Start with a Story, End up in History: a Laurie Halse Anderson Interview

Discovering Laurie Halse Anderson’s Literature

(and learning a ton of history along the way)

When I was a child, nothing piqued my interest in history more than a good book.  And the same goes for today!  So when a colleague of mine introduced me to Laurie Halse Anderson’s novel Chains – like she was recommending the best filet mignon she’d ever tasted – I had to get my hands on that book!

And I was NOT disappointed.  In fact, I was blown away!  So much so that I purchased the next two books in the series immediately after finishing Chains.  Now, when I start talking to friends and teachers about book recommendations, Anderson’s books are at the top of my list.  

Needless to say, when I found out I had the opportunity to interview Laurie Halse Anderson for Kids Discover, I was over the moon!  And just like being ecstatic after reading one of her books, I was elated after our conversation.  

The overall takeaway that Laurie so eloquently expressed via our interview: the best way to get children interested in history isn’t through fascinating facts and figures, but through an adventurous, well-written story.  

Let Them Meet The People 

(why it is important to teach history through literature)

Think back to the way many of us first learned about the American Revolution.  There were dates to memorize, names to remember, battles to locate on a map.  Perhaps there was a test at the end of the unit to make sure we could remember which event happened before which other event.

And while all of those things have their place, they don’t necessarily make history feel real.

Laurie Halse Anderson believes literature can do something that a traditional history lesson sometimes can’t: it can allow students to meet the people who lived through history.  In fact, when I asked Laurie what historical fiction can give young readers that a textbook or traditional history lesson sometimes can’t, her answer was wonderfully simple:  “Everything.”

She went on to explain that “if you don’t have their attention and curiosity, they’re not going to learn anything.”  For Anderson, that curiosity is the doorway.  If a story can connect with a child’s inner self, she believes, “now their minds are open to new knowledge.”

That idea is at the heart of Anderson’s most recent adventure story, Rebellion 1776.  Rather than telling the story of the American Revolution through the eyes of George Washington, John Adams, or another famous figure whose name students may already recognize, Anderson introduces readers to Elsbeth Culpepper, a thirteen-year-old girl living through the Siege of Boston.

Elsbeth isn’t a famous historical figure. She’s a kid.  And that’s precisely the point.

She is funny. She’s stubborn. She’s clever. She’s frightened. She’s courageous. And, as the title suggests, she’s rebellious. She is also trying to figure out how to survive in a world that has suddenly become frighteningly unpredictable.  For a young reader, this can create a very different connection to history.

Anderson explained that children naturally look for personal connections.  We experience the world through our own lives, so asking a child to understand a massive historical event can be difficult when it is presented only as a collection of facts.  But give that child another young person to care about, worry about, and root for, and suddenly 1776 doesn’t seem quite so far away.

This is one of the great gifts of literature – a  novel allows us to step into someone else’s life.  And Rebellion 1776 gives students a particularly fascinating life to step into:

Elsbeth’s world is already difficult enough before the Revolution reaches her doorstep.  Boston is occupied by British soldiers.  Food is scarce.  Families are frightened.  Two armies are preparing for battle.  Families and friends don’t necessarily agree about which side they support.  And then, as if all of that weren’t enough, a smallpox epidemic arrives.

Does any of this sound familiar?

Anderson actually began researching Rebellion 1776 during the COVID-19 pandemic.  That experience gave her an unexpected perspective on the people she was writing about.  For today’s students, the idea of living through an epidemic is no longer something that belongs exclusively in the pages of a history book.  They have lived through uncertainty, isolation, fear, disrupted routines, and a world that seemed to change overnight.  This connection matters.

When students recognize something familiar in the lives of people who lived 250 years ago, history becomes less about them and more about us.  And perhaps that is where a love of history begins.  Not with a date, but with a person.

Hook Them with the Adventure 

(why it is important to make history engaging)

Let’s be honest: telling a student, “Today we’re going to learn about the Siege of Boston,” probably isn’t going to produce the same reaction as saying, “Imagine you’re ten years old.  Your town is occupied by soldiers.  People are hungry and scared.  Another army shows up.  Battles are happening in the streets.  And just when you think things might finally get better, an epidemic arrives.”

Now that is a story.

Anderson shared exactly this kind of scenario when describing how she introduces Rebellion 1776 to an audience.  Her point is simple: sometimes we need to tell students the story before we tell them the history.

This is also why Anderson prefers to think of her historical novels as adventure novels.  She told me that she sometimes encourages teachers not to lead with the phrase “historical fiction.”  Instead, let students come for the adventure.  Let them become invested in the characters.  Let them wonder what is going to happen next.

As Laurie put it:

“They come for the adventure, and they absorb the history without even realizing it.”

The history will come along for the ride.  And Rebellion 1776 certainly has an adventure to offer:

Elsbeth is living through a period when practically everything around her is changing.  Her city is occupied.  Her family is dealing with the consequences of war.  An epidemic threatens the community.  People are making difficult choices.  Loyalties are being tested.  And Elsbeth herself is trying to navigate all of it while being, well, thirteen.  This is a fantastic recipe for a page-turner!

But there is something else happening beneath the adventure – Anderson is giving young readers a reason to care about what happens next.  And once a student cares about what happens next, curiosity takes over.

What happened to Elsbeth?  Why did the British leave?  What was happening outside Boston?  What was smallpox?  Why were people fighting?  What happened to the families who stayed?  And perhaps the most important question of all: What happened next?  These questions can take a student a very long way.

When I asked Laurie what she might say to a student who insists, “I don’t like history,” she didn’t suggest giving that student more facts.  Instead, she suggested giving them a story.

“Sometimes learning the facts and figures can be so boring, but let me tell you a story…are you interested now?”

I love that.  Because the goal isn’t to convince students that history is interesting by telling them that history is interesting.  The goal is to make them experience it as interesting.  Anderson told me that her hope is that a reader will finish one of her historical novels and think, Wait a minute. History isn’t actually boring.  If that happens, she said, perhaps that curiosity will continue throughout the student’s life.

That is a pretty powerful goal for a book.  

And it is especially meaningful this year, as we celebrate the 250th birthday of the United States.  There will certainly be plenty of opportunities to teach students about 1776 this year.  There will be dates, documents, speeches, battles, maps, and famous names.  But Rebellion 1776 offers another way in.

Start with a thirteen-year-old girl.  Start with an adventure.  Start with a story.  And see where the questions take you.

Respect the History 

(why it is important to read and write accurate historical fiction)

Of course, there is a danger in making history entertaining: the story still has to be history.  Anderson takes this responsibility very seriously.

She spent approximately three years researching Rebellion 1776.  That research included reading historical records, examining town meeting records, working with historians, and even digging into information that has survived only on microfilm.  She created a spreadsheet tracking approximately 200 people who lived in Boston during this period, following what happened to them and their families as the city experienced the Siege of Boston and its aftermath.

That’s a lot of research for one adventure novel.  But it is precisely that research that allows Anderson to make the fictional world feel authentic.

One of my favorite details from our conversation was her explanation of why she used the word “puke” in Rebellion 1776.  It wasn’t inserted simply because it sounded like something a thirteen-year-old might say.  Anderson had researched the language of the period and knew that the word was actually used at the time.

Those little details matter.  They help students understand that historical fiction isn’t permission to make history up.  Instead, historical fiction requires an author to build an imaginative story inside the boundaries of the historical record.

Anderson’s use of primary sources throughout Rebellion 1776 takes that idea one step further.  Each chapter begins with material drawn from historical sources, giving readers a chance to encounter evidence from the actual people and events behind the story.  

For educators, this creates a wonderful opportunity.  Students can read the fictional story and then examine the historical source that inspired or connects to it. They can ask:  What is fact?  What has the author imagined?  What does this primary source tell us that the fictional story doesn’t?  Why might the author have chosen to include this particular historical detail?

Suddenly, students aren’t simply reading history – they’re practicing history.  They’re examining evidence.  They’re thinking about perspective.  They’re considering what we can know about the past, and what an author has to imagine.

And Anderson’s research also reveals something fascinating about the people who lived through the Revolution.  She told me that one of the things that surprised her most was how ordinary many of the people were.  They weren’t all famous leaders or larger-than-life historical figures.  They were average people living through extraordinary circumstances.

That may be one of the most important lessons Rebellion 1776 offers young readers – history wasn’t made only by the people whose names ended up in textbooks.  It was lived by ordinary people!

As Laurie explained:

“Average people in extraordinary circumstances – these experiences help you find what they were made of.”

People who were hungry.  People who were frightened.  People who disagreed with one another.  People who had families to protect.  People who made practical decisions.  People who had no idea how their story would eventually turn out.

Anderson’s research uncovered a particularly moving example of ordinary people responding to the suffering of others.  When the British imposed increasing pressure on Boston, communities from other colonies began sending food and supplies.  Anderson described how people from as far away as South Carolina identified with Boston’s struggle and sent assistance.  Israel Putnam even brought a herd of sheep from Connecticut and donated them to the people of Boston.

For Anderson, that sense of people recognizing one another’s struggle was part of the beginning of the United States.  This is history worth talking about.  This is history worth reading about.  This is history worth knowing.  

The Story is the Beginning, Not the End 

(a compelling story can be the spark that makes students want to learn history, then teachers can take it from there)

Perhaps the greatest argument for putting a book like Rebellion 1776 into the hands of students isn’t that it can teach them everything they need to know about the American Revolution.

It can’t.  And it shouldn’t have to.  A novel doesn’t need to be the entire history lesson. It can be the doorway into the history lesson.

A student reads about Elsbeth and wants to know more about smallpox.  Another becomes curious about the Siege of Boston.  Another wants to know why the British were in Boston in the first place.  Another wants to understand why some families supported the Revolution while others didn’t.  Another becomes fascinated by what life was like for a thirteen-year-old girl in 1776.

And there you have it.  You’ve got them.  You’ve got the curiosity that Anderson talked about throughout our conversation.  From there, a teacher can take students anywhere:

Read the primary sources that inspired the novel.  Examine maps.  Study letters. Investigate the lives of ordinary people.  Compare fictional characters with historical records.  Explore what happened in Boston before, during, and after the siege.  Connect the story to local history.  Ask students to investigate the lives of people who were alive in their own communities during the Revolutionary era.

The story has done its job.  It has opened the door.  And perhaps that is particularly important right now!

As we celebrate America’s 250th birthday, we have an incredible opportunity to help young people see the founding of our country not as something that happened a very, very long time ago, but as something that happened to real people.  

People who were approximately their age.  People who were scared.  People who were hopeful.  People who argued.  People who made mistakes.  People who wondered what would happen next.  People who lived through an extraordinary moment without knowing how the story would end.

And, interestingly enough, that last idea may be one of the most important connections students can make to their own lives – the children who lived through 1776 didn’t know they were living through “history.”  They were simply living their lives.

The same is true for the children who experienced the COVID-19 pandemic.  They didn’t know exactly how the story would unfold.  They simply experienced it – one day, one week, one strange new reality at a time.

Anderson’s research into 1776 began during that very pandemic.  Perhaps that is one reason Rebellion 1776 feels particularly timely for young readers today: it reminds us that history is made up of people navigating uncertainty, just as we do.

When I asked Laurie why Rebellion 1776 matters so much at this particular moment in American history, her answer went beyond the 250th anniversary:

“My hope is that if they read one of my historical novels, and find out that history isn’t actually boring, and become curious about it, that hopefully will foster their curiosity well through life.  You can’t sustain a democracy if your population is ignorant of how we got here, and doesn’t understand how the government works.  It has never been more important than it is right now for people to learn about our history…to be exposed to stories that make them start their own journey into education.”

That, to me, is the heart of it.  So, this year, as we celebrate 250 years of American history, let’s give students more than a list of dates to memorize.  Let’s give them a story.  Give them Elsbeth.  Give them the Siege of Boston.  Give them the smallpox epidemic.  Give them the fear, humor, stubbornness, courage, and adventure of a thirteen-year-old girl trying to make sense of a world that has suddenly become unfamiliar.

And then, when they close the book, ask them what they want to know next.  Because this is where the real history begins.

Start with a story.  End up in history.  And maybe, just maybe, create a lifelong historian along the way.