We all know it’s a tough world out there. So much is ignorantly, painfully, and hatefully stated as anyone who lives by social media already knows. At times it seems as though we’re going backward in the world in that with all the information we have we still see prejudice, racism, antisemitism and gender discrimination on the rise.

Anne Frank’s father was the only person who survived when he and his family and friends were discovered by the Nazi regime, all of them hidden in the Amsterdam annex. Afterward he found strength and optimism to make it his life’s mission to publish his daughter Anne’s diary. I was around nine years of age when I read her diary, and I tried to give my character Ellie that same sense of unexpected anguish when she realizes this is not a wonderful diary where everyone lives ‘happily ever after.’ Instead Anne Frank’s diary is a touch point that impacts our perspective on how and why she and millions of others died so needlessly due to fear and hatred during the 20th Century period of WWII.

Racism too. Uncle Tom’s Cabin definitely changed my life, and that’s why I included its story into my book. Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a 19th Century read full of archaic words and descriptions. A fictional tale that painfully helped expose the effects and degradation of enslavement into the history of African Americans. It’s impact provides a startling background on why ‘Black Lives Matter’ has such solemn meaning beginning from that point of looking back on the history of a slavery that is not often discussed in our American/English history today.

Any thoughts or questions you have, I’d love to hear from you by email ([email protected]) or comments on Facebook and Instagram at Jprestonwrites. Looking forward to your insights!