Q) There are several factors in HELLIE JONDOE that are of historic significance. First, the orphan trains. How did you come upon them in your research?

A) Just that! I stumbled upon this long, little known and sometimes misunderstood chapter in our history. I needed a plot device to get my young street urchin from New York City out west. In researching train travel in 1918, I found a book on the orphan trains. Hmmm, I thought, interesting. For nearly seventy-five years, homeless waifs and orphans were plucked out of the orphanages and off the streets and taken out west to what would hopefully be a better life. You can imagine how some of these children ended up. Some found perfect, loving families. Others became second-rate foster children or, in the case of thirteen-year-old Hellie Jondoe, indentured ranch help.

Q) The flu epidemic of 1918, known as the Spanish Influenza, also figures heavily into the plot of this novel. Why did you incorporate that?

A) Well, I had picked the year 1918 because I wanted the time frame to be that of war’s end, in this case, World War I. This era was important because that is what my feisty young heroine needs to come to terms with—ending a war. Of course, you can’t address 1918 and not address the epidemic which killed more people on earth than all the wars combined.

Q) With our current concerns about the flu, in this case the swine flu, are you finding some scary similarities?

A) Yes. One of the reasons the Spanish flu took such hold of the world was that for the first time America, and the world, was becoming a mobile society. Soldiers were returning from the war in Europe, barracking together, traveling together, and returning home on trains ... giving the flu a perfect opportunity to travel in close quarters with them. Close quarters— think about it. Look at how we all travel today. One freeloading germ on one plane can land on 200 people going to 200 different locations.

Q) How about the differences?

A) Of course we have vaccines now. And we have such instant communication and awareness we can virtually keep up on the progression of infections on an hour-by-hour basis. News doesn’t take four or five days to travel—it’s in our ears as it happens. Also, we have an educated society that has learned the lessons from the 1918 epidemic.

Q) What do you think those lessons were?

A) Quarantine, of course, and other ways of not spreading the infection further. Being aware of how a determined germ can morph and travel. Washing hands and knowing what damage a simple sneeze can cause. And of course, the big lesson is to never, ever underestimate the power and the determination of a flu bug.

Q) In HELLIE JONDOE, your characters offered up the option of not using aspirin to ward off the effects of the infection. Why?

A) One theory about why the flu did spread so violently was because our first “wonder drug”—aspirin— lowered fever and took away the ache of illness. It made a patient feel so much better they thought they were cured and went about their business—but the flu was only temporarily disabled and surged back with a vengeance in a few days. By then, how many more people were exposed? One of my characters is a Native American who believes in the use of Indian sweat tents to kill the virus, but the option of aspirin and a doctor’s help is always there. The purpose is to show the different ways different cultures dealt with an enemy that knew no borders.

Q) What other tidbits from history do you include in this novel?

A) I can never learn enough about the problems young people faced when forced to fend for themselves— surviving on the streets, joining gangs, and of course pickpocketing—an art form, actually. As was begging. Take all the problems people of the street, especially children, face today and add to that social stigma, violence, persecution, minimal social reform, and wretched living conditions prevalent a hundred years ago and you have five or six more novels from this author!

Early photography has always fascinated me. It was a new art form and a new medium of communication. When the newspapers started using photos to accompany articles a whole new form of reporting was born—photojournalism and exposé...something we don’t even think twice about today but which back then was quite sensational. In this novel, a woman photographer chronicles the journey of the orphans out west. Women rarely did such male-dominated jobs. So I touch on women’s rights and gaining the right to vote. For lots of reasons, 1918 was a fascinating year.

For more on Randall Platt’s young adult novel Hellie Jondoe, or to order a copy, call Texas Tech University Press at 806.742.2982 or visit www.ttup.ttu.edu/Book%20Pages/9780896726635.html