Federal Court Family Inspires Nonfiction Book for Children

Federal Court Family

Inspires Nonfiction Sibert Honor author and two-time Green Earth Book Award Book for Children winner Patricia Newman writes books that show readers how their actions ripple around the world. She empowers readers to seek connections to the real world and to use their imaginations By Patricia Newman to act on behalf of their communities. Patti frequently speaks at schools and conferences to share how children of any age can affect change. Visit her at www.patriciamnewman.com

Editor’s Note: You may have seen Patricia Newman lurking in the background at an Eastern District Conference, but she’s not a lawyer. She’s the wife of Chief Magistrate Judge Kendall J. Newman (Eastern District of California) and an award-winning children’s author. The court family inspired Patricia’s newest book, A River’s Gifts: The Mighty Elwha River Reborn. Patricia describes below how the federal court family inspired her latest book.

It all started with a casual conversation in September 2018, between Ken and Magistrate Judge Allison Claire about where her college-aged triplets worked the past summer. Allison mentioned that one of her triplets, Theo, scored an internship with the Elwha River Restoration on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington. Engineers had just breached two dams to drain Lake Aldwell above the onehundred-year-old Elwha Dam and Lake Mills above the eighty-fiveyear-old Glines Canyon Dam. Theo helped replant the barren lakebed with native seeds and seedlings and became one member of a small army of botanists and volunteers who went on to plant 400,000 plants on 800 acres of lakebed over seven years.

When Ken arrived home that evening, he told me about Theo and said the Elwha River Restoration seemed like a great idea for a book. I had already written books for kids about ocean plastic, how sea otters save a seagrass ecosystem, and scientists who study elephants by listening to them – complex science topics that I knew I could share in a way that would cultivate a child’s interest and compassion for nature.

I started digging. The mighty Elwha flows from its headwaters in the Olympic Mountains 45 miles north to the sea. But its history is long, as described in the below passage from A River’s Gifts.

I interviewed Theo and several other stakeholders for preliminary research, including Olympic National Park scientists, members of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, politicians, and community members, Next, I created a proposal to outline my idea for my editor. My agent submitted the proposal in February 2019. By July, I had an offer.

In September, I visited Washington to begin researching in earnest. I prefer to interview experts on site

Millions of years ago, before Washington became a state, before humans walked the earth, before wooly mammoths roamed, powerful forces transformed rocks under the sea into mountains that touched the sky. Rocky, craggy, rough, and steep.

Ice fields blanketed mountains and lowlands, and fed smaller glaciers that marched slowly forward, carving the narrow canyons and broad valleys where the Elwha River would soon flow.

From left to right: Sujean Park Castelhano, Bebe Castelhano, Ken Newman, Theo Claire, Allison Claire, Patricia Newman.

to see what they see and hear what they hear. I learned about salmon from a fish biologist at Olympic National Park. A tribal host gave me a tour of the Lower Elwha Klallam Museum. She shared the tribe’s connection to salmon, plus their stories, language, and ceremonies. I visited a tribal fish hatchery built to keep the salmon run alive for the Lower Elwha Klallam people while the river was dammed. A botanist took me on a hike to one of the former lakebeds, now a riot of plants native to the area. We found a formerly submerged cedar stump with the logger’s ax cut still visible.

Three main themes emerged: 1) the importance of collaboration between scientists, government officials, Olympic National Park, and the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe to restore the river ecosystem; 2) the role of science in the functions of the ecosystem and the dam removal process; and 3) the hope inspired by a successful conservation effort.

After my editor and I finalized the text, I waited for Natasha Donovan to complete the illustrations. She worked for nearly a year. As the book went to the printer in the spring of 2021, I turned my attention to a book trailer and wondered aloud if I could find a child to narrate.

Once again, Ken stepped in with an idea. He suggested Staff Attorney Sujean Park Castelhano’s sixyear-old daughter as a possible voice-over narrator. I forwarded a digital file of the book and the script of the trailer to Sujean, who wrote to say, “She loved your book and she read most of it to ME and only needed help pronouncing a handful of words.” Most six-yearolds don’t have voice-over experience, but Bea, aka “Bebe”, was a natural. I recorded her reading one sentence of the script at a time to make it easy for her. Because of her advanced reading skills, we made it through in one take!

Remember that old joke about the lawyer who would have written a shorter brief but didn’t have the time? Children’s book authors must always take the time to be concise yet thorough. Our vocabulary must challenge yet clarify. Active verbs must evoke images. Most picture books for ages four to eight have 32 pages and fewer than 800 words. A River’s Gifts for ages eight to twelve, has 48 pages and roughly 1,700 words. The passage above about the beginnings of the Elwha River covers millions of years of geologic history in 64 words using a lyrical style that mimics the flow of the river. The trick is finding the right words, the right voice, and the right rhythm that keep my readers turning pages. I read aloud to myself a lot and even record myself reading so I can listen.

Book making takes a village. The federal court family was my village for A River’s Gifts. The entire experience is best summed up in Allison’s note to Theo when we learned my editor bought the book: “Just imagine in a couple of years there will be children reading this book, or having it read aloud to them, and becoming inspired just as you were inspired as a child by our Rachel Carson picture book. And you will have been part of that!”

For me, that’s what writing is all about. Inspiring a generation of kids to read about and connect to nature to empower them to act on what they have learned.

Trailer link: https://youtu.be/ wEAseYWS18Y

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