!

My intention is to bring unsung, amazing, and groundbreaking women alive… I hope that I’ve achieved that! 

GIVEAWAY

This past week, Gretchen has been on a blog tour with her publisher, Astra Publishing. I'm happy to have been part of this tour and to offer a copy of A TAKE-CHARGE GIRL. If you want to win this book, please leave me a comment by February 16 along with your name and email address. If you are an educator or librarian, please include that information and your name goes in twice--including homeschool parents. (U.S. addresses only).

WANT TO READ MORE?

As a book reviewer and blogger, I find it interesting to see how others take a different approach to reviewing the same book. Here are three other blog posts highlighting A TAKE CHARGE GIRL.

Picture Book Builders

Behind the Scenes with Beth Anderson (A look at how Gretchen came up with the title)

Nerdy Books (An Illustrious Collaboration)