Interviews
A Conversation with Lynne Cheney
Q: How did you get the idea for this book?
A: I started thinking about it during the 2000 campaign, jotting ideas down on anything that came to hand, the margins of newspapers, scraps of paper. The campaign was such a lesson in America. Seeing the great cities and the natural beauty of the country, meeting people from all across the land, I found myself so deeply moved, time and again. I love this country and there is so much about it to love, and I wanted to make sure that my grandchildren -- that all children -- understand that.
Q: How did you decide what each letter stood for?
A: Some of the letters just fell into place. A is for America, of course. C has been the Constitution from the first moment and D the Declaration of Independence and J for Jefferson, K for Martin Luther King, L for Lincoln, M for Madison. Some of the others evolved. In the beginning Q was for Question, "the greatest question ever debated," in James Madison's words, and that was whether this country would become free and independent. But that gradually evolved into Quest -- "America's Quest for the new, the far, and the very best" -- which gave me an opportunity to talk about everything from our amazing achievements in sports and in the arts to our exploration of space.
Q: How did Robin Glasser become the illustrator for the book?
A: When I started talking about doing a children's book, friends brought me other children's books to look at and so did Brenda Bowen, who became the book's editor at Simon & Schuster. I loved Robin's drawings from the moment I laid eyes on them. They are so joyful. She also manages to get a lot of visual information on each page, and I liked that. There's a lot to tell about America.
Q: How did you and Robin work together?
A: It was a wonderful collaboration. I provided the basic framework and then we both began to fill it in. Robin came up with ideas and so did her sister, Jacqueline Weiss, who served as her research assistant. Robin lives in California, and over the months we were working on the book, we were in almost daily contact by e-mail and fax. Both of us spent days, evenings, and weekends on this project, but it never felt like a burden to either of us. It was so inspiring to work on this book.
Q: Was anyone else involved in the project?
A: I talked about this book with so many people that friends started coming up with ideas for it. V for a while was for Valley Forge. I wanted to talk about the sacrifices that people have made for freedom. A friend suggested that a better way to do that would be to make V for Valor, and thus it is. Robin came up with the idea of using the Congressional Medal of Honor to frame the page. My research assistant at the American Enterprise Institute, Stephanie Lundberg, and I came up with the idea of putting Congressional Medal of Honor recipients in the page's border. I believe Molly Pitcher was Robin's inspiration. I wanted the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, the African-American unit that fought with such valor in the Civil War, and the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, the Japanese-American unit so highly decorated in World War II, on the page.
Q: Was the Vice President helpful?
A: Very. He's a serious student of history, particularly military history, and I turned to him from time to time. He and I were watching the HBO series Band of Brothers while I was working on the V page, which inspired me to put the World War II paratroopers there. The Vice President recommended that we illustrate the Enterprise, the aircraft carrier so important at the Battle of Midway in World War II. I remember his describing how effective it was in that battle and how it began the war and ended the war and went all through the Pacific. Stephanie and Robin and I had quite a time coming up with a picture that showed what the Enterprise looked like with planes on its deck. I believe Stephanie is the one who succeeded.
Q: How did you do the research?
A: I'm a book person. When I was working on the W is for Washington page I had biographies of Washington and histories of the Revolutionary War piled up everywhere. Fortunately over the years, Dick and I have gathered quite a library, but whatever order it had when I started this project has been totally disrupted. I also sought expert opinion like that of Bob Goldwin, one of my colleagues at the American Enterprise Institute who is deeply knowledgeable about the founding period. I would call him and ask, "Is it okay to say that our Constitution is the oldest written constitution in the world today?" And he would advise that I'd better insert "national" in that description. Stephanie Lundberg, my research assistant, was a great help. If you ask her when Jefferson proclaimed that he couldn't live without books, she'll have the answer for you in two minutes.
Q: Who is the audience for this book?
A: It's a children's book, but it's for parents and teachers, too. I think its best use will be when adults and children read and talk about it together. Reading experts talk about "dialogic reading" as a way of teaching reading that is particularly effective. Instead of just reading words while the child listens, you read a little bit, then talk about what you've read and about other things on the page that interest the child. This is a perfect book for that.
Q: Are there any surprises in this book?
A: Not surprises, exactly, but discoveries that children and their parents might make after several readings. On the C (is for Constitution) page, the illustration around the letter C shows three children playing jump rope. Why three, careful readers might ask? And the answer, which they could figure out from the material at the back of the book, is that the Constitution established three branches of government. The three branches work together just as the three children play together.
Q: How did September 11th affect the book?
A: It made it more important to me. This is a book that helps little kids understand the principles our country is based on, the ideas that underlie our freedom. When we are under attack, it's particularly important that the next generation understand the foundations of our liberty.
On the opening page, which shows a Fourth of July celebration in New York harbor, there's a banner with words from "America the Beautiful": "Thine alabaster cities gleam undimmed by human tears!" To this day I can't read that without choking up.
Q: What do your grandchildren think about the book?
A: They're fascinated by it. I can't wait to get a real copy of it for them. They know a lot about American history already. The seven-year-old can tell you quite a bit about George Washington. And she's been to Frederick Douglass's home. She and her four-year-old sister, who sings a great "God Bless America," are going to have a wonderful time exploring this book. And I suspect when the two-year-old sees all of us reading it, she'll want to take part too.
Q: Have you written history for children before?
A: When I first started writing years and years ago, I did a few things for children. One I remember was the story of Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman doctor. Over the years I've written history for a variety of magazines, including Smithsonian and American Heritage. I wrote a book about important historical figures in the House of Representatives with my husband when he was a congressman from Wyoming. It was called Kings of the Hill. I wrote about history often when I was chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities. My point was that we need to do a better job of conveying our national story to the next generation. I still speak about that today -- and I hope that America: A Patriotic Primer will go some way to help accomplish that.
