Release Day! THE DECISION is officially out, and here's the introduction explaining why

 It's Release Day for The Decision! (That's the Amazon Kindle link, and the paperback is just one tab over -- but if you prefer to buy your paperbacks elsewere, here's the bookshop.org link.)

This book has a special origin. Of all the amazing family stories I could feature in a novel, this is the only one where the main character is not a family member, and not even known to our family -- except for the crucial few minutes described in the scene below. That lets me dive into what might have been his background, thoughts, and motivations without the creepiness of putting words in the mouth (or thoughts in the head) of someone I know and love.

So here's the book's Introduction, after which the narrative goes all the way back to 1915.

(As before, I'm not trying to fix the formatting Blogger imposes. Paragraphs in the actual book are indented and are not separated by a line of space.)

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Aside from a few unknown details, the incident presented at the beginning of this narrative is true. I know because the three boys with bicycles were my father and two of his brothers.

This incident cries out for explanation, but all I have — all my family has — is conjecture. So conjecture is what follows.

The bicycle accident

It was October of 1938, a cloudy day, not too warm and not too cold. A few weeks later, on November 9th and 10th, would come Kristallnacht, “the night of broken glass,” when mobs — including but not limited to SS troops — rampaged through Berlin and other cities killing Jews and destroying Jewish places of worship, schools, hospitals, shops, homes, and even businesses formerly owned by Jews. Kristallnacht would mark a turning point after which anti-Jewish laws, already proliferating, multiplied greatly and violence against Jews became widespread. Already, it was increasingly difficult for Jews to leave Germany, and it would only become more so.

The street was not one of Berlin’s broadest boulevards, but it had two lanes each way, with a central divider broad enough for die Elektrische — the electric trolley cars — to run down it. Big double-decker buses could often be seen going east and west. Those walking down the street or standing on the corner could occasionally hear the trolley conductor’s bell warning pedestrians to stand clear, or the screeching noise the car made as it rounded a curve. They might see, also, the little sparks that sometimes flew from where the rods touched the power line.

On this October day, three boys sped along the avenue on what looked like brand new bicycles, the kind a Jewish family might buy with the money they would not be allowed to take out of the country. The two older boys deftly avoided all obstacles, while the youngest appeared less experienced and skilled. The older boys took turns glancing back at the youngest, but they had little attention to spare from the vehicles and the small number of pedestrians — and the youngest boy had less.

And then a wobble or a swerve brought the youngest boy’s path across the path of an older man, his hair a mixture of gray and white, riding his own bicycle. The wheels entangled and brought both bicycles crashing to the ground. The clash and grinding of metal, the thud of falling bicycles and bodies, soon blended with mutters and gasps from the few onlookers as they saw that the old man’s bicycle had fallen close to the path of a bus approaching from behind.

The bus driver slammed on his brakes and jerked the steering wheel to the left, away from where the old man lay entangled with his bicycle. But meanwhile, a trolley bore down on bus, bicycle, and man. For a moment, the watchers fell silent as if each of them was holding his or her breath. All that could be heard was the warning clang of the trolley, and then the squeal of its brakes as it shuddered to a stop mere inches from the old man’s arm.

The few spectators became a crowd as passengers from both bus and trolley disembarked to see what had happened. Those who had seen the actual accident and the near disaster made haste to inform the newcomers in a babble of curious or excited conversations. The crowd now had leisure to look at the two older boys, who had dropped their bicycles, and the youngest boy climbing to his feet; the youngest was white and shaking. The smaller of the older boys stood straight and wide-eyed; the tallest and biggest boy looked quickly from side to side as if assessing the scene. Next to the biggest boy stood a tall man in a white raincoat, still in service among the Traffic Police after its introduction during the 1936 Olympics. The policeman wore his uniform beneath the raincoat; he had loosened the tie that came with it. Visible beneath the partly open collar of the uniform was the brown shirt of a Nazi Party stormtrooper.

The older boys glanced at the man and then went rigid and looked away. The biggest boy and the youngest boy could have passed for Aryans, but no one in the crowd could have missed the fact that the thin, wiry boy with the tightly curled black hair was Jewish.

The biggest boy assumed an air of conspicuous innocence as the policeman asked in a relatively quiet voice, “Did you boys have anything to do with this?”

The biggest boy opened his mouth, but the wiry boy was already saying, “Jawohl, Offizier." (Yes, Officer.)

The policeman looked at all three boys in turn, studying, scrutinizing, before he said, “Are you boys Jewish?”

The biggest boy twitched, as if longing to silence the one who had already spoken but knowing it would only make things worse. The wiry black-haired boy answered, “Jawohl, Offizier.”

Muttering arose from the crowd. The policeman bent closer, then stood up again. Softly, but in German’s command mode, he ordered, “DISAPPEAR.”

The boys’ bodies jolted with the shock. Then they seized their bicycles, righted them, and rode away, the two older boys neck and neck and the youngest straggling a little behind.

They survived.

 

The boys never knew the policeman’s name. But let’s call him Hans.

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I may well owe "Hans" my very existence. But all I can give him is this book.

another lovely review of The Decision

 I'm celebrating tomorrow's release of The Decision with another review, this one by Jill Franclemont, who posts reviews on her blog All Things Jill-Elizabeth. I appreciate how well Jill understood what I was trying to do in this story!

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This was an absolutely fantastic read. Wyle is a long-time favorite of mine, and her ability to immerse her readers in wildly disparate worlds and characters' lives is one of her absolute strengths. This time she's taken on the rise of Hitler and Nazism, and done it with a more historical eye than you typically see in a novel that is, at its heart, ultimately about deciding what type of person one wants to be.

By exploring the impact on one man's life of the pre-World War I German heydays, the difficulties of the war years, the retribution of the post-war era, and the rising tide of German nationalism in their wake, she has taken a LOT of political and social history and worked it into a very moving story of family, survival, and the power of choice - even when no "choices" seem possible (or optimal). With her trademark eye for detail, particularly around the everyday elements of her characters' worlds - (which are the precise type of details that bring a world to life), she has brought to the fore the conundrum of how to be an honorable person even when the world around one seems intent on forcing choices in other directions...

And all that is independent of the REALLY cool aspect of the story, which is the linchpin of the eponymous decision. Three boys. One soldier. One split second to decide. And the presentation of this moment in time at the opening and closing of the story made for such a powerful set up, particularly given the familial associations (explained thoroughly). I really enjoyed the way the story wrapped up, tying those pieces together and offering up possible consequences without making anything tidy or neat. It was open-ended without being unsatisfying, allowing the reader to draw their own conclusions - or, as I did, imagine multiple outcomes, all of which were equally plausible and offered different opportunities for thoughtful consideration.

This was a moving and interesting story and I can't recommend it highly enough!

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I couldn't ask for a nicer review! (I will, however, ask that those of you who obtain and read the novel leave some sort of review, on Amazon or elsewhere -- even if it's just a sentence or two. Thanks!)

Advance look at a review of The Decision

Midwest Book Review is a well-respected publication often consulted by libraries, so I love getting a good review from them! Diane Donovan's review of The Decision won't come out until September, but she is graciously allowing me to quote from it as I see fit. So here are a few excerpts from it.

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The Decision: A Novel of Germany belongs in any fiction collection where readers are interested in the experiences of Jews living in Nazi Germany. The story starts and concludes with a bicycle incident that, in fact, really happened. The events that lead to that culmination have been fictionalized to embrace drama and conjecture—but, under Karen A. Wyle’s hand, what a journey it is!

. . . The juxtaposition of daily living and the rise of social and political changes that will ultimately affect [three] boys’ lives are nicely done, involving readers in realistic scenarios that are thoroughly engrossing as well as thought-provoking.

Despite the plethora of books on the market about Nazi Germany and Jewish treatment, few cement the lines of how prejudice, racism, and conflict evolve as does The Decision: A Novel of Germany.

 

. . . Wyle presents this story from the point of view of a Christian boy growing to manhood in Berlin during and after World War I. This focus on providing insights about these events from a young person’s viewpoint allows her to narrow the focus from the broader adult-oriented spectrum of attention usually afforded to novels of Nazi Germany to the impressions and growth of young people, both German and Jewish, raised under the cloak of rising struggles and national pride.

 

This is why The Decision both stands out from the crowd as an important examination of how attitudes are changed and friendships buffeted by clashing ideologies, and lends to classroom or reading group discussion about all kinds of subplots intrinsic to a complete understanding of the Jewish and German experience.

 

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Thank you, Ms. Donovan and Midwest Book Review!

A Look Behind the Scenes: Researching Historical Fiction

 As some of you know, I've written four historical romance novels -- and I'll assert all day long that historical romance belongs squarely in the category of historical fiction (and, of course, the category of romance). In my Cowbird Creek books, I list research sources in the Acknowledgments section. In the first book, What Heals the Heart, that section took two pages. By the second book, What Frees the Heart, it was three times as long. In Book 3, What Shows the Heart, it stretched to a ridiculous twelve pages. By Book 4, What Wakes the Heart, I essentially gave up, including only the people with whom I'd directly communicated in an Acknowledgments section as short as the one in the first book, while putting a two-page list of research subjects in the Author's Note. 

All of which is to say that I took historical research seriously when writing historical romance. But for The Decision, my first non-romance historical fiction as well as the first novel connected to my family history, I took one step further. I've often corresponded with reference librarians and museum staff, but this time, I also hunted down and consulted professors of 20th century German history. Seven of them, in fact. These historians recommended books for me to read, answered what must have looked like peculiarly random questions (based on scenes in my rough draft), and in several cases, actually read my semifinal draft to flag errors. They were notably generous with their time and expertise, and I owe them a great debt of gratitude. (They are of course listed in the Acknowledgments.)

I've never visited Nebraska (in which the fictional small town of Cowbird Creek would have been located) or Berlin. But neither the late 19th century nor pre-World War II Berlin are accessible by any available transit -- except that of imagination, buttressed by the guidelines research can provide.

Third of three possible excerpts from The Decision for my reading-and-signing event on Release Day

 Here's the final excerpt I'm considering for a reading next week, in the evening of Release Day for my historical novel The Decision. The scene takes place in Berlin in the early spring of 1924. Mutti means "Mom" or "Mommy." Lotte is Hansi's little sister. The formatting below is a Blogger artifact.

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A few things were changing in the world around him. After always seeing the same bus stops and trolley stops and subway entrances, Hansi now noticed workmen building something new, digging down under the street for what must be a new subway station. He would have liked to go explore the diggings, but not by himself — and Otto was pretending not to care about such things, probably to show off how much older he was.

The other change made him nervous. Mutti always seemed to feel cold these days. At least, when Vati helped her get dressed, he would choose her warmest winter things. She used to care what colors she wore and take trouble to fix her hair just right, but no longer.

Sometimes she would wear her winter coat inside. Or she wouldn’t get dressed at all, but would wear one nightgown over another, and her coat over that. She was thin enough now that she didn’t look fat no matter how many layers of clothes she wore.

Then came a day that finally felt like spring. When Hansi came home from school, the stuffy air in the flat, after the soft fresh breeze outside, almost choked him. He went right to the window and opened it. Mutti stirred on the coach. “Oh . . . what a lovely smell. What is it?”

Hansi went over and squatted next to the sofa. “It’s the air, Mutti,” he said, fighting tears. “It’s the fresh air outside. It’s spring starting.”

Mutti struggled to sit up. Hansi got up to help her, and then sat next to her. She said softly, “I did hope I would see spring again. Thank you, Liebling.” She hesitated. “Would you help me get up, so I can walk to the window?”

Hansi bit his lip and put his hands under her arms. Leaning back for leverage, he tried to lift her. He couldn’t quite, the first time, and she fell back onto the sofa with a little gasp. But the second time, he got her to her feet. He held her around the waist, pulled her against his side, and moved very slowly toward the window. She wobbled, and he had to grip her so tight he was afraid he was hurting her, would even leave bruises. But she looked eagerly toward the window, and he kept going.

Finally he reached it. Slowly, carefully, he stopped next to the window and leaned forward so she could put her hands on the window frame. He stepped behind her, keeping his hands ready in case she started to fall sideways or backwards. But she stayed where he’d put her, and took a long, deep breath. She even hummed a few notes of a tune, one she used to sing to him and Lotte about flowers waking up in springtime. He looked at her cheeks to see if any color would come into them. But none did.

She turned her head a little, looking up and down the street. “I don’t see any flowers yet. Are there any flowers?”

Hansi swallowed hard and said hoarsely, “A few, here and there.” It might be true, though he hadn’t seen any. “I’ll look for some tomorrow and bring them home.”

Mutti smiled. “Thank you, sweetheart. Now I think I’d better sit down again. Will you . . .” She let out a breathy little laugh. “Will you escort me, good knight?”

Hansi grinned. He hadn’t heard her joke in so long! “With a good will, my queen.” He took her back to the sofa and helped her sit down, and then lie down. Then he went to Mutti’s and Vati’s bedroom, gathered up the quilt on the bed, and brought it to the sofa, covering her up. Vati could bring it back to the bedroom when they went to bed.

Mutti gave him another little smile, and then she was asleep.

 

The next day was Sunday. The family hadn’t gone to church for at least a year, but Hansi might have gone, to see if praying for Mutti would do any good, if he didn’t have more urgent business. He walked all over the city, looking for a flower, any flower, to pick for Mutti. He stopped home in midday to rest a little, and Lotte came to ask him, “Where have you been? Are you going out again?” At his nod, she clutched his sleeve and said, “Please let me come too! I won’t be any trouble, I promise!” And then, with a dramatic sigh, “I want somewhere to go!”

He hadn’t spent much time with Lotte lately — or in a long time, really. She could use as much fresh air as he could give her. And she was still somewhat lower to the ground, so maybe she’d have more luck finding flowers. “All right. Get your jacket — it’s chilly outside.”

They ended up stopping often, of course. And Hansi let Lotte snuggle up to him when she got cold, which made things take even longer. But as the sun was setting, Lotte found a flower. He carried it home, but when they got there, he let Lotte be the one to give it to Mutti. At least Lotte was nice enough to say, “Look what Hansi and I found! Look, Mutti!”

Mutti reached out for the flower. Her hand shook, and Hansi hurriedly stepped in to guide Lotte’s and Mutti’s hands toward each other. Mutti took the flower and brought it up to her nose. Hansi hadn’t thought to sniff it, so he didn’t know whether Mutti was telling the truth when she murmured, “How nice it smells! Thank you, darlings.” Whether that was true or not, Hansi had done his best.

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Please comment and tell me which of these three passages you think would be of most interest to people attending an author event! The first two passages are here and here.

Second of three possible excerpts for the reading I'll do on Release Day for historical novel The Decision

To recap: my novel The Decision comes out on Thursday, August 15th, and I'll be doing a reading-and-signing event that evening. I'm trying to choose an excerpt to read, and I'm enlisting your assistance. The first excerpt is here, and the second follows. (Again, I'm not taking the time to reproduce the more standard formatting in the book.)

This actually takes place earlier than the previous excerpt, in spring/summer 1917. "Mutti" means "Mom" or "Mommy."

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Now that it was getting a little warmer, Mutti sent Hansi out sometimes to try to get food. Aunt Gertrud had heard that the Central Market near the Alexanderplatz train station might have some bread, though she didn’t know where the bread or the potatoes to make bread could have come from. Mutti told Hansi to go and see and gave him a handful of ration cards. She’d saved them up, since there hadn’t been any bread anywhere for so long.

He couldn’t walk very fast, so it took him a long time to get there. When he’d reached the train station and was almost at the market, he smelled something bad, something rotten. He should go straight to the market, but he really wanted to know what smelled so awful, so he got closer and tried to see.

At first he didn’t see anything different, but then he saw a whole lot of people standing around near some train cars, pointing and yelling. He crept up behind the people and carefully wormed his way toward the front. Then he saw that the cars were leaking. There was some sort of liquid coming out of them, and that’s what smelled. And there were some police standing around it, standing very straight as if they were on guard, and acting like they didn’t mind the smell.

He looked around for a grownup who didn’t look as angry and wasn’t very big. He found a woman, as thin as everyone these days, wearing an apron and wringing it in her hands but not yelling. He tapped her on the arm and said timidly, “What is that stuff that stinks so much?”

He’d thought her voice would be quiet, but it was more of a wail. “It’s food! At least, it used to be food! The government found some profiteers and took the food away from them, and then they just left it in those cars to rot! It’s just sitting there rotting, and the police just stand there as if it were still worth something and they had to keep anyone from stealing it! Why do they bother?” She finally shook her fist the way some of the others were doing, and then slumped her shoulders, turned, and walked away.

Hansi stared at the police. He hadn’t thought for a long time about the policeman who helped him when he got lost, but now he remembered, and looked to see if he was there guarding the train cars. None of them looked familiar. Would that policeman have stood around the stinking cars like the others? He didn’t want to think so.

Hansi turned and walked away, dragging his feet, until he got to the market. No one at the market had any bread. Even the feed baskets for the cart horses were empty, except for a few broken bits of brittle-looking hay. He turned around and walked home.

Mutti looked at him and sighed. She didn’t seem surprised that he wasn’t carrying bread. He pulled the ration cards out of his pocket and held them out for her, but she just stared at them. She stared so long it started to scare him, and he said, hearing his voice shake, “Mutti? What is it?”

Mutti spun around and ran to where she kept her purse, then ran back and stuck both hands into it. Her hands jerked around inside it before she pulled out two big handfuls of ration cards, at least twice as many as she’d given him before. And then she laughed, a crazy sort of laugh, and kept laughing, and threw all the coupons up in the air. She grabbed more coupons and threw them in the air too, laughing all the time. Hansi had seen paper confetti once, and it looked like that, except the bigger pieces of paper fell down faster, fell all over the floor.

Otto ran in to see what was going on. This time Mutti threw cards right at him. “Have some rations! Everyone, come and get some rations! There’s plenty for everyone, as long as all you want is cards!” Then she scooped up one of the cards from the floor and stuffed it in her mouth, chewing at it with all her might.

Otto hurried to her and grabbed her chin, pulling it down so she couldn’t keep chewing. “Spit it out, Mutti!” he begged, in a tone Hansi had never heard from him before. “Please, Mutti, spit it out!”

For a few moments, Mutti tried to keep chewing, struggling against Otto’s grip. Then she stopped and let her mouth sag open. Otto reached in and pulled the wad of paper out of her mouth, once and again, until he’d gotten all of it that he could reach.

Mutti walked slowly to the sofa and sat down all at once, as if she were falling instead of sitting. Otto walked over, slowly, as if afraid of what might happen next, and sat down beside her. Hansi came last, sitting as close to her as he could on her other side, burrowing against her as if he could hide there. They sat like that for a long time.

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Now I need to pick the third possible excerpt! In the meantime, here's the Amazon preorder link and the book cover (below).

First of three posts including possible passages for upcoming reading

In six days, on Release Day (August 15) for my historical novel The Decision, I'll be doing a reading and signing event at our wonderful local bookstore Morgenstern's. I haven't yet chosen what passage to read . . . and that's where I hope you, my Facebook readers, will weigh in. I'm going to post three passages -- in separate posts, so please check for the others -- and ask you to tell me, in the comments, what you think people attending the event would find most interesting and intriguing.

Here's the first. It takes place in Berlin during autumn 1919 (about a year after World War I ended). "Vati" is the German equivalent of "Dad" or "Daddy."

(The formatting here includes that space between paragraphs as well as the indents, and I'm not going to take the trouble to find out how to change it. Forgive me.)

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Every once in a while, Vati took to grumbling about the Jews again — that they had betrayed Germany, that no true German should trust them, that they were sneaky and sly, that they ran shops and cheated their customers. But how could Hansi recognize a Jew, so he would know to be careful? No one had explained that.

So he asked Vati.

Vati smiled and said, “That’s good, Hansi, that you want to know. There might even be Jewish students at your school, and you need to know that.” He stopped and stroked his chin. Hansi had the feeling Vati would have liked to puff on his pipe, if he could still afford to smoke. “There are a few ways to spot a Jew. To start with, there’s how they look. They have big, hooked noses — a little like the number 6, except backwards.” Vati showed Hansi with his finger how long and hooked a Jew’s nose would be. “And they have dark, beady eyes — with their eyelids half closed, to make it harder for you to look them in the eye or read their expressions.”

Hansi nodded, hoping he could remember all these details.

“Their skin is darker, like the Italians. Usually they have black, curly hair, greasy, or else all curled up tight, almost like the Africans you’ve seen in pictures. But sometimes they have red hair. It might mean that someone in their family, generations ago, betrayed his race and married a Jew. Or it might be something they do to try to disguise what they are.

“I should have told you all this before, my son. Now you are armed with information, and can spot these enemies before they can weaken you or do you harm.”

 

At school the next day, Hansi studied his fellow students. None of them had red hair. Some had darker hair and some lighter. None of them had a big hooked nose, but Samuel’s nose stuck out more than some, and he had curly hair that was darker than Hansi’s. Hansi waited until school was dismissed for the day and went up to Samuel before Samuel could run home to some Jewish hideaway. He marched right up to him and asked, “Are you a Jew?”

Samuel stared at him as if puzzled. “Ja. So?”

Now what? Hansi couldn’t kick him out of the school. He settled on, “I just wanted to know, so I can . . . can keep an eye on you. In case you start any Jew trouble.”

Samuel grabbed Hansi’s arm and pulled him aside from the stream of students leaving the school. “That’s enough, you Ignorantin! I’ll fight you here and now!” He put up his fists.

Hansi looked at his own hands and back at Samuel’s. “You’d fight me? But Jews are cowards!”

Samuel spat at Hansi. Some of the spit touched Hansi’s hands, and he wiped them on his pants as hard as he could. Meanwhile, Samuel was shouting, “My father is a war hero! He won a medal! You should be such a coward!”

A medal? Not even Vati had won a medal — or had he, and just not wanted to brag about it? Meanwhile, the two of them were attracting attention. So far it was only other boys, but a teacher or even the headmaster could show up any minute. Samuel looked around as if he were thinking the same thing, Jew or no. He turned back to Hansi, shook one fist at him and said, “We can finish this around the corner, if you’re not a coward.” He pointed in the direction of the nearest intersection.

Hansi squared his shoulders and said, “Sure.” He tried to think as Samuel stalked off toward the corner. Vati would want him to fight, and be proud of him for doing it. Mutti, though, might cry or scold or both, even if she hated Jews as much as Vati did. Did she? Hansi didn’t even know.

He trudged to the corner, wondering if he had any way out of a fight he didn’t much want. It was a hot day, especially for October — that must be why he was sweating.

 

Samuel was waiting. He didn’t look scared, which would have helped . . . but he didn’t look as mad as he had before. As Hansi walked up, Samuel said, “I’m ready to fight if you are. But if you don’t want to, I won’t make you.”

Hansi didn’t want to. He should want to, but he didn’t. It wasn’t just that he’d probably get hurt, and that Mutti would fuss. Samuel seemed like a good enough fellow. And there must be something wrong with how he’d understood Vati . . . or even, little as he wanted to think it, with how Vati understood Jews, because Samuel didn’t look that much like what Vati had said he should, and he didn’t seem sneaky. And if he was a coward, what did that make Hansi?

Vati would want him to fight. But if he didn’t tell Vati about the Jew at school, Hansi wouldn’t have to disappoint him or get in trouble about it. Hansi shifted his weight and said, “I won’t make you, either.”

Samuel stuck out his hand and said, “Shake on it?”

It would be rude to say no. Touching a Jew couldn’t be that much worse than talking to one and deciding not to fight him. Hansi shook hands, and then turned and ran home through the heat.

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So that's the first of three possibilities!

Attention, Music Teachers

In preparing for the release of my picture book biography A Boy Who Made Music: The Extraordinary Life of Joaquin Rodrigo, it hadn't initially occurred to me to make an attempt at getting the attention of music teachers. But a couple of people who responded enthusiastically to my posts about the book have flagged music teachers, or groups of music teachers, they knew -- and it does sound like a good idea.

So hey, music teachers: please take a look! Here's the description.

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Joaquin Rodrigo was a brilliant Spanish composer, writing music for piano, violin, chorus, and guitar. He was also, from the age of three, almost completely blind.

This picture book follows Joaquin from carefree early childhood through his life-altering illness, his discovery of classical music, and his successful career and family life. Joaquin's story can inspire children to dream beyond the apparent limitations suggested by circumstance.

The book's back matter includes multiple activities and enrichment materials.

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The paperback and hardcover editions are available on Amazon and bookshop.org, as well as in a host of other retailers' websites (and probably a few bricks-and-mortar bookstores) (and a few libraries as well).

Oh, and here's the cover!

Release Day! -- and no more spelling issues

Wish me a happy Release Day! (Also, if you're so inclined, you can wish me happy birthday. I'm older than most of you and younger than many of you.) A Boy Who Made Music: The Extraordinary Life of Joaquin Rodrigo is now available far and wide (and near, for that matter) in paperback and hardcover editions, with the braille edition pending. If you use Amazon, it's here; if you prefer other retailers, you could, e.g., go to bookshop.org for it.

This is my first nonfiction picture book, and it posed various challenges (even before the confrontation with the pesky spelling of "diphtheria," now resolved). I'm pleased with how it came out, and owe manifold thanks to illustrator Tomasz Mikutel, watercolor artist and immensely patient human being.

Here's the art for the final double-page spread in the book, before the information and activities in the back matter.

What does this image represent or symbolize? Find the book and find out!

"More Haste Less Speed," or The Disadvantages of Hurrying

I have frequently had occasion to remind myself of a maxim uttered by Gollum, the often despicable but always pitiable character who played a crucial role in J.R.R. Tolkein's The Lord of the Rings. Gollum was a kind of hobbit, though he retained little obvious resemblance to hobbit-kind, and this maxim showed the pithy common sense one could expect from hobbits.

"More haste less speed."

I don't know how many times I've been hurrying through some task, driven by anxiety and/or an imminent deadline, and only belatedly remembered Gollum's bit of wisdom. And I can't even guess at how many times I'd have benefited from remembering it. An instance of the latter involved the hardcover edition of A Boy Who Made Music. The book contained a misspelling of "diphtheria," which I made haste to fix once I was informed of it. And in my haste, I failed to look through the replacement file in detail.

Through some bizarre, inexplicable foul-up, that file included most of the book twice. The same error occurred when I fixed the paperback file, but I caught it there. And my memory of catching it kept me from realizing that I'd missed it, first, with the hardcover file. But if I'd been careful and methodical, instead of scrambling in a panic because the release date was (then) only a week and a half away, I'd have made and uploaded a correct hardcover file as well.

So all you anxiety-ridden or impatient people out there, heed my warning and learn from my mistake. 

I'm now waiting for the doubled-up version to get through the proofing process so I can nix it and upload a corrected corrected file. Sigh.

Meanwhile, here's the spread introducing the consequences of Joaquin's illness. 

And lest you think the book is relentlessly downbeat, here's a fanciful depiction of how much he loved listening to music.

Tomorrow, I'll post the gorgeous final illustration in celebration of Release Day -- though I think I'll keep the text as a surprise/reward for those who actually hunt down or buy the book. In the meantime, the paperback is already available for purchase, one day early (go figure!) -- as is the hardcover, if you want that shall-we-say-simplified spelling of diphtheria.

 Progress! The paperback edition of A Boy Who Made Music now spells "diphtheria" correctly, so if you prefer the more cumbersome correct spelling, you can preorder the paperback here or here or here or . . . from various other retailers. Please ignore the adjacent hardcover listings for another day or so, unless you prefer either (a) the easier-to-read spelling ("diptheria") or (b) a possible future collector's item. 

While I'm posting, I'll share another double-page spread from the book, one of my favorites. In fact, it was largely this sample illustration from watercolor artist Tomasz Mikutel that led me to collaborate with him on this project. The spread illustrates the fact that when Joaquin recovered from his illness, he could no longer see colors (or anything but some degree of light versus dark).

I plan to post on or before the August 4th release date with at least one more spread for you to peek at, and again, if necessary, when the hardcover edition finally gets its spelling straight. 

Meanwhile, August is Romance Awareness Month, so if you enjoy historical romance set in the USA in the late 19th century -- or think you might -- you could take a look at my Cowbird Creek series.