You’re not old enough to remember 1941, the year in which War and Millie McGonigle is set. Of course, you weren’t old enough to remember the time periods for your medieval books, either. What was there about Millie’s time that made you want to write about it?
My experience of the war is mostly second hand—my Uncle Chester’s stories about fighting in the South Pacific, my father’s struggles to find tires and gas for the car, my mother’s complaints about rationing. Until the day she died, my mother grumbled about how many ration coupons I used up for the shoes I kept outgrowing. I wanted to know more about their struggles, challenges, worries. What would it be like to live in a time of such constant fear, deprivation, and uncertainty?
