[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 141 (Tuesday, November 18, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6082-S6083]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     TRIBUTE TO KATHERINE PATERSON

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, Katherine Paterson is a treasure to 
Vermont. She is also a close friend to Marcelle and me. And today, at 
the age of 82, she continues to write with the grace and talent that 
has made her a two-time National Book Award winner and twice a Newbery 
medalist.
  I have had the honor and good fortune to know Katherine for many 
years. Her humble and soft-spoken nature belie the power of her writing 
and her myriad contributions to children's literature.
  In announcing that she would be last year's winner of the Laura 
Ingalls Wilder Medal, the committee noted: ``Katherine Paterson has 
been writing books that have made a profound difference in children's 
lives for 40 years. Her work acknowledges life's challenges and 
difficulties, yet she always leaves her readers with hope.''
  I ask that this recent profile of Katherine Paterson, from the 
Burlington Free Press, be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

            [From The Burlington Free Press, Nov. 16, 2014]

                  Katherine Paterson's Life in Stories

                           (By Sally Pollak)

       Montpelier Author's Memoir is a Set of Stories, Many Could 
     Serve as a Manual for Loving and Raising Kids
       In her new book, ``Stories of my Life,'' Katherine Paterson 
     tells a set of wonderful stories that span her eight decades.
       She writes about her young childhood in China, where she 
     was born, and the mountain resort where she stayed with her 
     mother and siblings (including a newborn sister) during 
     wartime in the summer of 1937. Paterson tells about a family 
     friend who was kissed by Robert E. Lee, and her distant 
     cousin named Mark Twain. Yes, that Mark Twain. Paterson 
     writes about taking her sixthgrade class on a field trip to 
     the Washington zoo; the widow she lived with when she worked 
     as a missionary in Japan, and her sons' adventures in places 
     unknown to their mother.
       Paterson doesn't write about her first fall in Barre, where 
     she and her husband moved 28 years ago. The youngest of 
     Paterson's four children went off to college, and Paterson 
     had left behind friends in Virginia and Maryland.
       ``It rained a lot,'' Paterson said. ``I ate Ben and Jerry's 
     Coffee Heath Bar Crunch, and read.''
       Paterson, who turned 82 on Halloween, is an awardwinning 
     author who started to write books in the bits of time when 
     her young children were all asleep. She was able to devote 
     more time to writing when her four kids were old enough for 
     school. Paterson's books have won the most prominent honors 
     in literature, including two Newbery Medals (``Bridge to 
     Terabithia'' and ``Jacob Have I Loved'') and two National 
     Book Awards (``The Master Puppeteer'' and ``The Great Gilly 
     Hopkins.'') Before the Patersons moved to Vermont for John 
     Paterson's work as a minister, the Patersons knew Vermont as 
     the place they celebrated their wedding anniversary. They 
     would drive north from New York's Lake George, where they 
     spend summers, to eat at Dog Team Tavern. The restaurant in 
     Middlebury, known for its sticky buns, burned down in 2006.
       The ice-cream eating phase in the big brick house in Barre 
     would give way to book-writing, including books set in 
     Vermont. Paterson had barely unpacked when she met a woman at 
     a book signing in Shelburne who began a conversation: ``Now 
     that you're a Vermonter. . . . '' The woman went on to 
     inquire if Paterson had an interest in writing a book that 
     would be meaningful for children of Vermont migrant farm 
     workers.
       This involved getting to know her new home state by 
     visiting farms and homes, and completing a book on a six-
     month deadline (a first). In order to meet the deadline, 
     Paterson proposed writing an I Can Read Book. ``The Smallest 
     Cow in the World,'' with illustrations by Burlington native 
     Jane Clark Brown, was Paterson's first book for new readers.
       Decades later Paterson attempted another genre for the 
     first time: memoir, or memoir-ish.
       ``Stories of my Life'' is lively, interesting and generous 
     of spirit. Its stories are warm and humorous, and connected 
     to a larger sphere: literature, religion, history. Certain 
     stories could serve as a manual, a valuable one, for loving 
     and raising kids.
       Still, writing a memoir wasn't part of Paterson's plan.
       ``It just seems like such a me, me, me thing to do,'' 
     Paterson said recently at her home in Montpelier, where she 
     moved last spring. ``I didn't think people nearest and 
     dearest to me would want to play minor roles in the stories 
     of my life.''


                          kitchen sink stories

       The illness of Paterson's late husband, John Paterson, was 
     a kind of catalyst for Paterson's recently published book. 
     During his sickness, Katherine Paterson was somehow unable to 
     start a novel, she said. Instead, she began to write down 
     stories drawn from her life, what she calls in her book 
     ``kitchen sink stories.''
       These are stories she heard from her mother as a child, 
     when she washed, dried and put away dishes with her mother 
     and sister. Paterson's children grew up in a house with a 
     dishwasher, and some stories went untold in the absence of 
     that evening chore.
       ``I realized there were family stories that my children 
     didn't know and I should write them down,'' Paterson said. 
     ``It would be a good thing for the kids and for the 
     grandchildren.''
       The stories are a fascinating collection that take in 
     family history (great uncles who died in the Civil War); 
     Paterson's work and travel in Asia; her chance meeting while 
     at graduate school with the man she would marry; raising a 
     family with accompanying menagerie--and writing books.
       In ``Stories of my Life'' Paterson draws connections 
     between significant events and people in her own life, and 
     aspects of her books: a story line, a character, a scene.
       She explains that she discovered the ``emotional heart'' of 
     her first novel, ``The Sign of the Chrysanthemum'' in a 
     conversation with her oldest daughter, Lin.
       Lin was born in Hong Kong; she was two years old when the 
     Patersons adopted her. There were times when Lin was young 
     that it was difficult for her parents to get through a 
     ``curtain'' and reach their daughter, Paterson writes.
       From her memoir: ``Lin,'' I yelled, ``how can I help you if 
     you won't tell me what's the matter?''
       She jerked to life, her eyes wide open. ``Why did that 
     woman give me away?''
       Paterson would go on to write a novel built around this 
     question: ``What must it be like, I wondered, to have a 
     parent somewhere whom you do not know?''
       Later, at a time she was idea-less for a book, she asked 
     her four children what to write about.
       The kids voted for a mystery. Paterson was certain she 
     wasn't capable of writing one. She describes this in her 
     memoir: ``Do you think,'' I asked my eager children, ``that 
     anyone who is regularly beaten at chess by a six year-old has 
     the kind of brain it takes to plot a mystery story?''
       Yet her kids' choice helped Paterson find her way to a 
     story that involved Japanese puppet theater.
       ``So the children and I compromised,'' Paterson wrote. ``I 
     would try to write an adventure story with as much suspense 
     as possible.'' The resulting book, ``The Master Puppeteer,'' 
     won the 1977 National Book Award.

[[Page S6083]]

       Her beloved novel, ``Bridge to Terabithia,'' grew out of 
     the accidental death of her son David's close friend at age 
     8. In ``Stories of my Life,'' Paterson discloses that 
     confronting a different death--her own--made writing 
     ``Terabithia'' a particular challenge.


                              a love story

       The story of a strong and loving marriage runs through 
     Paterson's new book, a partnership that formed in a matter of 
     months. When John Paterson proposed to Katherine Womeldorf, 
     he made a promise to always help and support her.
       ``John said that he knew I was a strong woman with many 
     gifts, and he wanted to promise me that he would never stand 
     in the way of my exercising those gifts,'' Paterson writes in 
     her new book.
       ``It was very memorable,'' Paterson said of the proposal, 
     talking about the conversation more than half a century 
     later.
       ``I had no idea that I was going to be a writer,'' she 
     said. ``I had no idea what I was going to do. John thought I 
     was going to be something.''
       John Paterson was a Presbyterian minister who collected 
     art, played tennis and co-wrote books with his wife. His 
     death at age 80 in September, 2013, was the central aspect of 
     the ``most extraordinary'' story of Paterson's life, she 
     wrote.
       The experience, including conversations with 
     ``compassionate and honest doctors,'' suggested to the 
     Patersons that a person needn't fight death with the full 
     arsenal of modern medicine, Paterson said. John Paterson 
     sought the advice of his wife, and chose to die at home.
       ``In our society we have to come to it,'' Paterson said. 
     ``Death is not the enemy.''
       The artist that John Paterson saw in his future wife is 
     still at work. Paterson is writing a play with a friend, and 
     awaiting the 2015 release of the film adaptation of ``The 
     Great Gilly Hopkins.'' The screenplay was written by her son 
     David Paterson.
       ``I had a good life,'' Paterson said. ``Let's face it.''

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