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>> We're at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
>> Alright, good morning.
And on behalf of the Library of Congress welcome
to the 2010 National Book Festival.
We hope you have a wonderful day celebrating books and reading
and the joy of reading right here on the National Mall.
Before we begin I want to inform you
that the pavilion's presentations today are being filmed
for the Library of Congress's website.
So please be mindful of this.
If you have any problems you don't have to stay but we hope you do
because this is going to be a wonderful presentation.
And please do not sit on the camera risers that are located
in the back of the pavilion.
Thank you very much.
Well once again it's nice to see you all.
My name is Eun Yang.
And if you are up early getting ready for work
or getting your kids ready for school
or just having insomnia I deliver the news in the morning,
if you turn on NBC 4; so, good morning to you.
And I love books.
And I was an avid reader until I had kids and now it's a fond memory.
I still try to read once in awhile.
My youngest is with me and I apologize for that.
But the boys are in soccer
and you know you gotta do the tag-team action.
[Background sound effects] But thank you for your understanding.
Since this is the teens
and children's pavilion I figured you parents would understand my
work life.
Thank you very much.
And I love this day because this is the day when authors are rock stars
and they should be treated as such, because they fill our imaginations
and take us away from our current life and help us
to explore our imaginations and other worlds in so many great ways.
Well our first author this morning serves up exciting
and suspenseful thrillers that take readers behind the scenes
of American politics.
Brad Meltzer wrote the number one New York Times bestselling book,
The Book of Fate as well as the bestsellers the 10th Justice,
Dead End, The First Council and the Book of Lies.
He is the author of the critically acclaimed comic book,
Justice League of America, woo hoo.
It won the Eisner award.
And he also the co-creator of the TV show, Jack and Bobby,
obviously very impressive.
"So why is here today at the teens and children's pavilion", you ask?
Well you can thank his 8 year old son.
When his son was born Brad wanted to write him a book
that would last a lifetime.
But as he started writing he realized he didn't know enough
about fatherhood to teach his son the life lessons he wanted to share.
So he went on a mission to write
about real-life heroes who've shown strength, courage, perseverance
and kindness and the belief that anything is possible.
And then tell their stories in hopes they will guide his son
to become a good man and perhaps change the world himself.
That labor of love resulted in Brad's first non-fiction book.
A handpicked collection of the best stories of heroism
from the Wright Brothers, Nelson Mandela, Jim Henson, Harper Lee,
Rosa Parks and many, many more.
Heroes for My Son is a gift to his child and to his readers;
ladies and gentleman Brad Meltzer.
[Applause]
>> My name is Suzanne Collins.
[Laughter] Come on, when you come to speak
and everyone is the front row is holding her book instead of mine,
like I'm not gonna make that joke.
[Laughter] So, here's the story right.
I didn't know anything about being a parent.
I thought I did, right.
Every parent in this audience knows
when that kid comes you think you know what you're going to do,
but you don't know what you're going to do.
I learned however from the greatest parents of all time.
Because when my mother -- when I went to Borders Headquarters
in Anne Arbor, Michigan they said,
"Guess where you're books sell more than anywhere else?"
And I said, "Well obviously New York City.
8 million New Yorker's in one place you know."
They said, "Nope."
I said, "Washington, D.C. I always right about Washington."
"No." The number one place where by books sold was the Boca Raton,
Florida Borders, one mile from a furniture store
where my mother used to work.
[Laughter] That means my mother single-handedly beat 8 million
New Yorkers.
[Laughter] That's my mom's side.
My dad, this is true, my dad
in December had heart surgery, open heart surgery.
Major surgery for him and when you go
from open heart surgery the difference is you've got
to go interview the doctors.
And you go and interview the doctors and you don't just go, "Hey."
You know you gotta make sure you like the guy, you know what kind
of person, you what kind
of procedure they're going to do to you.
So he's go to see the first doctor and he says --
you know he's really finely dressed and his manicured hands
and he just looks all put together.
And he says, "I don't do the full cut open your chest.
I do a small incision up here.
It's going to be completely harmless.
I'm going to go in.
I'm not even going to crack your rib cage.
You're going to be done in no time.
You're going to be out of the hospital in a day."
We know he's lying to us, but he's really put it together.
And he's like, "It's a new procedure.
No one can do except me.
It's fantastic.
You're going to love it."
We go see another doctor.
And he says, "I do it the old fashioned way.
I crack your chest open.
I have to pull you apart.
It's going to be a brutal recovery.
You could die."
Okay. And he says as he's saying this, he looks down at the chart
and goes, "Oh wait, Meltzer, Brad Meltzer."
I'm in there with him and he goes, "I read your books."
I said, "Thanks."
And he goes on and he says, "It's really going
to be a ruthless ordeal for you."
And so we leave and I look at my dad and it's pretty clear
which doctor we need to pick right?
The first doctor is all put together.
He's never lost anyone on the table he told us.
And my dad says, "Well, we found our man."
And I said, "Which one?"
And he says, "The second guy."
And I said, "Dad what are you talking about?
It's going to be harder and you could die.
And they crack your rib cage
and you're never gonna get out of there."
And he says, "Yeah, but he buys the books."
[Laughter] And I said, "You know,
found out if it's hardback or paperback."
[Laughter] But the truth was my dad actually did go
with the first doctor.
That is a true story.
I can't make it up.
So with those parents, I embarked on parenthood myself.
And as you heard in the introduction, eight years ago
at Sibley Hospital here in Washington, D.C. my son was born.
And I came home.
I love telling this story here because this is the hometown crowd.
I lived here for so long.
I had my kids here and I thank you all for coming here.
This is obviously a very personal place to be.
And I'm driving home from Sibley, stuck at that red light
at the wonderful circle that wraps around and you have to go
around twice because you missed the turn hypothetically.
And as I'm at that red light I remember looking up at the sky
at night and saying, "What kind of man do I want my son to be?"
And it's a big moment right?
It's that moment when everything in the world is possible.
That moment when you can dream your child to be anything you want.
I'm not talking about famous or wealthy, but to be a nice person,
to be kind, to be the person who's nice
to everybody and everybody likes.
And I came home that night and I said, "I'm going to write a book
that lasts his whole life."
And the truth was I knew nothing about fatherhood, nothing at all.
And I started writing rules for him to live by.
And I said one, be nice to the fat kid in class.
And I started writing all these rules you know one by one.
You know one day I'd give him this book
and he'd think I was indeed the greatest father.
And then a friend of mine told me this amazing story
about the Wright Brothers.
He said every time the Wright Brothers went
out to fly their plane, they would bring enough materials
for multiple crashes.
That means every time they went out they knew they were going to fail.
And they will crash and rebuild and crash and rebuild
and that's why they took off.
And I said, "I love that story."
I want my son to hear that story.
I want my daughter to hear that story.
I want them to know that if they have perseverance
and if they work hard and they have a plan
and they have a good side order of stubbornness
that they can do anything in this world.
And I said, "That's the book I want to write."
Not a book of rules, but a book of heroes.
And I said I just don't want to write an obvious story.
We all know the obvious story about everyone.
What I want to find was not just stories about famous people,
but I wanted to find moments we didn't know.
So, Thomas Jefferson is in the book,
but not because he wrote the declaration of independence,
he's in the book because he never took credit
for writing the declaration while he was alive.
He never stood up and said, "Hey you know that declaration you all know
and love, that was me I wrote it, TJ."
I totally made that part up.
By the way I write fiction.
He didn't call himself TJ.
That's not historically accurate.
[Laughter] But I will tell you that I love that story also right.
I love that story because I want my son to learn that kind of humility.
Imagine a politician today having that kind of humility.
A politician today would tattoo the words, "I wrote the declaration
of independence" on their forehead.
Right, that's what they would do if they did something like that.
And I said those are the stories I need to find.
Not stories of just famous people,
but stories of what we're all capable of on our very best days.
And so there are stories in there of people you don't know.
There's a guy named Frank Shankwitz [Assumed spelling] who's a
police officer.
And Frank Shankwitz found out about a boy with leukemia
who also wanted to be a police office.
So Shankwitz had a police uniform made for the boy.
He had a little motorcycle riding course made for the boy.
And then the boy went into a coma.
So Office Shankwitz goes to the boy's hospital room and he pins
on little motorcycle wings on the boy, at which point the boy wakes
up out of his coma and smiles.
And then he falls back into the coma.
The boy eventually dies and on the way home
from the funeral Officer Frank Shankwitz, this police officer looks
at his buddy on the plane and says, "You know,
we made that kid really happy for just one day.
We should do that for other kids."
And that's how the Make A Wish Foundation is born.
I didn't know that story and I love that story too.
I want my son to hear that story.
I want my daughter to hear that story.
And these are the things that we're all capable of.
It's just the idea of what you can do with one idea
when you share with somebody else.
So the book is set up very simply.
It's a one-page story
on the right-hand page, one picture on the left.
And it has Jim Henson, Mr. Rogers, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King,
Jr. Now I will tell you, one of my favorite moments was when I got
to share and I couldn't tell this at the beginning of the book tour,
but I can tell it now because I got
to share the book with my son, right.
This is the moment.
It's called Heroes for My Son and I'm giving it to my son.
This is the moment when the clouds are going to part.
The rainbows are going to come from every direction.
I've waited nearly a decade for this exact moment.
And so I go into his bedroom and I wait until my other kids are asleep.
And we get on the bed and he doesn't care about Rosa Parks.
He doesn't care about Eleanor Roosevelt.
He wants to know where the athletes are.
He likes sports.
So he flips through the book really quickly
and he finds a guy named Roberto Clemente.
And Roberto Clemente is a guy who used to play --
one of the famous baseball players for the Pittsburg Pirates, okay.
And I always tell my son all the time I'm like,
"Just because you're a famous athlete doesn't mean anything.
It doesn't make you a hero.
It just means you're good at sports.
Being a novelist on the bestseller list doesn't mean anything.
It doesn't make you anyone.
It just means you can write.
And it just means your family buys a lot of copies right?
Trust me on this one.
Trust me. So I'm reading Roberto Clemente.
He's in the book not because he was a great baseball player,
not because of the Gold glove awards he won.
He's in it because he found out about an earthquake in Nicaragua.
And Roberto Clemente wanted to get
so involved he sent three plane loads of food
and medicine to Nicaragua.
All three plane loads were stolen.
They were confiscated.
And so he was so determined to make sure
that the fourth plane gets there he says, "I'm going to get
on the plane myself and make sure it gets there."
And he gets on the plane and the plane crashes
in the ocean killing everyone on board including Roberto Clemente.
And then it says in the book he's not a hero because he died.
He's a hero because of why he got on board.
And so as I'm sharing this I'm waiting for my son
to tell me how inspired he is, what a genius I am
to produce this book for him.
And he looks at me and I feel him shrinking him in my arms.
I can tell something's wrong and he looks up at me
and he says, "Dad this is sad."
And now I'm terrified that I've ruined everything right.
I blew it.
The book is not working the way I wanted.
This is a disaster.
It's backfired in my face.
And so the next night I put the book aside.
I put it on the side table.
I don't even bring it out.
And he races into the room and he jumps up on the bed and he says
to me, "So who are we going to read tonight?"
And I said, "Well what about Roberto Clemente."
And he says, "I like him."
And I said, "Why?"
And he eventually said, "Because he gave his life to save those people."
And I think we all know, for those of us who are parents
that sometimes the greatest moments in parenting are the moments
that are complete and utter accidents.
And that's how it was for me in that moment.
Everything worked out exactly how I wanted
but in a way I never anticipated.
And it was this great beautiful reward and the idea that that story
of generosity and perseverance and kindness to strangers
and charity is twisted into my son's chest is the greatest thing
in the whole world.
That's better than being on any bestseller list,
except the hardcover bestseller list.
[Laughter] And so I want to tell you
about the most important hero in the book.
And the most important hero in the book is my mother.
All due respect to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson,
my mom is in the last page of the book.
And I'll tell you my mom died two years ago from breast cancer.
And it was the reason that I really decided to finish the book.
I said, "You know what I'm not saving the kind words
for the eulogy anymore."
I'm not going to wait my whole life to give it to him.
I started really thinking I gotta finish it.
And I couple years ago when I was living here in Washington
and my second book came out, my publisher actually shut down.
It was sold and I didn't know if anybody was going
to take over my contract.
I was terrified because this was the end of my writing career.
And I called my mom and I said to her how scared I was
and my mom said, and I'll never forget it, she said,
"I'd love you if you were a garbage man."
And she wasn't taking a crack at garbage men.
My uncle was a garbage man.
She was just saying, "I don't care what you are.
I don't care what your job is.
I love you no matter what."
And every day that I sit down to write I say those words to myself.
"I'd love you if you were a garbage man",
just soaking in my mom's love for me.
That's what I do every morning before I get up.
Right before I sit down at my writing table, that's my one ritual.
And I will tell you that that's why she's my hero.
For you the most important hero and heroes for my son is the
on the very last page, because the very last page is blank.
And it says, "Your heroes picture here and your heroes story here."
And I promise you that if you take a picture of your mom or your dad
or your kids or your grandparents or a military member of your family
or a teacher in your life and you put their picture in this book
and you write one sentence about what they've done for you
that would be the most beautiful written page in heroes for my son.
It's a vital page and I think that's what the book is
about is giving my son a way to say, "Thank you.
Thank you for being my hero."
Give everyone a chance.
You know we are a country.
I think we all recognize we are starving for heroes.
Look around it is tough times out there.
And it is tough to find a hero and that's what's vital
to me is finding that hero.
So this is my chance to kind of bring it out.
So what I'd love to do more importantly is take questions.
I always find that's the best way rather
than have me lecture for half an hour.
So ask any questions you want.
I write fiction.
I'll make up an answer.
It's fine.
[Laughter] Yes ma'am.
>> It's rather a statement.
I am so inspired by you when you mention Roberto Clemente [Sound
effects] because I am from Puerto Rico.
So thank you for make Roberto a part of your book.
>> Thank you.
The question is you're awesome for mentioning Roberto Clemente.
That is the best question I've ever had.
[Laughter] Any more questions that say like I am the best?
I am the greatest.
I am wonderful.
I will take those first.
Those are my favorite questions.
Thank you ma'am.
>> What was the most inspiring story for you?
>> Yeah, the question was in doing the research what was the most
inspiring story.
There was one beside my mom and my grandfather who are
in the book there was one that blew me away.
And it was Ann Sullivan.
And I had -- Helen Keller was actually picked out for the book.
She was the one who was supposed to be in the book.
Then I found out that everyone knows the story of Helen Keller.
That's she's this woman who's blind and deaf and supposedly dumb.
And everyone says, "Forget this girl.
She's unteachable.
Give up on her."
And her teacher Ann Sullivan -- you know we all know the story.
Many people have seen the movie.
You know she writes in her hand everyday
and that's how she learns to talk.
What I didn't also know at that time was that there was no Braille books.
There were no Braille books for her to read.
So the only way she could read her textbooks was that her teacher,
Ann Sullivan, would everyday finger write in her hands every book.
Five hours every day just finger writing
in her hand what everything said in the book.
At the same time, Ann Sullivan's own eyesight was fading.
And her doctor said to her, "If you keep reading
to this girl you are going to risk going blind yourself."
And Ann Sullivan said, "I don't care."
And she kept reading to Helen Keller
and Helen Keller graduated from Radcliff *** laude.
And as someone who had a teacher change my life, I just --
I mean I read that story and that was gasoline to me for months.
I still, you know when I get down and I'm thinking it's really hard,
I read that story and it's just fantastic to me.
I love that someone like that existed on this planet with us.
Yes.
>> [Inaudible background question]
>> Yeah, the question is why do you hate your daughter?
[Laughter] So the question is what about heroes for my daughter.
Yes, I am not stupid.
I made when deal when I signed the deal for this book.
I said there has to be a two-book deal.
And they said, "Why?"
And I said, "You clearly have never met my daughter."
[Laughter] Now my daughter, for those of you who have met her,
because there a few I see here.
She comes into my office every day and says, "Where's my book dad?"
[Laughter] "When are you going to be done with my book?"
She drives me harder than my own editor.
I always knew I was going to do a book for her as well.
I certainly saved people for her.
I saved Ann Frank for her.
I saved certain people that I knew had to be in her book
and it's amazing to work on because it's the same
and I treat them the same, but it's different.
As anyone who has a son and daughter knows, it just is.
And I know that my daughter's life, no matter how idealistic I want
to be about this world is going to be different
than my son's in experience.
And so the lessons I'm picking, I thought there would be no difference
at all and I wanted to say,
"Nope you know I treat them exactly the same."
You know I bought wood blocks for my kid.
I didn't buy Barbies.
I didn't buy cars.
My son of course loves cars and my daughter loves Barbies.
Like you can't control some things, and I can't control the fact
that I'm picking different heroes for her
and in a strange way, many of the same heroes.
The other question, in terms of what else am I working on,
there is a new thriller coming out in January called The Inner Circle.
That takes place in Washington, D.C. It's at the National Archives.
It is the beginning of a series character for me,
the first series I've ever done.
And I can't wait for it to come out.
I can't wait to share it.
It's the first book in four years I've done back in Washington.
Everyone knows that has come and seen me speak here before,
I always steal the physical descriptions of characters
from when I ride the Metro here and so if you see yourself in the book,
it is because I stole your face.
That is absolutely true.
And the other thing we're working on, if you look in either November
or December it will be on the air.
And if you look in our Facebook page,
if you go to our Facebook page, we're launching a TV show
on the History Channel and it is called Brad Meltzer's Decoded.
It is the greatest title of all time to me.
And as I told my wife the other day, "You know honey, what are we having
for Brad Meltzer's dinner tonight [Laughter]
because yesterday we had Brad Meltzer's chicken and tonight I'd
like to have Brad Meltzer's pasta."
But what this show is is it lets me take all the things that I do
in my thrillers and try and find the real answers in real life.
So one of the episodes in 1792 when the first piece
of the White House was put down, the very first cornerstone was put down,
within 24 hours it supposedly disappeared.
For 200 years now nobody has been able to find it.
No one knows where the first piece of the White House is.
And Harry Truman went looking for it when he redid the White House.
And Barbara Bush went looking for it
when they celebrated the anniversary celebration.
Nobody knows where it is and that's an episode of decoded
that we're going to try and find the answer.
So that's basically what's going to be working
on from there those three things.
Yes sir.
>> I don't have a question, I have an inspiration.
>> Yes please.
>> You told my wife and wrote in a book, "No is not an option."
And she finished a book and I want to give it to you.
>> That's awesome.
Yes please.
[Applause] Let me tell you something, every time I speak,
when they ask where you got started I tell one story.
And I didn't tell it here because I figured you know I want
to tell something new and not do the same thing.
But every time I got -- I got what I got
when I wrote my first book, 24 rejection letters.
Now there were to be clear only 20 publishers at that time
and I got 24 rejection letters.
That means some people are writing you twice
to make sure you get the point.
[Laughter] And I remember I was on the phone here in D.C.
when I got my 23rd and 24th rejection letter.
My agent called me up and said, "Sorry kiddo."
I'll never forget it.
I was looking at the fire station
across from the Ritz Carlton downtown on M Street
and every time I pass it.
I actually have a picture on my phone of it
and whenever I think I'm getting too big or I'm thinking --
like I'm too much of a hotshot, I look at that picture
and remember what its like to have nothing,
to have nothing but rejection.
And every time I tell that story someone comes up to me afterwards
and says, "I'm working on a book and that means something to you."
But never in over a decade has anyone come and given me a book
after they heard that talk, so thank you.
I appreciate that.
[Applause] And congratulations that's a big deal.
And so every person here, every single person here who's working
on a book, please, please, please don't let anyone tell you no.
That is a vital, vital lesson.
Other questions that tell me how awesome I am?
[Laughter] Yes.
>> [Inaudible background question]
>> Yes, the question is are there any current heroes?
Or did you just pick the dead ones.
[Laughter] And you know what there are.
And I think that's what I love the most about this book is
that there are heroes everywhere.
There's a guy named Andy Miyares
from Florida who's a special Olympics swimmer.
And when he was born they said he wasn't going to walk for a couple
of years and he wound up doing it much faster.
By 9 months he wound up moving and being able to crawl.
They thought it was going to take him years to do it.
And they didn't think he could learn and his parents put him in the pool
and he learned how to count by swimming laps.
He loved to swim.
And he would count one, two, three,
four and even in the special Olympics he's considered
an underdog.
He basically has the hands a little like a five year old.
He has these tiny little hands.
He's small.
He's petite.
Even in the special Olympics, think about that for a minute.
He's considered the underdog.
But he has something like six world records and he lives
in Florida, not far from me.
And I love that that guy is there and so many
of us don't know about him.
There's also things like Team Hoyt.
I don't know if you know Team Hoyt.
But when *** and Judy when their son was born he was also told --
he was so severely disabled.
Excuse me.
He was so severely disabled
that they told them you have to put him away.
Put him in an institution.
No one will care about this kid.
He's going to amount to nothing.
He'll never understand you.
And his parents wouldn't give up on him.
They took him everywhere.
They would drag him in the wheelchair.
They would take him swimming.
They would do whatever they did and there was a charity race
for a boy who had been paralyzed.
And the young son Rick said, "You know what,
we should run in that race dad just to show that kid
that you shouldn't give up and anything is still possible."
And so the dad takes his son and pushes him
in the wheelchair and runs in the race.
And when he runs in the race you know he needs a computer to speak
and it took him until his teens before he spoke his first sentence.
And you know he typed that on a computer using his eyes to type.
And he finally said, "Go Bruins" was his first sentence.
[Laughter] At least he wasn't a Yankee fan.
And basically he runs in the race and he finishes the race
and he says, "Dad, when I'm with you it feels
like my disability disappears."
And the dad continues to run in marathons.
He pushes his son.
He runs in Iron men.
He swims. He ties a rope around his chest and swims
with his boy behind him tugging him the entire way.
And to this day the younger son can't walk,
but with his father these two men fly.
I love that story.
They still run races.
They sent me a card and said,
"Thanks for putting me in your book."
And I was like, "Are you kidding me.
That was the easiest part."
And I just love that people like that are still here
and I think we just -- you know it's so easy to focus on the bad
and I'm not saying we should all say everything's roses
and everything's wonderful,
but don't forget how much good there is out there.
Don't forget the heroes are there.
And most important, this is why I saved it for last.
Don't forget to thank them.
So with that said let me say the most important thing I will say
today and that is, "Thank you!"
Thank you for coming year after year and supporting me.
[Applause] It means more than you will ever, ever know.
Thanks very much.
[Applause]
>> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress.
Visit us at www.loc.gov.