And it’s a story that was very difficult to get published. Most publishers told me that American children would not be interested in such a story. I have all this series of rejection letters, but eventually Athenaeum picked it up, and then they published it, and it won the Christopher Award. And that really opened doors for me to be able to submit other manuscripts for publication.
But it’s a story that just came to me one night after working with farm working parents, talking to them about the importance of education, what they could do for them and all of that late at night, because it was summer, and they work on the fields until ten o’clock. I’m returning by myself, through the fields, on my car, and I began seeing this story as if you were seeing it in a movie on the windshield. I mean the story was just there, passing by. It was just all there.
So, I cried all the way home. When I got home, I went to the basement, where I had my desk, and I sat down and wrote the whole story and just left it there, because I knew I would forget, otherwise. And I went to bed and went to sleep, and when I woke up in the morning, I said, “Last night I had a dream of a story. I only wish I could remember what it was.” And when I found the papers, I couldn’t believe it. And it was, you know, all there.
So, sometimes they just come.