Fourth Grade Journey

A Fourth Grade Teacher's Journey Through the World of Books

Monday, October 8, 2018

An Inside Look #65 (Author INTERVIEW)

An Inside Look with Alan Gratz
(Author of Grenade)

*During the summer of 2016, I added this feature to my blog which was called "Season #ONE".  This first season ran from June of 2016 to March of 2017.  

*I started up the interviews again in June of 2017.  It was great to get back to Season #TWO.  This season ran throughout the summer.  

*Season #THREE ran during the school year of 2017/2018.  


*It has been such an honor to connect with authors and "chat" about their novel, characters, and thoughts about the story.

*This is the FOURTEENTH interview of what I'm calling Season #FOUR.  

*Thank you to Alan Gratz for being the Sixty-Fifth author that I've had the pleasure of interviewing.  I truly appreciate it.  

*Here are links to the first Sixty-Four interviews…

SEASON #ONE

























SEASON #FOUR

Interview #53 with Preston Norton (Author of Neanderthal Opens the Door to the Universe)

Interview #54 with Jonathan Auxier (Author of Sweep: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster)

Interview #55 with Sharon Creech (Author of Saving Winslow)

Interview #56 with Stacy McAnulty (Author of The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl)

Interview #57 with Kelly Yang (Author of Front Desk)

Interview #58 with Jennifer A. Nielsen (Author of Resistance)

Interview 59 with Christina Collins (Author of After Zero)

Interview #60 with Eric Walters (Author of Elephant Secrets)

Interview #61 with Phil Bildner (Author of The Rip and Red Series)

Interview #62 with Erin Soderberg (Author of Milla in Charge)

Interview #63 with Laura Shovan (Author of Take Down)

Interview #64 with Donna Gephart (Author of In Your Shoes)


*When I pick up an Alan Gratz novel, I know I won't be putting it down until I have finished.  He has given myself, and my class, some of the most riveting stories I've experienced.  I was lucky to get an ARC of Grenade and know I read it in one sitting this past summer.  During one convention I was at, I had the pleasure of meeting Alan.  All I can say is that he is a pretty cool dude/writer.  This is novel not to be missed.  

*Alan was kind, gracious, and giving with his answers to the questions.  It is an honor to post his responses here on the blog.  

*Here is a link to my review of the book...

*Thank you Donna Gephart for writing this book...
Grenade
by Alan Gratz (October 9, 2018)


How did you come to know Hideki and Ray?
Hideki and Ray are two very different characters, from different worlds, and I had to do a lot of work before I wrote the book to get to know them as characters. For both of them, I tried to imagine what a defining moment was for them BEFORE the events of my book. What made them the people they are today? For Ray, it was a traumatic event in his childhood that created a rift between him and his father. For Hideki, who is much younger, it was actually something that happened before his lifetime. His family believes that the actions of your ancestors resonate down through the generations, and something one of his ancestors did still haunts him in the present. Both my characters have ghosts they need to deal with before they can move on in the present.
What do you think is Hideki and Ray's most admirable qualities?
Hideki is brave, though he doesn't think he is. Ray is compassionate, which is a dangerous and tricky thing when you are also a soldier in a war zone.
Is there anything you wish they would have changed or done differently in their story?
No--I'm the boss, so if I wanted it done differently, I would have done it! :-)
What do you think they can offer to other children that are experiencing similar situations to what they went through?
In Refugee, I told the story of what happens when war comes to your country and you and your family go on the run. In Grenade, I'm telling the story of what happens when war comes to your country and you and your family can't leave. I hope that none of my readers have to go through that specific situation, but I do hope that reading about what Hideki and his family go through engenders empathy in my readers, and prompts them to action in helping those caught in similar situations. And without spoiling too much, Hideki also makes some brave choices about how to respond to a war in his homeland, and I hope what he does prompts a lot of discussion about conflict resolution.

On Ray's side of things, I hope that young readers will understand the difficult moral place soldiers like him are put in every day, torn between wanting to protect the innocent, kill the enemy, and not be killed themselves.
How did you research Hideki and Ray and the circumstances they found themselves in?
For Ray, I read the personal accounts of American soldiers who fought in the Pacific, and had to deal with the kind of dilemmas I talked about above. For Hideki, I had both the personal experience of meeting an older man who went through the some of the things Hideki goes though when he was a boy, which I augmented by reading about the personal stories of other boys caught in similar circumstances. An Okinawan newspaper did a really in-depth series of interviews with civilian survivors of the war a few years back and compiled those into a book, which was extremely useful, and I did a lot of other research into Okinawan life and religion to better understand the people, place, and time I was writing about.
Do you and these two characters share any similarities?
I think I would probably be much like Ray if I were to be a soldier. I would do my job, but I would also be doing my best to make sure that innocent people weren't hurt. But like Ray, I'm sure I would have to make compromises to both commitments, which is dangerous.

I think the thing that Hideki and I most share is a lifelong mission of self-discovery. Hideki's understanding comes much sooner than mine did, let me tell you! But in a way, I think we will both be trying to understand ourselves--our hopes, our dreams, our motivations and fears--for our entire lives. I guess it's the rare person who truly knows themselves fully.
What was the hardest scene to write about these characters?Oh. That would be pretty spoilery, I'm afraid! But I will say that this is largely the story of the Battle of Okinawa, and there was a lot of tragedy to that story. In addition to the tens of thousands of soldiers who died on both sides, hundreds of thousands of Okinawan civilians were victims too. It's the scenes where both boys have to make difficult, no-win decisions that affect the lives of other people that were definitely the hardest to write, both on a visceral level and an emotional one.
Who do you think was Hideki’ and Ray's biggest supporter and why?
Hideki's biggest supporter is his sister, even though she likes to slap him upside the head quite a lot for his stupidity. She loves him very much. She's always been in his corner, and is there to help him emotionally and spiritually.

For Ray, I suppose first it was his mother. Later, during the war, he has a strong supporter in his sergeant, and a good friend in his foxhole partner Big John.
Why do you think young people (Hideki) are so resilient,  strong, and determined in difficult times when adults sometimes can't handle these situations?
This is an interesting question, and one I've talked about and written about in the past. I'm no expert on this, but I think that young people are often very resilient in times of stress where adults are not because kids don't have that sense of mortality yet. I mean, they understand what death is, but they don't feel their lives slipping away from them the way an adult does. Their entire lives still stretch out before them/. They have lifetimes ahead of them. So I think when adversity comes, they just plow through it. That's not to say it doesn't take a toll, mentally and physically. But I think that kids meet problems on a day-to-day basis, without too much thought to the past or the future. That near-sightedness helps them survive in ways that make it harder for adults.
What do you think Hideki is doing as the present time?
I think old man Hideki would be enjoying retirement on the beautiful beaches of Okinawa having lived a life dedicated to helping his people and his homeland recover and prosper!

Thanks!
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