Recovering Lost History

Ever hear about the Boston Coffee Party? It`s likely you haven`t and that you think the term should be the Boston Tea Party instead. But they are in fact two separate uprisings in the same period of revolution, the tea party largely a movement of men, the coffee party one where women at the helm. Not only does children`s author Doreen Rappaport bet you don`t know about this, but she`s also pretty sure you don`t know a lot about the people and events she`s written about for the past 17 years. Don`t believe it? Take a quiz: Who is Sophie \"the Flash\" Kurys and Betty \"Moe\" Trezza? Or the American Indian Tisquantum? Try this one: what is the name of the Confederate ship that was commandeered by slaves during the Civil War and delivered to the Union? It`s not really your fault if you don`t know that Sophie and Betty were the heroes of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League championship game. And you probably know Tisquantum as Squanto, which is a nickname the Pilgrims gave him. And it`s likely you don`t know that the ship overtaken by slaves was the Planter. But again, it`s not your fault. Rappaport calls it lost history and she`s made it her life`s mission to unearth forgotten, or perhaps completely unknown, people and events and make them known. The award-winning author recently paid a visit to Hawken`s Lower School and spoke with students about the process of gathering her ideas for books, researching them and enduring the arduous editing process. In all, she`s written 33 books over course of her career with a 34th coming soon and more in the coming months. Rappaport encouraged the first through fifth graders to find inspiration in everyday stories and to themselves persevere in the face of rejection (her first book was dismissed by 33 editors and accepted by the 34th.) But in whatever they did, she admonished them with a simple command that would ensure their success. \"Don`t be lazy,\" she said.