Exciting news! I got a final copy of Backpack, Boy, Berlin in the mail from my publisher (Candlewick)! So I think it’s about time for me to share some of the fabulous sources I used to research this book.
At a time when people are farming out everything to AI–writing, editing, and even research, I’m here to ask, “Why would you do that?” Yes, writing and researching are hard work, and yes, they take time, but this kind of work is also filled with a sort of joy you can never get from simply clicking a button. My work is historical fiction, but that doesn’t mean I make everything up. Reading a lot about my topic and doing a deeper dive whevever possible helps paint me an accurate portrait of the place, people, and times that help make the story believable to the reader–and that hopefully allows me to do justice to the true events it’s based on.
So what kinds of sources did I use? I began–as always–with a book. Rebecca Donner’s All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days introduced me to young Don Heath, the protagonist of my book. Her book is a biography of Mildred Harnack, the American woman at the heart of the Red Orchestra resistance movement in Berlin during World War II, but she includes short sections about Don called “The Boy,” which certainly piqued my interest and got me reading and researching all about the time and place.
I had already read a fair bit about the Red Orchestra for another project (10-15 other books not pictured here, eep!), and was also already pretty familiar witth Berlin during World War II as well as German-led resistance to Hitler, so some of these were actually re-reads with a different lens.
Some of the best sources I used aren’t shown here because they aren’t books or other physical media. Interviews with Don Heath on the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum website and with Wisconsin Public Television were some of the most helpful. Nothing better than a primary source from your actual protagonist! Other items pictured here include printouts of scanned postcards and other documents from Don’s school friend Patsy, printouts of documents from the Library of Congress, and audio recordings from radio broadcasts during the war.
Another day I’ll share some of my Berlin research! I went there a few years back for some research for various projects, which definitely informed the character of Berlin in this book!
Backpack, Boy, Berlin will be out on 11/3/2026! Please preorder if you can! 
