My
family loved history. When I was a little girl, my mother read letters
to me which had been written by my great, great uncles, two brothers from
Rochester, NY. The brothers left home when they were young to fight
in the Civil War. Mother kept the letters and some pictures in a
black box decorated with gold hearts and flowers. I was heartbroken
when I learned that the youngest brother, George
Peocock, had been killed in an ambush in Virginia while he was still
a teenager.
I still have the letters. They are yellow now, the edges bent down and crinkled and the ink faded. These letters, and the story my mother wove as she was reading them, were the inspiration for my book My Brother’s Keeper, published by Down East Books, Camden, Maine, and cover illustration by Jim Sollers. I used parts from the letters in the story. In August 1861, my great, great uncle, Charlie Peocock, wrote:
“As I passed through one of the back streets of Alexandria I saw a building 3 stories high built of brick with the sign Price Birch & Co Dealer in Slaves. It struck me as something different from anything I had ever seen before.”If you go to Alexandria today, that building is still there, near the waterfront.
In addition to the letters and stories from my family, I did many months of research. Traveling to the places I was writing about, I climbed the rocky hill of Little Round Top at Gettysburg and stood in the peaceful Virginia woods where my great, great uncle had been killed in an ambush in 1863. I found that three-story brick building in Alexandria. The lettering, Price Birch & Co Dealer in Slaves is still visible. So I used it in my book (Take the Virtual Tour to see all of these sites).
As an author writing for young people, it is important to me that my books be historically accurate, even though they are fiction. I hope my books will spark an interest in young readers to find out more about this tragic, and yet awesome, war.
Future Books
I have plans for three more books, two about the Civil War and one about the years that followed the war. There will be connections between all four books. Josh Parish gives water to a dying Confederate soldier in My Brothers' Keeper. That kindness turns up in the book which I am writing now. I haven't decided on a title for this book, but it is about three children in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia from 1863 to 1866. |
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