Author Elise Hooper: Filling My Dear America Series Void
…Part of my weekly series Sunshine with A Slant: Inspiration and Introspection…
Kathleen Kelly, owner of bookstore The Shop Around the Corner played by Meg Ryan in You’ve Got Mail, passionately states: “When you read a book as a child, it becomes a part of your identity in a way that no other reading in your whole life does.” She is oh so very right. Many books from my childhood have made a lasting impact on who I am today. Books such as Little Women, the Animorph Series, and the Dear America series.
The Dear America books were a crowd favorite at the scholastic book fair in the 90s and early 00s. The physical copy of the book felt important with its hard cover, aged paper, and color coordinating ribbon bookmark. Each book told the story of a young girl in the form of a diary during an important time in history. My personal favorites included Across the Wide and Lonesome Prairie: Diary of Hattie Campbell by Kristiana Gregory and So Far from Home: The Diary of Mary Driscoll, an Irish Mill Girl by Barry Denenberg. This series not only taught me diverse feminist history but also made me feel not alone. If a girl on the Oregon trail also had boy problems perhaps I too would get through this. I loved these books.
One day when wandering through the bookstore checking out the books, I stumbled upon a title that caught my eye, The Other Alcott by Elise Hooper. As a Little Women fan, I was intrigued and grabbed the book to read the back cover. This book told the story of May Alcott, the real life woman who Amy March was based on. It sounded right up my alley. I purchased the book and began my Elise Hooper fandom.
Elise Hooper’s novels have filled the void left in my adult life by the Dear America series. Her historical fiction novels tell the real life stories of women who were largely left out of history books. Women such as May Alcott mentioned above. Fictional Amy March in Little Women always came off a bit selfish but Hooper helped me understand real life May’s own artistic struggles living in the shadow of sister Louisa. Hooper’s next novel Learning to See tells the story of photographer Dorothea Lange. Lange took iconic images of the Great Depression and the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. Fast Girls tells the stories of runners Betty Robinson, Helen Stephens, and Louise Stokes who were members of the first integrated women’s Olympic team competing in the 1936 summer games in Berlin, Nazi Germany. These important stories help us “understand the past and draw important connections to our own times.” Just like the Dear America series did for fourth grade Shannon.
Childhood reading enables us to explore the people we want to become. It makes us more empathetic and well rounded people. I am so incredibly thankful for the role the Dear America series played in my life. I am equally happy to continue that education with Elise Hooper’s novels. Her next book Angels of the Pacific set to be released in 2022 will educate me about the Angels of Bataan, nurses who were held prisoner during the occupation of the Philippines in World War II. I cannot wait.
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