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It may surprise some to discover that Kathryn Lasky, the Newbery Honor author of more than 30 fiction and nonfiction books for children and adults, was designated a “reluctant reader” as a child growing up in Indianapolis, Indiana.
”The truth was that I didn't really like the kind of books they had you reading at school — the ‘See Dick, See Jane’ books. So I made a voluntary withdrawal from reading in school,” Lasky explains. “But I loved the books my mom was reading to me — books like Peter Pan and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.”
”I loved to make up stories in my head. I was a compulsive story maker,” she continues. “I say story maker because I never told anyone or showed anyone my stories.”
Lasky first realized she could be a writer when she was about 10 years old, and her family was driving at night in their car with the top down. “The sky looked so interesting you couldn’t see the stars because of these woolly clouds. And I said it looked like a sheepback sky. My mom turned around and said, ‘Kathryn, you should be a writer.’When my mom said that, I thought, “Wow, maybe I will be.’”
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Of Flowers and Shadows is based on a painting by Winslow Homer. Set in 1879 Massachusetts, it stars beautiful and super-brave Aurelia, an orphan who flees her past and moves to a really small village where she meets a cute boy named Wayland. Even though Aurelia really likes him, she’s too scared to actually let herself open her heart to him. Instead she confides in the artist Winslow Homer who is painting her portrait. Homer, it turns out, discovers a secret about Aurelia’s past—and future.
