Sometimes history can shed light on the darkest of times and remind us that there is hope in the world.
Christy Mandin has visited my blog once before. She is a children’s book author, illustrator, and surface designer. She grew up in rural Georgia and credits her country life of solitude as an only child for much of her love of books and nature. You’ll find this love of nature along with nostalgia, magic, and whimsy woven into the fabric of her art. Christy works mostly digitally now that she has tiny humans underfoot. When she isn’t drawing, she can be found quilting, gardening, or cozied up with a cup of coffee and the latest period drama on BBC or PBS. Christy currently lives in Georgia with her husband, four children, and a menagerie of animals and insects. You can learn more about Christy at her website or by following her on Instagram.
BITTERSWEET is a creative nonfiction picture book. It tells the true story of a WWII pilot who had compassion on German children. Yet the story is told through a child’s point of view. It is this imaginary child who really brings home the struggle and realities of a war-torn country. This book is powerful for many reasons that I truly don’t want to spoil. Suffice it to say that this story is beautifully written and more timely than any one could imagine from my brief descriptions here.
Welcome back Christy!
Me: Up until now you’ve been primarily known as a fiction picture book writer. Nonfiction has a lot of rules. Were you intimidated to try this new genre? Why write nonfiction?
Christy: While my picture books have been fiction up until this point, many of them contain a non-fiction element. I do love back matter, even in a fiction picture book! You’ll find factual back matter in 3 of the 4 books I published before BITTERSWEET – in LUCKY, Millie Fleur’s Poison Garden, and in Millie Fleur Saves the Night. Whether I’m writing fiction or nonfiction, many of my stories are born from factual information that I’ve stumbled upon that made my brain light up. So it wasn’t too intimidating to try this genre because the real world influences so much of my work anyway. Plus, I knew I wanted it to be “nonfiction-ish” – meaning I was already prepared to bring fictional elements into the story to make the very big themes and topics more accessible for the 4-8 age group that picture books are often tailored for. I think nonfiction is important for this age group because many of them are entering the age of reason – they’ve internalized a conscience, they’re grappling with right and wrong, and they’re increasingly able to process others’ emotions and work out that those emotions might be different from their own. So nonfiction – showing young readers the real world – is just as important as stretching their imaginations with a fictional world.
Me: I absolutely love this story about candy bombers and the way you’ve told it. What gave you the idea to tell this story as a picture book?
Christy: On February 16, 2022, Gail Halvorsen, the original candy bomber aka Uncle Wiggly Wings, died at 100 years of age. On February 18th I came across a PBS documentary about him and his fellow candy bombers that absolutely emotionally wrecked me. And on February 24th, Russia invaded Ukraine and I got serious about working out the manuscript for this picture book. Because the argument is always, “its complicated,” right? But the power of children’s literature is that there’s an opportunity and a profound responsibility and privilege of capturing children’s hearts in a way that sticks with them. The hope is they then grow into the grown-ups who, perhaps, make things less complicated and a whole lot kinder.
Me: I love the way you’ve told this story through a make-believe child’s eyes. You were quick to admit Hilda wasn’t real in the back matter, but explained that many of the other people in your story were real. Why was it important to you to tell the story this way?
Christy: During my research I came across so many profound tidbits of information that weren’t always attributed to a named person. Gail himself didn’t know the names of all of the lives he touched. So, when using his accounting of events or a newspaper article or another pilot’s recounting, it became clear that an amalgamation of those people would have the biggest impact in the story, rather than one child’s experience.
Me: Can you talk about your research process? How much research did you have to do to help you write this book? Anything particularly hard to find or any specific pieces of research that helped?
Christy: The research process was emotionally complex and lengthy. This was a time in history that’s hard to come to terms with. And I needed to distill all of my research down into a developmentally appropriate manuscript that was 1,000 or so words. How do you convey to a 4-8 year old the nuance of the events of any post-war environment, much less one many grown-ups have a hard time talking about and reckoning with all these years later?
One particularly challenging portion of the research came when I was asked to make the book more diverse. Publishing has had to come to terms over the years with the fact that books have historically been too white, too heteronormative, too ableist, too eurocentric. The particularly challenging part of this story was that I was dealing with a very narrowed geographical focus – Post-war Berlin, specifically West Berlin, in 1948 and 1949. The reason the story of the airlift even exists is because diversity was massacred – Jews, Black people, people with disabilities, Roma, Soviet Prisoners of War, LGBTQIA+, and more. In short, presenting a diverse Berlin in 1948 simply wouldn’t have been an accurate illustration of the effects of the racist, antisemitic, and ultra-nationalist ideology of 1940s Germany. However, the pages where I illustrated Americans pitching in to help with the candy drop effort, provided an opportunity for diversity. But, not an easy opportunity because America was not without its own diversity and inclusion problems in 1948.
The modern civil rights movement in America was still almost a decade away at the time. When I ended up hitting a road block in my research on folks donating to the candy campaign in America, I met with Erica Buddington – public historian, educator and creative force who champions culturally affirming content – to work out what segregated American philanthropic efforts looked like in 1948. The truth of the matter was not as simple as putting Americans of different races on the page working together. American philanthropic efforts in 1948 were significantly segregated with racial discrimination dictating not only who received aid, but who organizations hired. As such, everything from large philanthropic foundations to mutual aid societies were segregated. Even the candy factories producing the candy were segregated. In the end I think the illustration of Americans pitching in for Operation Little Vittles tells the truth and doesn’t sugar coat history. We were a segregated country and it never should’ve been so. But it was also important that kids see all races, ages, and abilities chipped in to do something kind, even for a country who dehumanized and devalued entire groups of the same types of people. I hope it provides an opportunity for discussion on not only the importance of being kind but also how much we need and value all types of people and how our lives are made richer by diversity and inclusion.
Me: Given the subject matter, which was harder for you this time: writing or illustrating this story?
Christy: While there were parts of illustrating that were difficult, as is often the case for me in every story I create, the writing was definitely harder this time around. Because the story required a level of factual care, there were more layers to the process (research, fact checking the research, double checking). Remembering who writes history and trying to tease apart the lenses history is told through to tell a more complete story was way harder than making up fictional creatures and worlds. In the latter, you’re the boss of your story. In the former, the research is the boss.
Me: Your afterward and its plea for kindness is so heartfelt it made me cry. It too is bittersweet that words like these must even be put into print. And yet, in our current world, they must be said. What made you decide to put your opinion about the subject matter into the back of the book like this? Did you receive any push back?
Christy: Picture books are a complex genre. Their intended audience has the least autonomy in what they read. The books are written by grown-ups, gatekept by grown-ups, purchased, and promoted by grown-ups. The kids on the younger end of the targeted demographic might not even be able to read the words on the page, requiring someone to read it to them. And so, while we write for children first and foremost, the grown-up is often back of mind. And for this story, my hope was not only to show kids that every day acts of kindness, no matter how small, can have a profound impact, but also to remind the grown-up that kindness and empathy doesn’t have to be so complicated.
I didn’t receive any pushback on the author’s note.
Me: What is one thing that surprised you in creating this story? Any fact that didn’t make it into the book? Any epiphanies?
Christy: In a picture book there’s SO much that doesn’t make it into the book no matter the genre. The cutting room floor is brutal for this format!
As an elder millennial, there have been many pivotal moments in history that have dog-eared the pages of my life – the Berlin Wall fell on my birthday in 1989, the Gulf War when I was in 1st grade, September 11th when I was a senior in high school, etc. I remember vividly the news breaking that the Berlin Wall had fallen that Thursday. What I didn’t realize until writing this book was that the Berlin Wall and the Cold War began with barbed wire and the blockade of West Berlin from East Berlin by the Soviets in 1948. The airlift that ensued was successful in keeping West Berlin from starving in 1948 but Berlin would be divided from that point until my birthday in 1989. That was a sobering realization of a part of history I didn’t understand as a child and didn’t fully grasp until writing this book.
Nazi Germany, so blinded by hatred, not only committed genocide against their own people but massacred people in other countries who rightly fought back. But hurt people often hurt people back in the name of justice. And so the cycle continues until someone says enough is enough. And in every instance, children are caught in the crosshairs. We are seeing it play out on a global scale even today. But justice and kindness aren’t mutually exclusive. In fact, they are interdependent for true social change and healing. There should absolutely be accountability and a righting of wrongs. But empathy, and compassion must coexist with justice to foster growth instead of just punishment. And all of those take a lot of courage.
I 100% agree. Thank you so much for stopping by my blog today to discuss your book Christy.
Dear readers, this book publishes in two weeks. It’s a fascinating snapshot of history told from a child’s point of view that sheds an incredible light on the world around us today. It’s never too late to show kindness, no matter the circumstances. Trust me when I say, you absolutely won’t want to miss this one.