Kidsbiographer's Blog

Glenn Stout has written many sports biographies for young people, including the Good Sports series, a group of collective biographies with inspiring stories about athletes who have oversome adversity or shown resilence. He also edits The Best American Sports Writing. This week, he chatted with Kidsbiographer about the latest edition to his Good Sports series, From Hardships to Championships, a collective biography of baseball players from tough backgrounds.

Kidsbiographer: You’ve been a sports writer and baseball fan for some time, so you were probably quite familiar with the men you profiled for From Hardships to Championships. However, research can uncover new angles on even familiar figures. During your research, which new facts or anecdotes about your subjects most surprised you?

Glenn Stout: I was most surprised by Ron Leflore’s story. I knew he had served time in prison, but I had no idea just how much he had to overcome. He grew up in terrible circumstances, immersed in crime and substance abuse from a very young age, and was on a path that, without baseball, probably would have resulted in his incarceration for life. But in prison, he started playing ball, enjoyed some success and was encouraged when he was told he had a future in the game. What is so sad is that the kind of prison sports program that saved Leflore are very rare these days. Due to lacks of funds and overcrowding, those opportunities don’t really exist anymore.

Kidsbiographer: The book’s biographies contain a lot of difficult subjects: poverty, abusive parents, drug abuse, mental illness, crime. Which of these topics did you find hardest to present to a middle-grade audience, and how did you approach it?

Glenn Stout: They are all difficult, but I’ve found the best way to write about them is to be very straightforward, very direct. Kids can tell when you are glossing over something, and they are very sophisticated. I was particularly aware of this in regard to Joe Torre’s abusive father. His abuse to Joe wasn’t physical as much as it was mental and emotional, and I wanted to communicate Torre’s anxiety in a very real way, to show his fear, and show kids that’s not right.

Kidsbiographer:  From Hardships to Championships contains several remarkable stories of perseverance and success in the face of almost unimaginable odds. Which of the athletes’ stories did you find most compelling, and why?

Glenn Stout: Torri Hunter’s story really gets me because it is so immediate to so many kids today who grow up in a gang environment. His story contained some very practical lessons in how to negotiate that background, what steps to take to free yourself from that path, and, just as importantly, how he now sees his role and helps others choose a better way through education. That’s a huge problem and his story and his approach is very instructional.

Kidsbiographer: If you could have written a longer version of this book, who are some of the other baseball players you would have included?

Glenn Stout: Oh, there are so many. Sadly, I could have had done another 20 books like this about baseball players alone, and a similar number from other sports. But if I ever do another baseball volume, I think I would be sure to include the story of Jays pitcher R.A. Dickey, who has had to overcome the impact of sexual abuse. In the wake of the Penn State scandals, that’s an enormous issue and kids need to feel empowered to talk about abuse to responsible, caring adults, and help stop that cycle.

Kidsbiographer: What do you hope kids will take away from From Hardships to Championships?

Glenn Stout: That no circumstance is hopeless, and there are ways to succeed in spite of your background and upbringing. Sports is only one of many paths that help, but it is one that is familiar and available to almost everyone. It doesn’t mean you have to be a professional, or be any good – you just have to spend your time doing something positive. They don’t realize it, but that’s what reading is doing as well; every minute a kid is reading, is a minute he or she is not getting in trouble or being abused. Add up those minutes, and you’ve started a path to a better future.

Kidsbiographer: Would you like to discuss any current or upcoming projects?

Glenn Stout: I’d love to continue this series, but as of the moment, despite the fact that 5 of 6 titles have been JLG selections, critical response has been terrific, the titles have sold well, and fit into the “common core” being put into place, its future is uncertain. Everyone says we need books like this, particularly for boys, but if the major retailers don’t stock them, they are hard to sustain. You know, if we include the 39 Matt Christopher sports biographies that I wrote, I’ve probably sold more than one million books to this age group. Yet major retailers and publishers don’t seem to recognize that. It’s mindboggling.

At the present, I am spending most of my time editing long-form sports journalism, and continuing my work as series editor of The Best American Sports Writing.

Catherine Reef has written young adult biographies of writers, including The Brontes, Jane Austen, and Ernest Hemingway, and composers William Grant Still and George Gershwin. This year, she published Leonard Bernstein and American Music, a biography of legendary conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein. Earlier this week, she spoke with Kidsbiographer about the challenges and joys of sharing his life and work with young people.

Kidsbiographer: Can you discuss your personal relationship with Bernstein’s music and the musical research you did to write Leonard Bernstein and American Music?

Catherine Reef: Like many Americans of my generation, I grew up watching Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts. In fact, my fifth-grade teacher showed them to our class so often that my parents joked about her having a crush on Leonard Bernstein. She certainly admired him. His enthusiasm, his handsomeness, and his resonant bassoon of a voice made him a captivating figure.

The first music by Bernstein that I came to know well was the score to West Side Story. It was discordant and thoroughly contemporary, but it could also be achingly melodious and reminiscent of Beethoven. As I grew older I was intrigued by Bernstein’s Mass. Composers had been creating musical settings of the Roman Catholic liturgy for centuries, but Bernstein incorporated guitars, synthesizers and other modern elements to remake the form. I also grew to love the music from Candide, especially the breathless, exhilarating overture. Who else could have written it?

Although I had some familiarity with Bernstein’s music, I had much to learn before I could write about it with any kind of authority. I did a lot of listening—to his three symphonies, the Chichester Psalms, On the Town, and other works. I also did a lot of reading to find out what knowledgeable listeners had to say about Bernstein’s music, as well as what the composer himself had to say. Then I listened some more and thought about how to present everything I had absorbed in a way that would have meaning and value to my readers.

Kidsbiographer: What was the most interesting anecdote you unearthed about Bernstein during your research?

Catherine Reef: As a biographer, I love anecdotes because they help me to bring a subject to life, to give readers glimpses of the subject at home with family and friends or at work in the larger world. One such story is of Bernstein as a teenager staging a comic version of Carmen and other musical productions with his friends in Sharon, Massachusetts, where his family had a summer home. This brief look at young Lenny leading rehearsals and donning a red wig to play a leading role reveals something about Bernstein that is really true of many people. The interests and inclinations that direct our course in adulthood are often present in childhood.

Something that surprised me was the degree to which Bernstein’s Jewish heritage informed his life and work. Jewish themes inspired such compositions as his Jeremiah and Kaddish symphonies, for example, and throughout his life he was a strong and visible supporter of Israel. When Bernstein was launching his conducting career, his mentor, Serge Koussevitzky, urged him to change his name to one that disguised his Jewish background. Koussevitzky worried that anti-Semitism would hold his protégé back. But to Bernstein, making this change would mean denying who he was, and this he refused to do. “I will have to make it with the name Leonard Bernstein or not at all,” he said. This anecdote reveals not only his identification with Jewish culture and faith but also his refusal to bow to prejudice. Acceptance—achieved through understanding—is a theme that runs through his life.

Kidsbiographer: What was the most challenging aspect of writing Bernstein’s story for young adults?

Catherine Reef: Describing music for young readers is a big challenge. There is nothing more elusive than music, so how does a writer convey its sound or its meaning in words?

One piece I paused to describe was Bernstein’s Symphony No. 2, Age of Anxiety, which was completed in 1949. This is a programmatic piece in that it follows the progress of a poem by W. H. Auden with the same title. Auden’s poem delves into the unconscious mind, the seat of our deepest thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. I therefore pointed out how Bernstein suggests this venture into psychological territory with a series of descending low notes played on a piano.

Both the poem and the symphony were written in response to the horrors experienced and witnessed during World War II. At the time, many people questioned the existence of God in a world that permitted millions to be murdered. I explained that this is why Part 2 of Bernstein’s symphony begins with a dirge. But Bernstein could never be satisfied with a rejection of faith. Affirmation was more in keeping with his nature, and for this reason his symphony ends in rich, full tones.

It is also a challenge to decide how extensively to write about a piece of music, because I don’t want to say too much. I like to give my readers a foundation on which to base their own listening, because I hope they will make their own discoveries and form their own opinions. They should not be too influenced by what I say of think.

Kidsbiographer: Leonard Bernstein and American Music was written for the educational market; however, it’s also a very personal biography. How did you approach educating young adults while introducing them to Leonard Bernstein as a person?

Catherine Reef: A biography is a literary creation, a portrait in words of a well-known man or woman, a life story shaped into a cohesive narrative. Very simply, each of my biographies is my effort to understand an individual on the basis of his or her experiences, achievements, and words, as well as the observations of people who knew the subject, and then to communicate what I have learned to the reader. My approach is the same regardless of the publisher; I can’t conceive of writing a biography any other way.

When I write for young people about a creative person such as Leonard Bernstein, though, I want my book also to serve as an introduction to the subject’s work. I therefore present his or her most important contributions and discuss in some detail the works’ significance, how they were received, and how they were innovative. I place them in historical and artistic context, so readers can see how they reflected their time and how they measure up against pieces by other composers that preceded them.

Kidsbiographer: What do you hope young readers will take away from Leonard Bernstein and American Music?

Catherine Reef: I would like my readers to gain awareness of a man who had a huge impact on our culture—on our world, really—in the twentieth century, and whose influence endures. I also hope they become familiar enough with Bernstein’s music for it to continue giving them enjoyment throughout life. Finally, I hope readers will be left with the satisfaction that comes from having read a good book.

Kidsbiographer: Would you like to discuss any current or upcoming projects?

Catherine Reef: Readers can look forward to two new books from me in the coming year. In the fall, Morgan Reynolds plans to release the long-awaited Poetry Came in Search of Me: The Story of Pablo Neruda. I feel fortunate to be introducing the famed Chilean poet and humanitarian to children in the United States. With its simple language and vivid imagery, much of Neruda’s poetry is accessible to young people, so I hope readers will go on to explore it further on their own. Then, in spring 2014, Frida and Diego: Art, Love, and Life will be out from Clarion. This book delves into the lives, marriage, and work of two remarkable Mexican painters. And right now I am busy with two challenging projects. The first is a biography of Noah Webster, the author and teacher remembered best for writing the first comprehensive American dictionary of the English language. The second is a book on slavery in North America during the colonial years. Although the use of African American slaves was to become a strictly southern practice, slavery existed in every one of the thirteen English colonies.

Amy Novesky has written children’s biographies of such artists as Frida Kahlo and Georgia O’Keefe. This autumn, she published Imogen: Mother of Modernism and Three Boys, a picture-book biography of modernist photographer Imogen Cunningham illustrated by Lisa Congdon. This past week, Novesky, who also works as an independent book editor, opened up about how her very personal connection to Cunnigham underlies Imogen.

Kidsbiographer: What sort of research did you do to write Imogen? What was the most surprising fact or anecdote you learned about Cunningham during the research process?

Amy Novesky: As with all of my books, I read every book about the person or the subject that I am writing about that I can find. There is no one definitive biography about Imogen, but I was greatly influenced by the book, Mother’s Days, published by Little Bear Press, which focuses on Imogen’s photographs of her family. But books are not enough. They are secondary sources. It’s important to connect with primary sources if and when you can. With this book, I lucked out in that I connected with Imogen’s granddaughter Elizabeth Partridge, who is an award-winning children’s book author herself. I had emailed her years ago to inquire about writing about her famous grandmother. I wondered if perhaps she was planning to write such a book, in which case I would have ceased and desisted. She never responded, which unnerved me a bit, and I put the idea aside for a few years, which is not unusual for me to do with my stories. But then I pulled it out again one day, and, as luck would have it, Elizabeth was speaking at a bookstore near my house. I braved another email to her to see if she would talk with me about Imogen. She not only responded this time; she agreed to meet with me and to read my manuscript. She read my story closely and emphasized the importance of specificity, which I greatly appreciated. For example, I wanted to weave Imogen’s famous photograph of an unmade bed into the theme of the story: the idea that a mother of three didn’t likely have time to make her bed. But, in reality, this photograph was taken in the 1950s, long after Imogen’s sons were grown (the story is set in the early 1920s). Elizabeth pushed me to create a story that young readers would care about. Hopefully I succeeded. I also worked closely with her sister Meg, who runs their grandmother’s estate, and I viewed her documentary film, Portrait of Imogen And I had the privilege of meeting Imogen’s son, Betsy and Meg’s father, Rondal Partridge, the “mischievous twin” in my book. I interviewed him at his kitchen table at his lovely Berkeley home, over fresh baked bread and fresh apple juice. This is the first book that I’ve had access to and support from the immediate family of my subject, and it was invaluable. I don’t think I would have done this book without it.

A surprising fact about Imogen: I seem to recall reading that there were belly dancers at her memorial. I love that. I had a belly dancer at my wedding. So San Francisco….

Kidsbiographer: Cunningham, like you, lived in San Francisco. How did the city inform your writing in Imogen?

Amy Novesky: Like Frida Kahlo living and painting in San Francisco, which is the subject of my book, Me, Frida, the city of San Francisco definitely inspired me in writing Imogen’s story, as did the city of Seattle, and especially, Queen Anne, where Imogen grew up, and which I have a connection to; my sister lives there. Imogen was so loved by the city of San Francisco, a day was named after her (November 12th). She also had a connection to Sausalito, the town in which I live, just north of San Francisco. She was friends with a circle of artists who lived here in the 1960s, and she even starred in a provocative little short film called “The Bed” which was filmed in the hills above my house. And, I’ve had more people tell me that they met or knew Imogen. She’s a local girl.

Kidsbiographer: Throughout Imogen, you employ a spare prose style, not unlike Cunningham’s stripped-down, yet lyrical approach to photography. I especially enjoy the parts of the narrative in which you list her various subjects, often in short sentence fragments. These passages capture both the rhytm of photography and Cunningham’s acute eye for beauty. How did you compose this part of the book?

Amy Novesky: It’s no secret I’m a big fan of spare and lyrical writing. And I like lists. With regards to the artists I write about, including Imogen, I think the art speaks for itself, and I really just try to get out of the way. Imogen, too, was an unsentimental person, and so I resisted being too flowery, despite many of her subjects being flowers. I wanted the language of the story to reflect her sensibility and her aesthetic; she didn’t expect life to be smooth and easy and beautiful. That said, she believed there is a little beauty in everything. That little beauty gave me permission to make the story a little pretty.

Kidsbiographer: As I noted in my review, Cunningham combined a career and motherhood in an era when most women could not freely choose either. What sorts of conversations do you hope Imogen will spark about women’s lives between kids and adults?

Amy Novesky: Imogen’s story resonates with me because I am also a mother and a working artist. I am a wife. I am a householder, a term I love: I am the holder of the house. I am the childcare. Being a mother is my primary work, of course. But I can’t not write. Not only because I love to, and because it fulfills me creatively, but because I must. My income is necessary for our family, and it’s all I know how to do! Like Imogen in the story, I work from home. I’ve been housebound. I wrote through my pregnancy and nursing a newborn. Frida, Imogen, and my Billie Holiday book are all products of that time. Much of my work is done in those stolen moments: while my son is at school, while he sleeps. But sometimes I need to work while he is by my side. That is just the reality of being a working/stay-at home mom. I’m lucky to be able to do my work with him, and that my work is related to kids. And I think it’s important that kids know that work is not separate from life, that it is important to the family, and hopefully something we take joy in doing it – be it washing dishes, folding laundry or photographing famous people.

Kidsbiographer: What’s the most gratifying feedback you’ve received about Imogen?

Amy Novesky: The most gratifying feedback I have received for the book was when I sent my advance copy, my only copy of the book, to Rondal Partridge, after hearing that he’d had a health scare. He’s in his 90s. I wanted him to have the book. His daughter Elizabeth sent me a photograph of him reading the book from bed. He was smiling. It meant the world to me.

Kidsbiographer: Would you like to discuss any upcoming projects?

Amy Novesky: My next book, Mister and Lady Day, about Billie Holiday and the dogs she loved, will be published in June. And I have no less than five stories out with editors now! Two are about artists, one is about baseball (a story I wrote with my son), one is about a family who sails around the world, and another is about the ocean. Cross your fingers for me.