Stella’s journey from “not being very good at this writing stuff” to realizing she has a narrative voice worth listening to gives hope and encouragement to so many students who can learn to do the same. But as a teacher I learned that far more students struggle with writing, and, like Stella, react with dismay when a teacher gives a writing assignment. It would be easy to create a character who knows how to capture the magic of an idea and turn that to lovely words on the page. Why did you chose to highlight Stella’s struggles with writing and expression?
You’ve shared that your Grandmother kept a journal, and throughout Stella by Starlight, we follow Stella on her own writing journey. As Stella became a real person to me, the task got easier. So, as usual, I began to focus on the character, not the situation or the time in history, or the reality. How could I possibly make this story enchanting for modern children, who were born with technology sprouting from their fingertips. How could I possibly capture the magic of my childhood memories, the wisdom of my grandmother, and the power of stories told on a front porch after dark? Memories are always unreliable. The book was difficult for me to write initially, not because it was personal, but because I felt somewhat intimidated by the task. The novel Stella by Starlight is fiction, but the essence of the story is based on pure truth.īecause of the personal relationship you have with this story, did you find it more difficult to write? Seventy-five years later, when she passed away, she gave the last remaining notebook to my father, who eventually gave it to me with the instructions, “Write my mother’s story.” It took me a very long time to finish what he asked me to do. She wrote in a journal at night, under the stars, because that’s the only time she could do it. She was a little girl living in 1915, yearning for more than working on a farm. Draper: My grandmother was my spirit muse, my writing inspiration, and neither she nor I knew it. Gi Hallmark: Please tell us about the inspiration behind Stella and the connection with your Grandmother Estelle. In this conversation, we talked to Draper about the inspiration behind Stella by Starlightand the basic goodness in humanity. She lives in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she taught high school English for twenty-five years and was named National Teacher of the Year.
Her Out of My Mindhas won multiple awards and has been a New York Times bestseller for more than a year. Draper is a New York Times bestselling author who has received the Coretta Scott King Award for both Copper Sunand Forged by Fire. Award-Winning Books by Sharon M.Gi Hallmark | The Children’s Book Review | February 5, 2014 Sharon M Draper
0 kommentar(er)
