Many people ask me about my first picture book which is probably my bestselling book so far, which is Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt, which came out in 1993. I got the idea for that story one morning as I was getting ready for work. I worked at the University of Hawaii, then at Honolulu, and there was an NPR story on the first black graduate of Williams College.
Elizabeth Scott, who was a quilter, was interviewed for that story. There was a quilt exhibition in honor of the first black graduate. I got interested in quilts and the Underground Railroad when I first wrote that book. That was my first picture book and it doesn’t have a note.
That book is historical fiction as is Under the Quilt of Night. There’s this association of quilts with the Underground Railroad, and I think it’s a point where teachers can use those books in various ways in the classroom, but also have children, again, do research and say, “Well, we have these myths and this folklore about this, but is it really true?” It may be that we find out that it’s not.
I also wrote another book about black history called A Band of Angels. I really had a wonderful experience doing that. I was able to interview Beth Howse, who is the special collections librarian at Fisk University.
This is the story of the Fisk University Jubilee Singers. I asked Pat McKissack, because I was a little leery about doing this story because I had done two other ones on another culture than my own. I lived in Hawaii for 20 years, so I had a very good sense of what it’s like to live in a multicultural society that’s different than where I grew up.
Pat McKissack, when I was about to do Band of Angels, said, “You know, I did something on Ella Sheppard, who’s the Jubilee singer,” she said. “Go ahead. I think parents have been and teachers have been very welcoming of books if they’re well done and historically researched.”