Hurricane Sandy touched millions of lives last week, including many in the children’s book community. Here a few authors and publishers tell their storm stories.
Dinah Stevenson, Clarion Books
Not a lot of drama, just a foot of water on the ground floor of my Hoboken brownstone, where the kitchen is. No power, no heat or hot water, no phone. I was sitting in the dark with a friend on Thursday evening, and our conversation was interrupted by a kind of rattling roar. “Oh, that’s just the fridge,” I said reassuringly. “Just the fridge?” she repeated. That’s when the penny dropped and I realized the electricity was on. Casualties: dishwasher, wall oven, and possibly the floor—it’s oak, the whole ground floor, and may have gotten wet beyond its ability to dry out. I’m aware every minute of how fortunate I was.
Lois Lowry, author
An uninvited guest in Lois Lowry's house.
Gayle Forman, author
We’d spent the days of the hurricane indoors, going back and forth to neighbors who were hosting their displaced friends from Tribeca and the Rockaways. There was a big call for volunteers, but there wasn’t much I could do. I had no gas (note to self: before next catastrophic storm, FILL THE TANK), I had my two kids underfoot, and my husband, who works for ABC News, was stuck to the computer working from home.By Sunday, I was going a little crazy. I’d bought a bunch of stuff on Amazon and sent it to City Council member James Sanders’s office in the Rockaways, and sent a couple of boxes of donations with other friends who were shuttling stuff back and forth, but I wanted to do something else. In the end, I reverted to my Jewish lady roots, and I cooked. I rode my bike to the nearest store and loaded up a backpack and a big blue Ikea bag and then wobbled back home. I spent the afternoon making giant pots of comfort food: mac and cheese, chili, and cornbread. I put a call out on Facebook to see if anyone could give us a lift to Red Hook,
but it didn’t work out, though someone told me that there was a nearby center in desperate need of food. We’d been saving the last of the gas in case of an emergency but figured, this was one. So we bundled the kids into the car and drove the stuff to the Good Shepherd Center. Red Hook was a mess, but it was also full of volunteers. I’m hoping the gas situation improves so I can plan daily meal deliveries. I’m already plotting menus.
but it didn’t work out, though someone told me that there was a nearby center in desperate need of food. We’d been saving the last of the gas in case of an emergency but figured, this was one. So we bundled the kids into the car and drove the stuff to the Good Shepherd Center. Red Hook was a mess, but it was also full of volunteers. I’m hoping the gas situation improves so I can plan daily meal deliveries. I’m already plotting menus.
Shanta Newlin, Penguin Young Readers Group
Last Tuesday, we were alerted that two of our books, Colin Fischer by Zack Stentz and Ashley Edward Miller and Max and Ruby’s Treasure Hunt by Rosemary Wells, were going to be featured in a book recommendation segment on the Today Show on Friday, November 2, and that the Today Show needed finished copies delivered to their offices by Wednesday. The city was out of power and shut down. Our offices were closed and none of the subways were running. After many e-mails, we learned that the only finished copies available were in our offices. So Kim Highland, director of national accounts, and Elissa Baille, national accounts manager, Amazon, walked across the Brooklyn Bridge through Chinatown to the Penguin offices, where they met our head of office services. They searched the darkened halls with flashlights, found the books, and then physically delivered them to 30 Rock. Luckily, their hard work paid off and the segment ran on Friday.
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