PRESIDIO — Last Saturday, award-winning author Alda P. Dobbs visited Presidio Elementary School to talk about The Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna, a chapter book for middle-grade readers about a girl growing up during the Mexican Revolution. A small crowd of captivated fans listened and added their thoughts as she talked about history, immigration, and the process of bringing her family’s story to life.
Dobbs’ titular character, Petra Luna, braves the desert with her grandmother and younger siblings in an epic journey to the United States after her mother dies and her father is carted off to war by the Federales. Dobbs began her presentation by talking about the realities of life for kids in Mexico during the 1910s, culled together from years of research.
Throughout, Dobbs stressed that history shouldn’t feel unapproachable to young people — after all, they’re living in it. A major issue at the time were massive disparities between the rich and poor. The United States was also dealing with a massive influx of refugees from the war, settling 30,000 in the city of San Antonio alone. Folks were anxious about the economy, disease and the outbreak of World War I — all topics that sound familiar to audiences today.
Dobbs sat down with the The Big Bend Sentinel to talk about the obstacles she faced on the way to becoming a published author and about the importance of collecting family stories.
What was your first experience with fiction?
I was born in Mexico and started learning English when I began school. The teacher I had for kindergarten was Mexican American, but he would get really upset with me and another little boy who didn’t speak English; he would shake us and spank us. I was afraid of him.
By fourth grade, I knew enough English that he wasn’t frustrated with me anymore, but I thought, “I can’t stand him, I can’t stand the language.” I kind of rebelled against English. I didn’t want to read in it or write in it, I just didn’t care for it, and I gravitated to math because that came easy for me.
But I’ve always loved stories and storytelling. When I was 16, I was working at the North Star Mall in San Antonio, and I would take the bus to travel back to the south side every night after work. I remember one time I was exhausted and I had done my homework, so I was going to put my backpack down on the seat next to me, and I noticed there was a book there.
It said Catcher in the Rye. I wondered what it was about, so I sat there and started reading, and I didn’t put the book down. That whole night I stayed up reading the book, I was so enthralled by the whole story. Even though the main character of the book was a rich white kid from the Northeast, I felt like I was him. I really identified with the character.
I thought, “This is magical. How do I do this?”
How did you get started writing?
I had such a fear of English, but I kept thinking about it. I would write little poems here and there and then toss them. When I got to my college entrance exam, I thought this would be the test that would tell me if I should pursue writing or not. So I took the placement test for English and math, and I bombed English. I said, “You know what? That’s a sign that God or the universe is telling me not to pursue it.”
I studied physics. I had a passion for it, and I still do. It wasn’t until later on, when my husband and I were in Italy, and I couldn’t find a job in engineering. That’s when my husband said, “Well, you’ve always wanted to write. You have all these stories in your head.”
That fear of English came back to me, but I thought that I’d always been writing — grant proposals, school essays, for scholarships and stuff like that. Little by little, I started doing it, taking workshops and reading. I had a lot of reading catching up to do.
Petra Luna is pretty frank about war and class and race and what we might call “adult” topics. Did you feel like you had to tone it down for kids?
I grew up thinking about Pancho Villa being a hero and the Federales were evil, but over time I realized that there’s no black and white in a world like that. You can’t say these are the good guys, these are the bad guys. It was a mix and there were so many innocent people who were forced to fight. I cried a lot writing the novel, researching all the stuff that kids went through, because it’s bad enough for grown-ups to go through war, but a child — it’s just devastating.
Originally I didn’t have anybody die in the book, and my editor came back and she told me that she wanted someone to die. Originally it was this secondary character, but I needed her to be in the second book. So I sat back, and I went to my research and thought of common deaths that happened during that time and came up with the whole side story [of Petra’s mom dying in childbirth].
I went back and read all these children’s books that deal with death and saw how they did it, and I realized that so much can be said with very few words — you just have to choose the right words. Some parents still say that their kids aren’t quite ready yet for the story and wait another year. But some parents say it’s realistic and that they want their kids to appreciate what we have now and what sacrifices previous generations had made. So you have both views, and I respect each one.
You were encouraging everybody to go out to talk to their families about their history. What are some tips you have for sparking these conversations?
When I’m doing book signings, I ask the kids what their name is so I can dedicate the book. Then I ask them, “Where did your name come from?” Half the time they don’t know, and I tell them to go ask their parents.
That’s a great starter — “How did I get my name?” There’s so much power in names; that’s a whole avenue to get stories.
Another one is asking where people came from — why was I born here and not there? Where were you born? Why were you born there? Just keep asking questions and let the story flow organically from there.
Alda P. Dobbs is the author of The Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna and its sequel, The Other Side of the River. Her next book, The Giving Flower, is a picture book about the story of the poinsettia, and will be released in September. You can find her on instagram @aldapdobbs or visit her website: www.aldapdobbs.com/about.