How Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales children’s book series found its latest female hero of history

Marguerite Higgins faced disconnected with equipped Nazi soldiers astatine the Dachau attraction camp, stared down Gen. Douglas MacArthur and went down force lines each to get a story.

Higgins whitethorn not beryllium a household name, but she was a trailblazing warfare analogous earlier women were a prescence connected the battlefield. A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Higgins died good earlier the Internet age, but her communicative is being told successful Nathan Hale’s caller graphic novel, “Cold War Correspondent.”

“I was looking for an absorbing newsman quality during the Korean War and that brought maine instantly to Marguerite Higgins,” Hale said successful a caller interrogation astir the book.

The author, who shares his sanction with the Continental Army worker and spy from America’s Revolutionary War, has made a sanction for himself by penning and illustrating humanities accounts for children successful a bid titled Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales.

“Cold War Correspondent” is the 11th publication successful the Hazardous Tales series, which takes readers into absorbing points successful the past — typically with a dose of wit added. Other Hazardous Tales books see the Donner party’s ill-fated expedition, World War I trench warfare and the Underground Railroad.

For the Korean War, however, Hale wanted to crook his attraction to warfare reporters. It was the melodramatic photos of Marguerite Higgins connected the battlefield that sold Hale connected the story.

“She had a batch of large vigor that besides felt similar large cartoon energy,” helium said.

Daring and unsafe with a steadfast dose of swagger, Higgins dragged a ample typewriter crossed war-ravaged landscapes during the conflict, and successful the book, she looks beauteous chill doing it successful her aviator sunglasses.

“When I learned she was determination astatine the commencement of the Korean War, saw the archetypal 3 months of it unfold, and was trapped down force lines, the publication benignant of wrote itself,” Hale said.

But by putting Higgins astatine the halfway of “Cold War Correspondent,” Hale got a unsocial introduction into the Korean War and ensured her communicative wasn’t mislaid to history.

“When I was reasoning astir the Korean War, I thought, ‘How bash I framework this?’” helium said. “With each book, I effort to travel up with a caller way into the story.”

His books often look astatine smaller moments wrong the immense events, and that’s 1 of his strengths according to 1 reader.

“It is truthful important to item lesser-known and number figures successful history, radical and places that are not ever taught successful school,” said Loren Spector, a young big librarian astatine the Memorial Branch of the Los Angeles Public Library, whose specialty is graphic novels.

Spector said, successful fact, it’s often the sidebar stories successful textbooks that involvement kids the most.

That consciousness of illuminating the lesser-known parts of past and telling them successful an engaging mode with his elaborate drawings is what 1 section bookseller sees arsenic the spot of the series.

“They’re’ truthful engaging and immoderate of the histories that helium (Hale) speaks to are neglected,” said Carrie Custer, the kids’ section manager astatine Vroman’s Bookstore successful Pasadena.

While the go-getter of the publication is simply a cleanable prime to pb an action-packed graphic novel, thing astir Marguerite Higgins is embellished. Hale researched the publication by examining Higgins’ writings, biography and reporting.

“I had a beauteous bully thought of however she would talk and however she would talk,” helium said.

For the twelvemonth it takes to constitute and exemplify the book, Hale sticks to the facts. When the publication is complete, it’s rigorously fact-checked.

“I don’t privation to instrumentality these humanities figures and marque them characters, oregon accidental they did brainsick things conscionable to marque a bully story,” Hale said. “In immoderate ways, I consciousness similar a reporter, but I’m reporting it to you successful cartoons.”