Listen to Deborah Wiles on the story behind Revolution, courtesy of TeachingBooks.net.

"I love asking 'what if?' with my characters, setting them up to make choices, putting them in situations that will break their hearts, asking more of them than they seem to be able to handle, and seeing what they do...."

In her book Countdown (2010), set in 1962, Deborah Wiles focused on tensions between the United States and Russia and the threat of nuclear war. Revolution (2014, both Scholastic; Gr 5-8) takes place two years later during Freedom Summer in Greenwood, Mississippi, when college students "invade" the town to register African American voters. Wiles's final title in the “Sixties” trilogy will also be set in that decade, which the author sees as a crucial time in the making of our nation. "Kids don't often see themselves as part of history," the author stated, "but they're a piece of it, and their [stories are] vital to understanding the larger history." Why Freedom Summer? Freedom Summer changed my world, and it changed our nation. With the trilogy, and with Revolution in particular, I wanted to show the larger arc of our nation's history, juxtaposed against an individual's smaller arc. History is made by individuals, one moment at a time. By experiencing [my character] Sunny’s walk through it [in Revolution] or Franny’s [in Countdown], readers see that, choice by choice, they craft a life. What drew you to those specific years—1962 in Countdown and 1964 in Revolution—and did you always envision these books as part of a trilogy? [Originally] I proposed 1962, 1966, and 1968 [as the focus years of the trilogy]. I had 40 pages of Countdown and 40 pages of a novel set in 1966. The James Meredith March [March Against Fear] from Memphis, Tennessee, to Jackson, Mississippi, took place in 1966. Meredith was shot [and injured] the first day out. I was 13, and that event stunned me. I knew I wanted to write about 1968; it was a volatile year and the year of the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. How did you come up with the documentary format for the series, which incorporates archival photos, essays, song lyrics, speeches, and other material? As a novelist I want readers to see, smell, and touch [what's happening]; I call the books’ visual sections "scrapbooks" and the biographies, "opinionated biographies." I see them as an older Sunny’s or Franny's opinions, something they might have pulled together as adults. One [purpose of the] scrapbooks is to show what was going on at the same time outside of Mississippi. For example, the Gulf of Tonkin incident occurred [two days before] the bodies [of the young activists Michael Schwerner, James Earl Chaney, and Andrew Goodman] were found. The best way to show these [side-by-side, contemporary events] is through my characters and [what they were seeing, listening to, and reading]. In the same vein, there's a playlist of all the songs mentioned and anchors for the chapters on Pinterest for Countdown and Revolution. How did you choose which photographs and headlines to include? I started by collecting moments…and looked for photos and newspaper clippings that represented them. [These] helped me to shape the narrative. With Revolution, I began with the first day of Freedom Summer, the summer solstice—the day Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman disappear. Tell us about growing up in the South. That's where my heart is, the small Southern town. Everyone knows your business. You keep your tea in the fridge and your front room picked up. Even though I feel comfortable in Mississippi, I didn't know Greenwood, so I traveled there. What did you discover in Greenwood? In July, 1964, there was a Freedom Day in Greenwood, and I found photographs of it, some by Sara Criss, a reporter for the Greenwood Commonwealth. She ended up being [my character] Polly. Mary Carol [Miller] turned over her mother's journals to me. It would have been unrealistic for my characters Sunny [who is Caucasian] and Ray [who is African American] to have had a "Hi, how are you?" contact. When I read Mary Carol's journal entries and read the UPI news articles, I discovered the story of Silas McGhee, [a young African American Greenwood resident who was shot in the head at close range], and I was able to pattern Ray on him. Knowing the history of that summer gave me a framework on which to hang the story and to create a believable one. Speaking of Ray, he has a terrible choice to make—to side with his father, who doesn't want to rock the boat, or go along with his mother, who sees an opportunity to better their lives by working with the Freedom Summer volunteers. I love asking "what if?" with my characters, setting them up to make choices, putting them in situations that will break their hearts, asking more of them than they seem to be able to handle, and seeing what they do—then making sure those choices are earned and that they contribute to the story arc. Sunny became more contrary every time I revised and rewrote. That had nothing to do with Freedom Summer and everything to do with this girl who longs for a mother. For Raymond, having to make that choice between his parents is excruciating. It had to do with his need for agency. He sees what's happening to his [community] and an opportunity for change through the people who came to Mississippi that summer. Ray's chapters are very emotional. Ray knows who he is and what he wants. Listen to Deborah Wiles on the story behind Revolution, courtesy of TeachingBooks.net.