Hello ,
Happy Friday the 13th! Today, I'm thrilled to tell you about a new book!
It is especially close to
my heart, because as a young woman in the early days of my career as a television news reporter, I briefly entertained the dream of working as a war correspondent. This book is brand new. REPORTING UNDER FIRE:16 DARING WOMEN WAR CORRESPONDENTS AND PHOTOJOURNALISTS just came out two weeks ago. It tells the stories of women who risked their lives to tell wartime stories.
"Each woman-including Sigrid Schultz, who broadcast news via radio from Berlin on the eve of the Second World War; Margaret Bourke-White, who rode with General George Patton's Third Army and brought back the first horrific photos of the Buchenwald concentration camp; and
Marguerite Higgins, who typed stories while riding in the front seat of an American jeep that was fleeing the North Korean Army-experiences her own journey, both personally and professionally, and each draws her own conclusions. Yet without exception, these war correspondents share a singular ambition: to answer an inner call driving them to witness war firsthand, and to share what they learn via words or images."--From the
publisher CHICAGO REVIEW PRESS Today on the blog, I'm featuring Author Kerrie Logan Hollihan taking about the special brand of courage demonstrated by these women.
Courage: Being Who You are Meant to Be |
Mary asked me to focus on courage, which got me thinking about the sixteen women I profiled. At that point I realized I never
especially characterize these women as courageous, though of course they are or were. Other attributes come to mind: smart, articulate, resourceful, brave, bold, brash, stubborn. But were I to choose a single adjective to best describe the women in my book, it would be: Authentic. Authentic. That's the "keyword" I'd plug in for every one of them. Here's how
I explain my choice in the foreword to Reporting Under Fire: When my daughter was a junior at [an all-girl high school], someone wrote a lovely quote on a poster during pep week. It was from Judy Garland...It said: "Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else." ... Garland's words came to me as I
was putting the finishing touches on this book. In looking over the profiles I'd researched and written over nearly a year, I was struck by how each of these of these women is (or was) so much her authentic self.... To be authentic takes courage. To know who you truly are and to live your life acting on that self-awareness takes
courage.
You might be a war reporter who risks it all to do what you are called to do. Janine di Giovanni (now Middle East editor of Newsweek)
"bears witness" to war's impact on ordinary people. Sigrid Schultz was the first reporter to warn that Adolf Hitler was building concentration camps and isolating German Jews. Chicago Daily News reporter Georgie Anne Geyer was marked for death in Guatemala by the White Hand, ultra-right-wing terrorists.
Or you might be a big city dweller like my daughter,
grown up now, who sees how authenticity and self-awareness matter in the jobs and private lives of modern women, surrounded as they are by bottom-liners and bottom-feeders. How to live courageously and meaningfully in a lousy world. How to be a first rate version of herself.
ABC Chief Global Correspondent Martha Raddatz is a case in point: smart, plain-speaking, and unpretentious. She told me she loved to read biographies as a kid, that "...maybe that's the first inkling you
want to live a life that's not the one you're living."
Martha left college to take a news jobs -- something she doesn't recommend to others. That was about forty years ago, and she's been reporting ever since. She thrives on what she does, as she said in a talk at her son's college. "The one reason more than any other that I love the news
business is because I learn something every single day. Every single day." Martha Raddatz is the real deal, as is every single woman in my book. Authentic. Courageous. Thank you, Kerrie. And thank you for writing this excellent and exciting book on such an important and inspiring topic.
I appreciate the quote from Martha Raddatz because that is also one of the reasons I loved working in the news business, and part of why I'm so happy writing books for kids. I'm hungry to learn, and writing gives me the outlet to share interesting info with others. By the way, here's what School Library Journal has to say about REPORTING
UNDER FIRE. "A well-researched and riveting book...the text is chock-full of their daring exploits-such as Sigrid Schultz cohosting an engagement party for top Nazi Hermann Göring-all in the name of landing their stories. Not only do readers gain a healthy respect for each reporter, but they also gain insight into global history. As such, the book reads like a narrative time line of world history, women's
rights, and the field of journalism as a whole."
News and Links You Might Like |
The book I told you about a couple weeks ago detailing the latest science on head inury and football, Fourth Down and Inches, made news this week making the Banks Street College list of the best books of the year in two categories! It's on the list for ages 12-14 and the list for ages 14 and up. Frankly, as I said before, I think every parent should read it. Thanks to KidsBiographers Blog for reviewing PURE GRIT: "Contemporary readers will be astonished that some of the nurses defied public - and familial - approval to enter the profession: in the 1930s and 40s, some people still considered nurses "impure" because they encountered nudity and bodily fluids in their work." Many years ago, I won't say how many, I spent a summer in New York City kicking off my career in broadcast news. It was an amazing experience for a girl practically fresh off the farm. Now I'm in NYC again, this time meeting with my editor and agent and charting the next steps in my current career as a childrens'/YA writer. I'm filled with gratitude for both these moments in time and every moment in between. Life is amazing and full and wonderful, and unpredictable. This is the fountain at Washington Square Park a block from where I lived back in the day. The journey continues...Thanks for coming along with me. I'm grateful for your time and appreciate you inviting me into your e-mail box each week. I will never spam you or sell your email address, you can unsubscribe below anytime with a single mouse click. If you'd like to
get your hands on a copy of PURE GRIT, here's the place! If you'd like a signed copy and I'm not coming to your neighborhood soon, let me know. I can send you a personally autographed book or a signed
bookplate. To find out more about my books, how I help students, teacher and librarians, visit my website at www.MaryCronkFarrell.com. My best, Mary Questions? Comments? Contact me at MaryCronkFarrell@gmail.com. Click here to subscribe to this newsletter. |
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