The Whole Story in 150 Words!

My first draft of What I Call Life was almost 350 pages long. "Cut it down!" said my editor, so I did. I'm very happy that the publisher had the job of writing the synopsis and not me. I mean, how do you tell an entire story covering four generations in only a few paragraphs? It's an interesting writing exercise. You should try it sometime. I think these two paragraphs actually do a pretty good job of summing up the tale.

Cal Lavender is perfectly happy living her anonymous life, even if she does have to play mother to her own mother a whole lot more than an eleven year old should have to do. But when Cal's mother has one of her "unfortunate episodes" in the middle of the public library, she is whisked off by the authorities, and Cal is escorted to a seat in the back of a police car.

On "just a short, temporary detour from what I call life," Cal finds herself in a group home with four other girls, watched over by a strange old woman that everyone refers to as the Knitting Lady. At first Cal can think of nothing but how to get out of this nuthouse. She knows she doesn't belong there. It turns out that all the girls, and even the Knitting Lady, may have a lot more in common that they could have imagined.

(Okay, okay, I know. There are 154 words, not 150. Just seeing if you bothered to count.)

All My Obsessions in One Book!

One of the best things about writing this book was putting so many of my interests—okay, my obsessions—into one jammed-pack novel. While I was working as a journalist, I wrote a serious book for grown-ups about kids who were living in foster homes and juvenile prisons. I also volunteer in a writing program called The Beat Within, which is for teens who are locked up in juvenile halls. Over the years, I've gotten to know a lot of kids and heard so many interesting, sad, upbeat, tragic and perfectly hilarious stories about their lives. I thought: Every kid needs to hear these stories. That's why I created Cal and Whitney and the others.

While I was doing the research for both books, I learned about the Orphan Train movement. This was the largest migration of children the world has ever seen. Between 1853 and the early 1900s, more than 120,000 children were removed from city streets, placed on trains and sent West for a new start in life. It was a very controversial idea. The organizers believed that by removing kids from poverty and unsupervised homes and placing them in morally upright farm families, the children would have a better chance of escaping a lifetime of suffering.

Others thought it was little better than kidnapping.

Trains loaded with children stopped at more than 45 states, as well as Canada and Mexico. Some of the kids had a really terrible time in their new surroundings. Many were treated more like servants than members of a family. Did you know that the ultimate bad boy Billy the Kid was an Orphan Train kid? That was new to me. But other children fared pretty well and went on to live simple, normal lives. As adults, some were great successes, becoming doctors, lawyers, and teachers. There were even two governors.

There are some really good books out there if you want to learn more. I really like the Orphan Train series by Joan Lowery Nixon. There are also some interesting websites and a documentary produced by PBS that's full of great old photos and wonderful music.

(Kansas State Historical Society; copy and reuse restrictions apply)

If you've already read What I Call Life, you know that one of the characters joins a vaudeville troupe. I'm fascinated by that old time form of entertainment. From 1890 to 1920, more people went to vaudeville shows than any other kind of entertainment. Many famous people got their start or wound up on the vaudeville stage—magician Harry Houdini, comedian Bob Hope, The Marx Brothers and The Barrymores (Drew Barrymore's grandparents). If you don't know who these performers are, ask your parents and grandparents. They'll know for sure.

Personally, I've always loved any kind of variety show. The cornier the better. Stupid jokes! Acrobats! A flame-spewing Regurgitater! I was born way too late for the real vaudeville, but every neighborhood has the kid who bosses all the other kids into putting on shows. That kid was me—director, tap dancer, corny comic, vaudevillian wanna-be of a three-block radius in Northeast Philadelphia. Like the character Lillian in the book, I knew how it felt to desperately want to run away and make it big on the stage. But alas, I cannot sing at all! If you want to learn more about vaudeville and see where I got my inspiration for the World's Fastest Typist, check out the documentary, Vaudeville, which aired on PBS.

Here's Harry Houdini who got famous during the heyday of vaudeville by escaping from handcuffs, leg irons, straightjackets, prison cells, packing crates, a giant paper bag (without tearing the paper), coffins and the famous Water Torture Cell. No one could figure out how he did it. That's probably why he's smiling.

Now for my other obsession. Don't get me started on how much I like knitting!