Q&A with author Valerie C. Woods:
1) How much of this book is autobiographical and how much is pure fiction? Name a few parts that are examples of each.
“That’s kind of hard to say. I was the same age as Katrin in this time period and was the youngest in the family, living on Chicago’s South Side. I have an older sister who is very smart and very intuitive. And we did have adventures in which she was the organizer and leader, when we were young. So the basic bones of the book are taken from my personal history. And a great deal is straight from my imagination.
For instance, my sister and I were big readers and visited the library often. My mother was the church secretary at our local church and my father did work construction. However, the experience the characters have at the Central Library is pure fiction, there was never an alleged kidnapping plot with the church minister’s son and my father, well now that I think about it, he was pretty much the man I wrote about.”
posted by Valerie C. Woods
on April, 26