I may look sweet and innocent but I have an evil plan: I want to turn kids into ravenous readers of historical fiction. And, serendipitously, I’ve discovered one way to be successful in this scheme. Write about dogs!

On October 11, the third book in the World War Two Dogs series (Scholastic) will be published. Liberty is a story set in New Orleans, and was inspired by my visit to the World War Two Museum there. (Don’t worry if a trip to the Big Easy isn’t in your near future: the museum has fabulous on-line archives; start here.) It’s pretty hard to miss the museum’s connection with Andrew Jackson Higgins, the businessman whose boats Dwight Eisenhower proclaimed won the war for us; it’s housed on a former Higgins boatyard!

Doesn’t Scholastic create amazing covers? I love this!

As I learned about the key role the Higgins boats played in WWII, I began to wonder about the possibility of shining a light on this slice of home front history, in a kid friendly way. Enter Fish Elliott and the stray dog he tries to rescue: Liberty. Here is a photo of the dog that inspired the character of Liberty.

I found this great dog on Petfinder.com; her name is Tess. I sure hope she’s been adopted by now.

For the next few Throwback Thursdays, I’ll post some tidbits that share a bit of the story behind the story of Liberty. Y’all come back now, you hear?