Monday, October 20, 2014

Blog hop! Meet Matthew LaCraft, The Yankee Boy

Thanks for Brenda Hendricks, and her post at http://myquotesofencouragement.com/ last week about her tween novel Trouble at Camp Turnabout Creek

She asks me the following questions about our project, First Children of Farmington, and The Yankee Boy,Matthew LaCraft.



1) What is the name of your character? Is he/she fictional or historic? 
My character is named Matthew LaCraft. He is fictional, though based on a real historical figure.

2) When and where is the story set?
This children’s story is set about 1850 in Wisconsin, a small community near Boltonville, about 40 miles north of Milwaukee.

3) What should we know about him/her? 

Matthew is a young boy in about the third grade in school, and has to change schools, though not where he lives. His father is the superintendent of the district, and helped build a school closer to their house, instead of the nearly two miles into Boltonville. He’s not very happy about it.

4) What is the main conflict? What messes up his/her life? 
One of the new students at Matthew’s new school is Green Leaf, a Potawatomi Boy. Some of the other parents are worried about Indians attending school and don’t want Green Leaf there. They take their children out of school, and try to make Matthew’s father tell Green Leaf he can’t come to school. Matthew is very upset about this.

5) What is the personal goal of the character? 
 Matthew wants the students and their parents to get to know Green Leaf and his family. He thinks that once they learn more about each other, they won’t be so suspicious and angry and afraid. But he’s just a young boy, so he is unsure how to make that happen.

6) Is there a working title for this novel, and can we read more about it?
 This book is called Matthew LaCraft, the Yankee Boy, a First Children of Farmington book, because each of the children is an ethnic settler family. Yankees were people who migrated from the eastern US across to the West, and Matthew’s parents were from Canada and New York. You can read more about the book and the series on my website, www.lisalickel.com

7) When can we expect the book to be published? 

 
This book is already published, one of a series of six First Children of Farmington books, which are all about children facing challenges similar to those of contemporary times. Green Leaf, The Potawatomi Boy
Huldah Harts, The German Girl
John Klessig, The Saxon Boy
Ann Riley, the Irish Girl
Marie Brinker, the French Girl
 

To continue the blog hop, I nominate Holly Michaels and Gail Pallotta.

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