Writing a book about Molly presented me with both opportunities and challenges.  The biggest opportunity was the ability to talk with people who had lived through World War II.  The biggest challenge was the need I felt to get things right; to tell a story that would honor all those who had struggled during those war years, both overseas and abroad.  My mother’s family left their home, family and friends, and business in coastal New Jersey when my grandfather took a job in a Baltimore factory doing war work.  Both my mother-in-law and my father-in-law served in the military during the war.  So it’s a little personal.

World War II brought changes to almost everyone on the homefront.  Lots of women got jobs outside of their homes for the first time.  That affected everyone in the family.





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Clues in the Shadows          

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Left:  Marie Myers, learning to become an aircraft welder.  Two of Marie’s brothers joined the Army.


Right:  An instructor (nearest the camera) shows two newly-hired grandmothers how to sew fabric on airplane wings.


(All photos from the Library of Congress)

                                                                                                                                                                      

Families learned to make other adjustments, too, just as Molly and her family do.  Strict rationing of some foods and other goods helped supply the military with badly-needed items.









Children were also expected to do their part to help with the war effort.  Projects often started in school.  In the photo at left, a “military band” opened a rally that launched the campaign to collect scrap.  Do any of the photos below remind you of scenes from Clues in the Shadows?











                  


A student band opens a school rally.

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Students learning about the type of materials needed.

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These kids were eager to volunteer!

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Some kids collected paper--just as Molly does in the story.

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Some students collected scrap rubber or metal.

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Millions of children worked hard to support the war effort in any way they could.  But as the war years dragged on, the effect of so many drives and projects sometimes took a toll.  Many of the programs urged children to compete against each other, seeing who could collect the most paper or scrap metal.  Sometimes children struggled to meet expectations.  When I read about that, I decided that was an important idea to introduce in Clues in the Shadows.


As I was working on this book, the United States was engaged in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Thousands of kids are still living with the same kinds of fears that troubled children during World War II.  I hope that in some small way, this story might help readers think not only about what happened in the 1940s, but also what is happening even now.

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