Currents (30 page)

I
t is believed that bottles were first placed in the ocean as early as 310 BCE, when the Greeks set them afloat in the Mediterranean Sea to prove that it was formed by the inflowing Atlantic Ocean. The more I read the more I became fascinated by the various reasons people have tossed these little glass messengers into the ocean. Lovelorn sailors in sinking ships threw notes overboard hoping someone would find them and forward them to their loved ones. During one severe storm, even Christopher Columbus placed a report of his discoveries inside a cask along with a note asking that if found, the document be given to Isabella, Queen of Spain. It is intriguing to me to imagine the different reasons a message might be tossed into the water and where the currents might carry it. I always wonder who would find it, and what it would mean to the discoverer.

Around the same time I was finding information about bottles in the ocean, I was also reading several American slave narratives for the first time. I had thought I was relatively well versed about the American Civil War, but reading these firsthand accounts profoundly affected me. It was just a matter of time before I had written young Bones and figured out that she should toss her name into the James River. Once the Gulf Stream picked up her bottle, I looked at ocean-current charts to figure out where it might land. Then I had to learn about what was happening in that part of the world at that time. And my adventures with researching and writing the interwoven stories of Bones, Bess, and Mary Margaret began.

I tried to stay true to facts even when inventing the lives of my three protagonists. Except for “The Red Sled” in chapter fifty and “Agnes May and Me” in chapter fifty-eight, all the excerpts from
Merry's Museum Magazine
are real—I had great fun reading them in compilation editions. I also read about lonely-hearts advertisements, the summer home of Queen Victoria, British explorations of the Nile River, the American gold rush in California, the potato famine in Ireland, and more. I think many authors live for the moment when a surprising bit of information appears during research. That was the case when I first read that Tiny Tim's illness in Charles Dickens's
A Christmas Carol
has been debated in the most prestigious medical circles for a long time. The consensus is that while people like him were malnourished and could have suffered from rickets, it is most likely that those with symptoms like the character of Tiny Tim actually suffer from a condition called proximal renal tubular acidosis. As in Bridget Casey's case, the condition is serious, but if properly diagnosed is easily treated and quickly cured, even in the 1850s.

A
s I read dozens of books and articles, I quickly learned that research leads to more research. At some point an author has to begin to write. Thank you to my husband, Randy, for putting up with the hundreds of articles, books, and notes that I had stacked around our home at various points during the writing process. Your good humor is, as always, appreciated.

Through GrubStreet, a creative writing center in Boston, I was fortunate to be connected to the talented Ben Winters. His advice about shaping this novel was invaluable.

It was my lucky day when I met a student in a children's literature nonfiction class whom the other students nicknamed “the magic brain.” Karen Boss's editorial suggestions and guidance have made this effort far better than it would have been without her. She also made it a heck of a lot of fun.

Finally, thank you to my mother, who convinced me that if I wanted to, I could do anything.

T
he following references in the text are taken directly from primary-source materials.

On page 14 Bones reads an article and looks at an illustration:

Merry, Robert, Uncle Frank, and Hiram Hatchet, eds.
“Africa: Dr. Livingstone's Journeys and Researches in South Africa.”
Merry's Museum, Parley's Magazine, Woodworth's Cabinet, and The Schoolfellow 35
. (January–June 1858): 70–73. Reprinted in original format. Lexington, KY: ULAN Press, 2014.

On pages 14 & 15 Bones reads aloud from this article:

Merry, Robert, Uncle Frank, and Hiram Hatchet, eds.
“Africa and Its Wonders.”
Merry's Museum, Parley's Magazine, Woodworth's Cabinet, and The Schoolfellow 35
. (January–June 1858): 134–36. Reprinted in original format. Lexington, KY: ULAN Press, 2014.

On pages 125 & 126 Bess reads this article in the library:

Merry, Robert, Uncle Frank, and Hiram Hatchet, eds.
“The Chinese Wall.”
Merry's Museum, Parley's Magazine, Woodworth's Cabinet, and The Schoolfellow 35
. (January–June 1858): 121. Reprinted in original format. Lexington, KY: ULAN Press, 2014.

On page 126 Bess also reads this article:

Goodrich, Samuel. “A Frightened Tiger.”
The Youth's Companion.
(July 29, 1869): 234.
www.merrycoz.org/yc/TIGER.HTM
.

On page 315 Bones reads a newspaper headline:

“The War Begun.”
New York Herald
, April 13, 1861, morning edition, front page.

I
n addition to the sources listed in the source notes, I also consulted many others. The following proved especially valuable and instructive. Although some were originally published for adults (those marked with an asterisk), you might find them interesting, too.

*Gaines, Ernest J.
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman.
New York: Bantam, 1982. First published 1971 by Dial.

*Jacobs, Harriet.
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. First published 1861 by Thayer & Eldridge.

Lester, Julius.
To Be A Slave.
New York: Puffin Books, 1998. First published 1968 by Dial.

*Berkeley, Maud.
Maud: The Diary of Maud Berkeley.
Flora Fraser, ed. London: Martin Secker & Warburg, 1985.

Brocklehurst, Ruth.
Usborne History of Britain, The Victorians.
London: Usborne Publishing, 2013.

*Jeal, Tim.
Explorers of the Nile: The Triumph and Tragedy of a Great Victorian Adventure.
New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011.

American Textile History Museum, Lowell, MA.
www.athm.org
.

Bartoletti, Susan Campbell.
Black Potatoes: The Story of the Great Irish Famine, 1845–1850.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001.

Nichols House Museum. Boston, MA.
www.nicholshousemuseum.org
.