Avi’s 2025 Summer Blog Series
Deborah Hopkinson
From Avi: As I have for the last three summers, (summer of 2024, summer of 2023, summer of 2022) I’ve invited 13 admired authors to write for my blog for the next three months. I hope you’ll tune in each Tuesday to see who answered this year’s question, which we hope provides you with inspiration. And by the end of the summer, you’ll have new authors to follow!
What’s your favorite strategy for encouraging young people to read?
As I write this, it’s the height of summer, one of my favorite times to read. Sometimes, as I did when I was growing up, I’ll find a story so delicious I’ll stay up into the wee hours just to find out how it ends. Pressing my face to the screen in the dead of night, I often wonder if there are other late-night summer readers out there.
Usually, it’s a novel that keeps me up at night. And while I do write middle grade novels, including the upcoming WWII historical fiction Take Cover (Scholastic, 2026), I also love to write (and read) nonfiction.
When writing nonfiction I try to keep in mind that many young readers (and adults too) prefer fantasy, realistic fiction, mysteries, or science fiction. So I try to use the tools of fiction to engage readers of all ages, even when the subject matter is challenging or disturbing. That was a certainly a factor in my new book, They Battled in Blizzards (Scholastic Focus, 2025) Out in September, it’s long form nonfiction about the horrific Battle of the Bulge, the largest battle in US military history.
As I tell students at author visits, writing about something is a good way to learn about it. I had long shied away from tackling this massive six-week battle in the Ardennes forest which began with a surprise Nazi attack on December 16, 1944. And, in truth, it was one of the hardest books I’ve ever written.
Growing up, I thought the best parts of history textbooks were the “shaded boxes,” the stories that made past events come to life. With that in mind, one strategy I use in writing long nonfiction is to begin with a teaser, or prologue, that brings readers straight into the action even before they reach the table of contents.
History happens to real people, and in telling the story of the horrific conditions that befell young American soldiers in the Ardennes during that bitterly cold winter, I relied on oral histories, memoirs, and unpublished accounts, as well as photos generously provided by the families of veterans.
When I write nonfiction, I think of myself less as a creator and more as a museum curator. I try to select stories, photos, illustrations, and quotations that provide historical context and help readers imagine what that experience might have been like for those who were there.
That’s one reason I try to feature as many different voices as possible. This kind of close-to-the-ground history is only possible when ordinary people have had the courage to record an oral history or write down what happened to them. I hope by encountering a diversity of voices, readers will see themselves or their own family here; and also be encouraged to do oral histories with their loved ones. I also always include a note to readers urging them to tell their own stories too.
They Battled in Blizzards introduces readers to real people: women who served as nurses; Victor Brombert, a Jewish refugee who joined the US Army and later became an esteemed professor; Jose Lopez, a Latino immigrant awarded the Medal of Honor; Black servicemen like famed children’s book illustrator Ashley Bryan who served in Europe (with an accompanying remembrance by Dean Schneider); and Medgar Evers, who drove for the Red Ball Express.
Medgar Evers vowed to return home after the war and fight for civil rights. Assassinated in 1963 at age thirty-seven, he was buried with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery. In spring 2025, the Trump administration removed the finding guide for Black American heroes on the cemetery’s website. Many wrote to protest, including me. It hasn’t been restored.
I believe the best way I can encourage young people to read nonfiction is to try to tell vital stories, grounded in evidence and fact, with the hope that the next generation will have a better understanding of the past — even when there are those determined to erase or discount the contributions of extraordinary Americans.
Particulars
Deborah Hopkinson is the award-winning author of seventy books for young readers including picture books, middle grade historical fiction, Little Golden Book biographies, and long form nonfiction. Her titles have been honored with the Oregon Book Award, the SCBWI Golden Kite Award for Picture Book Text, the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award, and the Green Earth Environmental Award.