An article that I wrote is in the newest edition of Teaching Librarian magazine:
http://www.accessola.com/osla/site/showPage.cgi?page=about/magazine.htm
I had completely forgotten that I wrote it! I think I wrote it last spring. They’ve layed it out beautifully, with a photo of me and also the covers of many of my books and also some children’s art of my stories.
This article is called Hate Mail and is about my awful experiences when my picture book Enough came out in 2000 and I received hate mail and death threats. Enough is set during the famine in 1930s Ukraine which was instigated by Stalin and his henchmen to liquidate Ukrainians. It succeeded to the tune of 10 million people. My picture book (illustrated by Michael Martchenko) is about one girl and her father and how they trick the dictator and save one village from famine. Here’s my webpage on the book:
http://www.calla.com/enough.html
I was gobsmacked once the book was out to realize that there are people still alive who think that Stalin was a hero and they were offended by my book, which portrayed him as a bit of a buffoon. There were also people who thought that if Stalin killed 10 million Ukrainians, then they must have “done something to deserve it.” Sigh.
Thank goodness that as each year goes by, more Stalin myths fall to the wayside and people realize he was as evil — or more evil — than Hitler. What we forget, we’re bound to repeat.