The wonderful person who maintains my website for me set me up with goggle alerts, and one of those let me know about a blog post by the illustrator for the ready-to-read I wrote about Martin Luther King. http://amyjunebates.blogspot.com/2010/01/martin-luther-king-jr.html#comment-form
Maybe no other person who lived in the United States quite exemplified the power of one person to make a difference. In the book, I wanted young readers to understand what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. actually SAID in his speech.
I also spend a lot of time in author visits talking about Yohannes–here doing a presentation with me in a church where Dr. King preached some of his famous sermons–who is changing the world for Ethiopian children one person at a time. No wonder he was chosen as one of CNN’s top heroes in 2008.
I can’t think of a better reason to go to Hollywood than to hear about those heroes, ordinary people making an extraodinary difference. They were the people in the back of my mind as I shaped Lanie’s story about the choices each one of us can make that will save our world.