 Welcome to Moments with Melinda. I am your host, Melinda Moulton, and my guest today is Tanya Lee Stone. Hey, lady. Hey, Karen. I'm very well. Thanks for having me. I'm so glad you joined me on this Wednesday morning. Let me tell my viewers a little bit about you, okay? Tanya Lee Stone is an American author of children's and young adult books. She writes narrative nonfiction for middle grade students and young adults as well as nonfiction picture books. Her stories often center on women and people of color. She has won numerous awards, including the NAACP Image Award, the Robert F. Sebert Medal, and the Goldkite Award. Tanya is assistant director and program director for professional writing at Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont, and she just earned her PhD. Woo-hoo, girlfriend. Amazing. Thanks. Huge, huge. Well, listen, let's just start right at the beginning. Tanya, tell us a little bit about your childhood and share with my viewers who had the greatest influence on your life and your work. Okay. Well, my dad is a professor and my mother was an elementary school librarian. So I kind of grew up in a house of books. Saturday afternoons were trips to the Milford Public Library. And I have very, very clear memories of staggering out of the library under the weight of stacks of books and my outstretched arms, like kind of trying to see around them and not fall. I read all the time, see these glasses. I'm the only one in my family that has bad eyesight. Now, they all blame that on my reading under the covers of the flashlight. I doctors have told me that that's not the reason, but that's the myth in my family. But I made my eyes go bad all the reading I did. So reading was a huge part of my life. I would disappear into books. I was kind of half bookworm, half tomboy. Grew up on Long Island Sound, right on the water, in a neighborhood where mostly it was summer people. So when there weren't people around, when it wasn't summer, my friend and I, who lived up the street, we were playing on the beach or climbing trees or reading books and playing music and listening to music. So that was my childhood. And then sort of fast forward a little bit to high school. I went to a performing arts high school in New Haven, Connecticut, which kind of saved me because regular high school was not a great fit for me. And then I went on to Oberlin, which was also a great fit. Very, very fluid Oberlin is was is. And I was an English major there. And then I went into publishing. I started my career as an editor in publishing right out of college and sort of in the interim while I was working got my master's in science education. I loved being an editor so much. My last job was managing editor of a small children's nonfiction press. And so I learned how to do so many things in that job that I still do every day in my own writing. But then we moved to Vermont and I left my editorial career and kind of reinvented myself. And that's when I started writing in 1997. In 1997. Well, what brought you to Vermont? What inspired you to move to Vermont? My husband's job. So, you know, it was Iowa or Vermont. And from Vermont, Vermont looked pretty cool to me. And also I could drive to see my family. I wouldn't have to get an airplane. So we came to Vermont. Well, we're really glad that you did. We're thrilled that you're here. I'm thrilled to be here. So, Tanya, you have written more than 100 books for children and young adults, 100. And your articles, essays, and reviews have appeared in The New York Times and other notable journals, magazines, and newspapers. You are a prolific writer. Where do you get your inspiration and your passion? That's a good question. I mean, you know, I'm a full-time academic now and I'm always telling my writing students, you know, that inspiration is everywhere. It sounds so cliche, but it's really true. You know, you overhear somebody talking about something in a cafe or you walk past a playground and you hear people in conversation or in conflict. And it sparks things in your own mind about what you're thinking about and wondering about or worrying about. For me, inspiration always comes from an emotion. And it doesn't have to be a positive emotion. But if I come across a topic, especially because most of my work is nonfiction, if I come across a topic that I've never heard about before, that intrigues me because it either makes me excited or proud of whoever that was who did something amazing or angry because it was an unjust situation, that's usually where my inspiration comes from, is wanting to learn as much as I can about something and share it with readers and elicit some kind of dialogue. Well, you're a bit of a revolutionary, a bit of an activist, because your tagline states that your books make waves. Explain that to my viewers. Your books make waves. Books that make waves. Right. That's the, that's my logo on my website. I know, books that, and by the way, for my viewers, excuse me for just a minute, I want to make sure that my viewers, please go to TanyaStone.com and visit Tanya Lee Stone's website. It's worth the visit. And your tagline says books that make waves. Yeah. So I have to give credit for that tagline to an illustrator friend of mine, Janie Bynum, who made that logo. She was helping me revamp my website a long time ago. And because I do nonfiction and some fiction and picture books and middle grade and young adult, I was sort of having a trouble pinpointing what my theme for the website should be. And she immediately said like, what are you talking about? Your books make waves. They make people think they're about empowerment. They're about social justice. They're about women. She said, your books make waves. And she made the wave. And I said, okay, thank you, Janie Bynum. And you were born in Long Island where they have some of the most beautiful waves in the world. Yes. And that's the, that's the other thing, right? Like she said, you know, what kind of motif do you want? And I said, I don't know. I mean, the beach to me is where I find my, you know, water is where I find my happy place where I can calm myself and listen to the waves. And so it sort of all came together like that. It's a beautiful website. tonyastone.com. I encourage my viewers to visit Tonya Lee Stone's website. It's worth the visit. So now let's talk a little bit about something a little bit more serious. Your book, A Bad Boy Can Be Good for a Girl. And by the way, I married a bad boy. And I think he was terrific for me. You know, you know my husband. But your book, A Bad Boy Can Be Good for a Girl was banned between 2010 and 2019. And it was the 44th most banned and challenged book in the United States. Now, in our world today, we're seeing a lot of the great classics and a lot of films being banned across the country. Can you explain how this, how this felt for you and what it was like and perhaps maybe read a few passages from the book and tell us a little bit about it? Sure. I mean, sadly, book banning isn't new, right? Book banning goes way, way back. And if you start to think about it in context, you can picture the images in Germany and all around the world with materials that incite people being destroyed. So it's not a new thing. It's a fairly consistent thing. And now, of course, it is just terribly skyrocketed. But I'll start from the beginning of that question. When I first started getting the hate mail that comes, you know, getting banned isn't like a one time thing. Making that list is based on data. That's a decade long list. It's based on data that the American Library Association gathers and collects. And with any data like this, you know it's the tip of the iceberg because you know that a lot of things are unreported. So let's just say that. There are a lot of books that are being banned that are not on any lists. And we just don't know about it because it's quiet censorship. So that's a whole other aspect of this general problem. But I read for kids and teens and I care about my readers and I crafted this book really intentionally and really carefully to be kind of a cautionary tale and kind of a universal theme of three different girls. The basis of this book is three different girls who all fall prey in different degrees and in different ways to the same jerky unnamed high school guy who's stereotypical on purpose. Sort of just to show the universality of no matter whether a young woman is extremely confident or insecure or battling different issues or not. At one point or another, most women are in a compromising position with a male trying to take advantage of them. That's sort of the basis of the book. And also it was really important to me that I dealt with this while the girls, if they chose to as their characters, enjoyed a healthy sexual relationship with somebody without shame and without dire consequences like pregnancy or disease or anything else. So those were my driving factors in writing that book. So it's three very different girls. And the hate mail started coming in. I still get it occasionally and that book is old. It came out in 2006, I think. So there's the data that the American Library Association collects on all books, every report that they get. And then there's also the individual feedback that authors get from librarians, from teachers, from fans, from angry parents, angry gatekeepers. So I have gotten a lot of that angry hate mail stuff around the time that that book came out and then trickles on. And at first, it gave me a pit in my stomach. Like somebody actually accused me of being a smut peddler and harming kids. And so that made me sick to my stomach because that is the opposite of anything I would ever do. And so I talked to two different people in the industry about this who I know. One was David Levithan, who's a scholastic editor and a prolific author. And he kind of gave me the lens of looking at it in terms of this is sort of a badge of courage. You know, like if you cannot take it personally, it's a learning opportunity and a teaching opportunity. And the other person was Judy Bloom who gets banned all the time. And she really helped me see it through the lens of arming the librarians or the teachers with the materials that they need to stand up for your book. So with those two people kind of guiding me, I stopped taking it personally and I started looking at it as a larger issue of, you know, fighting for the rights of people to read. Good for you. Good for you. Would you like to read a passage from the book? I'm really rusty on this one, but I can give you like just a little taste. Like I said, there are three girls in this. We'll move on then to the next subject after we get to the taste of this book. Okay. So like I said, there are three girls in this. The middle girl, Nicolette is the one I still think about. And so I'll just read from her. This is a novel in verse. So these are poems. Nicolette, power play. It didn't take a genius to see it. All the girls at my school were always waiting, waiting for some guy to call, waiting for some guy to say she was pretty or nice or smart, waiting for some guy to make the first move. Uh-uh. Not me. Why should I sit around and wait? It's all about the power who's got it and who doesn't. If I say who and I say when and I say what, then I have it. Simple as that. Let's just leave the lovey-dovey crap out of it. Okay. I think that might even just give you a taste of why banners don't like it. You should see what it's leading. Yeah, but yeah, but at the end of the day, I have three granddaughters who are teenagers and I, and there are moments when I'm so proud of them because they think that way. And I, and maybe that's what's happened with this generation as they've, as we've gotten more evolved as women. But let's move on. Thank you for that. Your books, almost astronauts. Courage has no color. Who says women can't be doctors? The house that Jane built and pass go and collect $200 of all received national accolades. Tell us a little bit about what it is about your books that are receiving so much attention and so much accolade with the work that you do. Tell us about that. I think that, I think that my books are really accessible. I think a lot of times when people think nonfiction, they think dry. And I write, I don't even like the term nonfiction. I write true stories because the word story there is, is what it's all about. And so I never approach my, my true stories from any kind of dry point of view or angle. I'm never really trying to do births to death and make like grandiose statements. I'm looking at the people. History is just people doing amazing things that help shape our world. That's all it is. And so I'm looking at the people and I'm immersing myself in the research so that I can write about them from a place of somewhat expert in quote. So that I can excite the readers about who this person is to the extent that maybe they're going to go off and learn something else about them, go look up something else about them, read another book, watch a documentary, watch a film, historical fiction based on them. So I'm always trying to find what's the thing about this person or group of people that I can't stop telling my friends about. You know, when I find myself saying like, did you know that? Then I know, like, I'm on to something that I really want to write about. And so I think that my excitement and my passion for a topic, it comes through in my writing because I'm just telling you a story about something that I think is either amazing and or really infuriates me because why doesn't everybody know who the Mercury 13 women were? Like every woman in space and aviation knows who they were. So why aren't they a household name? Why doesn't everybody know who the triple nickels were just like people know who the Tuskegee airmen were? So that's sort of what gets me fired up. And I think it's the fired upness that makes people like reading my books. Well, you have written many biographies and I just want to let you know that when I was in fifth grade, I wrote an essay on Madame Curie. She inspired my life. I think of her all the time and that story of her giving up her life for her work in science. And she was inspirational for me. And I'm sure that that school was probably not as fun to read as your books, which are beautifully illustrated. But you have also written many biographies. Diana, Princess of People, Rosie O'Donnell, America's favorite grown up kid, Oprah Winfrey, success with an open heart. And recently who says women can't be computer programmers? Your work empowers girls and young women. Share with us why your work so often focuses on girls and young women. Well, I mean, I think that's simple for me. We've done a great job of telling the white cis male story. There are no gaps in that history, really. And if there are, someone will fill them. We have not done a great job of telling stories about women or any other diverse categories of people that are not getting the attention that they deserve. And so I think part of me just wants to do my small part and help fill in some of those gaps in our missing histories. I mean, if we look at just what kids learn in elementary school, they're missing out on so many extraordinary people who have helped shape our world and moved things forward. And not even necessarily gotten the win, but changed the way the world works and paved the way for people who came after them. Absolutely. Good. Now, you've also written history books and Girl Rising, Changing the World, One Girl at a Time, is an all-time favorite of mine. Tell us about this book. This book was life-changing for me just as a human, not as a writer. This book was also a backwards story because most films are made out of books, but this book came from a film. So I went to the Roxy in 2013 with my son and a few of his teenage friends and watched Girl Rising, the film, when it came out. And I was blown away by it. And if you haven't seen it, it's nine, I think you have seen it, but for our viewers who may not have seen it, it's a story that tells, that positions the issues of global education for girls through the lens of nine different girls' stories from nine different countries, roughly having each girl's story represent an obstacle to education. So for example, the Ethiopian story was as Mara's story, and that was about early marriage, or avoiding early marriage in her case. And so I saw this movie, and it was so powerful, and the kids were so impacted by it. But what I found when I talked to them that night, and then followed up with them a few weeks later, was that while they remembered the stories of the girls themselves, they didn't take in the content of what are these global obstacles to education. And so I really wanted to partner with Girl Rising and expand what they had done so beautifully in film in a book that you could really go deeper and broader and tell more girl's stories and really flesh out like, well, how does early marriage impact education and where is the lack of access to education happening? And what is going on here when slavery is illegal everywhere on earth and exists everywhere on earth? And so I cold called Girl Rising and quickly found myself on the phone with Casey Fried Jennings, who was the executive producer, and we were finishing each other's sentences, and we were in contract together, and that was it. Fabulous. Now, you've also written space books, wilderness books. You're going way back. Yeah, way back. But you know, this is all stuff that's out there about you. I mean, you are, you're again, to my viewers, visit Tonya Stone, T-A-N-Y-A-S-T-O-N-E dot com and go to Tonya's website. It is really a beautifully done website. And it covers your career, your writing career. You are a powerhouse of creativity, talent, vision, and activism, and you are a writer who opens minds and provides truth and facts to educate and inspire. And would you consider yourself through your work to be an activist? And by the way, I want my viewers to know that your books are beautifully illustrated. It's not, and I don't know if you have an example that we're going to, well, why don't we do that? Let's focus on your recent book. Piece is a chain reaction, and you've got it right behind you. Maybe you could show folks a little bit about how your books are illustrated because they're so true. So my picture books are illustrated by illustrators. So that's a whole different thing. So like, here's who says women can't be doctors. That's a picture book for young readers, and that is illustrated by two-time Caldecott award-winning Marjorie Priceman. And so, like any true picture book, it's illustrated. But in my long-form nonfiction, I actually do something that's fairly unusual. And part of it is because of my editorial background that I'm kind of allowed to do this. I curate every single visual image or artifact that's in my books, and I choose them all. And I work with the designer to say exactly what picture goes with what text, and I write the captions. So it's a really collaborative team effort when I do my long form books. So here's a spread. The designer comes up with cool things, like you can see that in the background, there's a photograph that's taking up the whole full bleed as a sort of blurry background. That's an example of a designer choice that's beautiful, that's a recurring theme throughout when she could do it. And then you see that there are different images on this page, all of which I've chosen and found through my research. Here's the cover. Cover? Yeah. So the cover, again, the designer did an amazing job. And what she did was she took a photograph that I had found of that balloon floating over the ocean, and she took this diagram that I had gotten permission to use from a balloon bomb expert, and she designed this gorgeous cover. So it's really, I'm really, really lucky to be able to work with publishers that allow me to do that. Well, this is your most recent book. Talk about it. It is. Yeah. It's a very complicated story, which I'm hoping is a compelling read. It's getting reviews that indicate that. So that's good. A lot of people don't know that there were six people who died on continental US soil during World War II. And they were killed by a Japanese balloon bomb. Towards the end, actually, of the war, the Japanese were trying to figure out a way to distract our military and to inflict terror on our citizens as we did to theirs. And they had recently discovered the jet stream. And so they had this huge balloon bomb project where they floated more than 9,000 hot air balloons that were carrying incendiary devices and bombs through the jet stream, and they landed all over the West Coast. Some got even as far in as Iowa. It was mostly unsuccessful a mission. And this one bomb actually exploded when a group of Sunday school kids found it in the woods during a church picnic. So it was real tragedy for this one small community in Bly, Oregon. Whoops. And that's the inciting incident of the book. But really, the book is about a Japanese-American man named Yuzuru Takeshita, who was interned to Tule Lake as a teenager with the rest of his family, not far, maybe 50 miles from where that happened in Bly, Oregon. And as a kid, he had heard about the Japanese balloon bombs, but nobody ever knew if they were real or not because it was classified and it was sort of mums the word in order to keep Japan from finding out that they had actually landed. So he spent his life wondering about that. And as an adult, he went to Japan on a business trip, went to visit some friends, and the wife of one of his friends was one of the thousands of Japanese school girls who had been constricted in their Imperial Army to make the balloons. And she started telling him all about it. And this was a revelation for him. He thought, oh my goodness, this story is real. And she knew about the deaths. And she said, you know, go to your Smithsonian institution in Washington, D.C. And so he did. He researched it all. And he asked the women in Japan who were telling their story now because, you know, it had been decades since the war, and they wanted to tell their story. He asked them if they would consider refraining from using the word only when they talked about only six lives, because he felt that one life is as important as any other life. And that was a shift for them. And so for me, what was amazing to me about this story and what I couldn't let go of it in my mind was that this group of Japanese women cared at all about six American lives. I couldn't fathom that, but they did because of how Yuzuru Takeshi framed it for them. And then they asked him if they could send a letter to the family members of the victims. And this whole thing kicked off literally a decades-long chain of peace back and forth between them that still goes on to this day. There are annual memorials in Oregon. And there have been trips back and forth between Japan and Oregon between these families and these Japanese women and their families. And so to me, the takeaway was, we are all in this together. People are people. If we decide to care about each other, then we care about each other. And the legacy of Yuzuru Takeshi who has since passed is in this book. Outstanding. Peace is a chain reaction by Tonya Lee Stone, your most recent book. So what do you see as the most pressing issue of our time? Oh, my. The number one time? That's our time right now. Peace. Climate change. Reproductive rights. I mean, there is a question. Well, my next question was, what words of wisdom do you have for girls today who are facing a country that is battling against their personal privacy and reproductive health and choice? How can they make a difference? Because you are making a difference and you have made a difference in your career. How can these girls today make a difference? Well, you don't hold back, Melinda. That is a really important question. And I can't even begin to presume to know the answer to that. All I will say is that every single person makes a difference. And whatever any single male or female or non-binary person is comfortable doing to speak out and stand up and educate. And it can be quiet or passive through writing or it can be loud and active through protesting. It matters. It makes a difference and it helps. And, you know, none of us can really give up, I think, if we want to see change occur. Or if we want to go back, you know, to where we were and not to where we're headed. Thank you for that. So what are you working on right now? What's your next project? You busy, prolific human being, amazing woman? Well, most of my time these days is taken up with being a full-time academic. I run the writing program at Champlain College and I love teaching across the curriculum to the writing students and the other students at Champlain who take writing classes. So that's really the bulk of my energy right now. But I do have a picture book coming out next year which is called Remembering Rosalind Franklin. Now, if you don't know who Rosalind Franklin was, you might know that James Watson and Francis Crick won a Nobel Prize for discovering the double helix structure of the DNA, which would not have happened without Rosalind Franklin's photo 51 and her data that went with it. So it's about helping again, once again, to put someone on the record that should never have been left off the record. I don't know what just happened there, but so the view I'm trying to get here is our gallery view. So share with me, we're coming to the end of the show and I don't know if you, and I don't know if you remembered this, but I'm hoping I didn't, you did just. I hope, I think that I had mentioned to you that in when I was working at Harvard and studying there that I did work for Dr. Watson and I used to take tea with him. So anyway, we'll need to talk more about that. I guess we will need to talk more. So I did not hand him in a good light. Well, I figured I figured that and I totally honor and respect that. So you have been called one of the finest nonfiction writers working today by Anita Sylvie. And you know what? I will second that and I will third and fourth that. And I want to thank you for being on my show, Tanya. And I'm honored to call you my friends and to share your life and work with my viewers. Again, to my viewers, we're talking with Tanya Lee Stone. Her website is tanyastone.com. And it's been a real pleasure to share your story. I could talk to you for hours. I hope you'll come back when your newest book is published and we'll talk again. Thanks so much for having me. It's so great to see you. Thank you, my friend. And we'll talk soon. Bye. Bye.