they build an elite and at the core of this elite are the mothers and the widows of these martyrs, who sort of exemplify the most successful manifestation of islamic resistance society and people say, this is the way to climb to the pentacle of high society, by being willing to give my life this way and if i am chosen to die, then my family will be even more blessed and it is incredibly effective. ..

up next on book tv, president obama's sister, maya soetoro-ng read her children's book at the friendly ship library in d.c.. her book "ladder to the moon" maza inspired by her wish her late mother had lived to meet her grandchild. >> greetings one and all. on behalf of our library in

ginnie cooper welcome to the d.c. public library. my name is wendy and i by the children and teen books for the library system low. i'm thrilled to have a special children's author with us tonight. let me tell you how thrilled. not only is maya soetoro-ng an amazing person who's written a book you are sure to love, with this moment is all the sweeter deutsch to the let's call them district administrative obstacles that threatened to derail the of to these efforts during the last months of planning. we nearly had to concede defeat and cancel the program for mentalist there's a was a felony to work or even volunteer our time during a federal government shut down and. happily the situation was averted so if you're happy and you know it, cloud your hands. [applause]

before i introduce the guest said like to highlight some individuals and shared a few details to help the evening go smoothly. a huge thanks to then manager and his tireless staff for all their energy preparing for this night. i am grateful to my colleagues and the communication department particularly at the helm, martha who seems to know just who to call for any problem, the cool and collected george william and our talented expert eric white and maureen smith. we couldn't have posted this without a wonderful security folks and all of the librarians who offer to take on countless details. a shout out to the market for preparing outdoor milken customized cookies and book sales. i'd like to extend thanks to the press for hosting a reception

and a warmer welcome to the president and publisher karen and your doctor of publicity karen rogers. that brings me to the order of defense to nine. after maya shares her book and spend time talking with us answering questions she will proceed upstairs to the adult reference desk in the front of the building where she will sign your books and film. when she setting up their we will ruffle a signed copy of her book. during and after the raffles' we are asking you to stay where you are until maya is settled upstairs and we will release you by sections. when your section is called you will have three options, you can head to the back of the court or to purchase a book if you haven't yet or you can take the step where the elevator up to the signings of the refreshment in the program room. your cooperation with being released by sections is greatly appreciated so everyone is safe

and secure. now a few words of introduction. maya is the author a brand new picture with called "ladder to the moon." littleness illustrations are by award winning illustrator morales. you for children are in retreat because you are among the very first children in the whole country to hear this book. mikey you maya use to be a student. she grew up and went to school on three different islands, java, hawaii he and manhattan. [laughter] i think she would know something about water, volcanoes and meeting new friends. perhaps it's not surprising she earned an m.a. in secondary language studies at nyu and a ph.d. in international comparative education at the university of hawaii. maya went on to become a teacher and is directing high school and

college students in hawaii and is working out an alternative middle school in new york. our guest is also a sister. she has several siblings but there's one in particular you may have heard of. do you know who her brother is? who is her brother? >> president obama! [laughter] >> that's right. >> okay. that was exciting. [laughter] maya is also a wife and mother. she and conrad who have to girls. although i am happy she has many more roles, i will end with her very first one, that of a daughter to read her book is one way that she shares her daughter's emotions with her children and now with you.

please join me in welcoming maya soetoro-ng. [applause] >> thank you. hey, everybody. how's it going? good. who said barack obama by the way? that was a very powerful voice. [inaudible] [laughter] >> you have a big voice and you know how to use it. so i'm going to read the book a little bit to you or some of it and then we can open up for conversation and questions so you guys be thinking of questions that you have. okay? okay. one cool evening, she asked her mom what was grant long --

grandma like? like the moon, full, soft and curious. your grandmother would at her arms around little world she could. she gave zuhala of hug. you have grand mosque in 15's hands, she said. where did you guys get from your parents or grandparents? anything? yes? >> [inaudible] >> your eyelashes are very lovely. [laughter] >> i got my eyelashes from my grandpa. >> eyelashes are big. [laughter] young man? >> [inaudible] [laughter] >> there's two kinds of presence. that's why it's a great answer.

there is presence, the gift that you give and things you get and then there is presence in attitude and a point of view and i can tell you have both. later zuhala lead in her pajamas, the moonlight coming through her open window and she looked at her hand front side and back and wondered what else had she gotten from her grandmother. as the night deepened and the crickets grew louder, zuhala wandered in and waited for it seemed something was about to happen. then as though an answer to her wondering a golden ladder appeared at the edge of the and the did venture began. there, right on the lowest rahm stood zuhala's grandmother. she begins to her, you want an

adventure, my child? zuhala nodded and tossed herself out of bed like a tumbleweed mechem and up they go up the golden ladder to the moon. a grand mal anne jumped because she wants to get bigger and bigger, bigger than the biggest moon crater so that zuhala will have a soft place to land. and then the couple and they talk and a smile at one another and they get to know each other, and grant, anne takes the sugar out of zuhala. they look back on earth, and the see that there are people in need of help.

a 50-foot wave was sweeping from the ocean to the land and through the swirling waters the swimmers trembled to the surface. jakarta, anne encouraged them. swim, tilting her head toward her granddaughter, she asked shall we invite them to join us a little one? she responded we have lots of room with. she let her voice drift down, and get warm, she urged, and when the next giant wave came all the children left high like flying fish. zuhala and anne caught them by their fingertips and pulled them up to the moon. dreeben scarves around their shoulders they swung the children of around and around until they could all laughed again loud and long.

the moon becomes a place with those who are sad, those who are confused and have lost things can gather and feel good again. but they also realize they are not alone and they talk to one another. and they get to dave in the rain and refreshed themselves and scrub themselves clean. there is still so much to do, there are five years to be attended, gardens to be deleted and trees to be seated back on

hands pointed upward from the synagogue and temple, mosque and a steeple churches. one by one, every person was finding his or her own path to the moon, each connecting with the others in one massive stream.

a round of the moon many languages become understood, and those barriers that come from speaking different tones are no more. and on the moon, worlds that have been lost and great grandmothers are frowned again. and their value is understood. the value of the past to help us figure out what to do tomorrow. may we learned from the past hour great-grandmother's have so much to teach us. and then you know zuhala who for the first time and all by herself is the one to reach down and pull up because zuhala just

realized she is powerful. do you realize you are powerful? yes. are you strong? can you show me your muscles? very nice. you are strong. so you remember that. all the boys and girls on the moon, all of the men and women were a part of the moon and their siloed could be seen from far below and gave feelings of plenty to those who had little. i want you to look on this page when you get your book. see around the moon? it looks like moonlight. look closely. there's something else there. check it out. what do you see? >> [inaudible] >> little tiny people. they are silhouettes of people. hands connected on the moon.

eventually, zuhala turned to her grandmother and again nodded twice. a grand mal anne's nose twitched and her lip trembled with love. i suppose it is time for you to go back. yes, said zuhala. mama mrs. meehan sure. will you be okay? yes, little pumpkin, anne replied. i am so happy we had this time. so she slides down the moonbeam straight back into bed. the bid is soft and comfortable and she feels proud for all that she has learned and has done and for having helped others to heal she notices there's a light outside her door. her mom has been waiting for her. mama, i'm home, zuhala called into the hallway. mama, i met her.

if i'm in here, baby, come, tell me everything. and that's the end. [applause] thank you. i ended it that way because i fink that the children's stories, your stories are so valuable and i want to hear them. i want to listen to you and to what you need because that will make me a better person. could you are powerful because when your parents and the people who love you do good things you know who they do it for him? you. it makes you powerful. you inspire us to greater heights to make us the better and why is. so this book is about a couple

of things. one is that we have to remember that we are connected to one another in this country come in this community, in this world we are connected to one another, and what happens far away matters to you, or it should. and we should be able to feel loved and understand people who are different from us and very far away. and another thing i want you to remember is that you are what? powerful, yes. and that means you can surf the, you can begin thinking about how to make others feel better. how to make the word matter,

your words matter. be careful with your words. how to make the world a little more kind, little more gentle. the sweet in your interactions, and then also it's about thinking about those who came before us. people who have perhaps had passed on. but please know that you are loved buy then, your love comes in and finds you and the things they give are not lost, they are here with us still. i want to make room now for your questions. and i have, by the way, some of zuhala's trends here i see. nice to see you. thank you so much for coming.

does anyone have any questions? yes. >> why did you write the book? >> i wanted to -- that's a very good question. i wanted to write the book because i lost my mommy when i was 25, and although i was a grown up i still needed her, and i miss her. so i wanted, when i became a mom myself, to share with my daughters and the president's daughters, my nieces, some thoughts about who she was and what she was like because i know she would have loved to meet them and to know them and she would have given them so much

and made them feel so strong. so that is one of the reasons i bought the book -- nada bought the book. i wrote the book. [laughter] and i also wrote the book because i'm a teacher, i am an educator, and one of the things i want to happen is for us to think about the world from more than one point of view. so you see in the beginning judy marlowe's who wrote the illustration. she's very clever. so here, tell me, this is the moon from the earth point of view, right? now look at the back. has it changed? what is it now? that's right, the earth from the moon's point of view.

we need to make sure we see things from more than one point of view because we can't understand things in the world if we are only looking from one point of view. as a teacher, you know what i get my students to do sometimes? you guys know about some current events and things happening in the world. do you read the newspaper yet? [inaudible] >> well, you will. so one of the things i have my high school kids to because i'm a high school teacher is i get them to go look at english language newspapers from all over the world, and you can see how in each case the stories are written a little bit differently. and in order to really know a stronger, deeper truth, you have to see those differences and think about how things look from other people's point of view. do you have friends and

sometimes get into a disagreement? do you ever disagree with your friends? right. so it's hard. but what you should do is try to see -- try to imagine to yourself what's going on from their point of view? and i think the world would be more peaceful and our communities would be more peaceful life we learn how to do that instead of having debates come for the teachers out there to the academic structure of controversies. where what you do is you have people debate -- students debate a subject from one perspective and then flip it around and have them debate the other side. and then write a position paper that, you know, involves multiple points of view. that is such a valuable thing for young people i think. sometimes i don't tell them what side they are arguing until 15

minutes before so they have to learn both sides of an issue and then they can't get stuck in one point of view. you've got to keep things big. throw open the windows. yes, young woman. >> my mom is a teacher, too [inaudible] my mom is a teacher too. >> that's terrific. i love teachers. what has she taught you this week? >> she didn't teach me anything. [laughter] [inaudible] >> did you guys here that? she said i'm not in her school but i would love to be in her school, which means she teaches you things everyday and there's

a lot of love there. that's wonderful. yes? >> [inaudible] [laughter] [inaudible] >> his music teacher is a man, and you will be a man someday too. and so the teachers in our lives teach us a little bit, each of them how to be young men and women and that happens all the time. and it's a beautiful thing. do you take lessons from him that have nothing to do with music? he teaches you about music. yes, you like music, do you like

to sing? a little bit? well, songs just like storytelling can make us feel things like happy, right? or can make us feel comforted or calm. so use that music and share it with others and tell your story. they are all very interesting. yes? >> [inaudible] zuhala reaction. has she seen it yet? >> yes, my daughter has seen the book. she's very proud of the fact that her name is in it, and she reminds her first grade class

all the time. [laughter] my name is in the book. she likes -- her favorite pages the page where she's drinking moon dew from a silver tea cup three d like that page, too? she puts on tea parties that are very elaborately her 2-year-old little sister, and i think this is about, you know, it makes her feel very grown-up when she hosts the party, and she loves the part of it. we talked about some of the of the things in the book. you know, some of the challenging things, the difficult things, and my feeling is this is definitely a book to be shared with our children, and we don't need to talk about all of those things at once. parents and children can decide when they are ready, but she definitely does feel a sense of

responsibility for others. she works to help and serve, so she contributed to the efforts to raise money for the survivors of the tsunami in japan and she definitely has a big heart. she plants trees, reforestation and i am proud of her for that. >> it's true sometimes reading can make people said. >> i read this book called where the red fern grows. anybody ever -- my goodness. >> i cried like that at charlotte's web, too. but in a way, it was good because even though i felt sad,

i felt like i found a family in those books like i had found -- i was sad because i cared so much about the people in the book and that's really beautiful, too even though it is sad >> [inaudible] >> i wish i have illustrated it. i didn't. the illustrator is originally from mexico, and she now lives in california and you know, interesting -- mexico, si. her picture is -- she is a curly haired woman who looks a little bit like a skinny version of me.

when i saw her illustrations, i felt so amazed and so grateful, i felt so connected to her because they were exactly what i had seen in my mind, but i did not have the ability to take what was in my head and put it down on paper. i was grateful an artist like her was willing to make to be cut to pictures to my story, and she is i think pretty magical and she took stuff from her own childhood, too, like that will fall when there is a boy and he is born in a stock of corn and the great grandmother helps him walk and then she goes to the moon and the dog stays to protect him, that is an aztec bald that comes from her own childhood stories.

so, but i think her pictures are beautiful. and i felt very proud of the book. >> what's your favorite [inaudible] >> y fever page? what's your favorite page? i think i like the one where the children are leaving high like flying fish. >> my favorite one is the -- >> you see of the earth from the moon perspective, yes. can you imagine yourself there on the moon? yes. i think that it's -- i think it would become a very beautiful place to be. i don't think i will ever get there but maybe you will. what is your favorite page? >> my favorite page is the

different languages. >> when they all sit around the fireplace and share stories and they start understanding each other better. give me a question. did you read the book to your two-year-old? >> i did. she is two. [laughter] but she jumped around a lot. so, i jumped through the book with her. i didn't read every word because you are a young man and you have the ability to sit and focus, right? [laughter] most time. well, my 2-year-old, she starts climbing on the furniture, she put on my shoes.

[laughter] so, we share little bits of the story that she likes the pictures but she thinks that it's her in the picture so she says that's me. and i say yes. whenever you want, honey. yes. >> [inaudible] >> the two sisters, yes. so the two sisters underneath of the trembling towers, yes. i like them, too. do you ever stick your tongue out when it rains? yes? doesn't it feel fresh? yeah. so the towers, there was a lot of cash so they clean themselves and then they worked together and build a spiral to the moon and i love the idea of the

sisters to look different. do you notice that their heads -- you can see if you look closely what do you see in their faces? >> [inaudible] >> leer different colors? >> yes, they are shadows. and it's like the - ash media. but if you look at their heads like the globe, what could those white parts be? it could be land, continents. it's like the whole world is in their faces. that's what i think when i look at it. and i like that one, too. is that because i'm supposed to stop? [laughter] it is a good place to stop. thank you so much for having me,

and thank you for your very good questions and i am looking forward to meeting all of you pumpkins. president obama's sister, maya soetoro-ng on her book, "ladder to the moon." if you would like to find out more, visit the publisher's web site, candlewick.com and search "ladder to the moon." who is owen saladdin? >> one of the most notorious counterfeiters in america. he came to the country in the 1740's from ireland. he was a servant and ends up in boston in 1749 as a silversmith and that's where he begins to counterfeit colonial massachusetts notes and over the next five or six years he builds a huge intercolonial network that spans from rhode island, new hampshire, massachusetts, all over.

>> how easy is it to counterfeit at that time? >> the printing quality of the bill is by our standards but it did require a tremendous skills as an engraver one of the things you see most counterfeiters are for engravers because it takes tremendous physical dexterity to engrave a copperplate in reverse. that's what was required. >> how much -- first of all was there a national currency? were there for 13 different types of currency federal official? >> in the colonial era there's 15 different types of currency and after the revolution it becomes even more confusing because instead of colonial government we have private banks all across the country all printing verdone notes so there's hundreds and then later thousands and the peak is more than 10,000 different types of notes in the 1850's circulating all over the country. >> how did that system work if somebody lived in massachusetts at the time and wanted to go to

a store. >> it's so confusing. this was the biggest discovery for me in my research was just to think of it from the ground by you. if you wanted to buy an apple from a merchant you could show up and present one of 2,000 different types of money. so there were ways to manage it. one of the things that happens in this period they have something called a bank note reporter sue you can actually look up twice a week in the mail in a little magazine the differing values of the different notes and see which ones are counterfeit. there's certain counterfeit detectors like this stroke is too thin, this one is too thick you might be dealing with a forged note. >> so was it a common everyday thing to have money past? >> extremely. the one we have which is fairly rough is the height of counterfeiting in america around the time of the civil war we have between one-third and one-half of all currency

circulation forged and it's a fairly rough estimate. even if it is half of that just a tremendous amount of the fake money in circulation. >> how did you find the story of owen sullivan and other counterfeiters when you're writing? it's the minister to during the recent financial crisis and the was my entry point because i was reading a lot about the history of american currency and finance and was struck by the powerful parallels between the past and present and these three characters seem like excellent windows into the tumultuous financial past. >> did he make a lot of money in his lifetime? >> he certainly did and it is probably in the vicinity of hundreds of thousands of pounds of colonial currency. but different estimates especially because if he his accomplices can use it long after the communities of isn't just what he prince himself, but it's his tremendously diffuse network of accomplices all over the northeast. >> money was very localized at

the time? >> it was. you could have different types of currency in the communities and in the colonial period it also has different colonial currencies passing the single colony say you didn't need to be in massachusetts for instance to spend that money. >> so if somebody was traveling from philadelphia to new york city would they bring with them? >> it depends. in the early republic period what you want to do is buy what was considered eastern paper or city paper which is banknotes printed by a reputable banks in the east like boston, new york and philadelphia. but if you are traveling to the west you would see quite a bit of what is called western paper which was passed to the discount. it was a certain percentage based on the reputation of the bank that issued it so you want the strongest paper currency with you and then you would be able to buy up the cheap paper in the discount. estimate of the continental congress or the constitutional

convention address the issue of money? >> the continental congress gets into a lot of trouble during the revolution because they start printing their own currency just on the war. the need money. there is no option for them isolated by the british blockade. they can't tax the state so they start printing the legal tender currency which becomes deutsch the inflationary and almost the revolutionary effort becomes a major disaster in that revolutionary period. >> but no addressing the thousands of the different types of currency? >> what happens is when they sit down to reconstitution the memory of all of the colonial currencies and more vividly the crisis of the continental currency means virtually none of america's leading men in their revolution advocate the paper money. so, the constitution explicitly prohibits states from printing their own paper currency. >> what happened to owen saladdin? >> he does very well for a period and then is tracked down

by a vigilante and is eventually executed in 1756 hinault york and city hall park actually >> to read vigilantes' to track him down? >> law enforcement is very primitive and tends to be imager. if you want someone who is willing to do what it takes and travel across the jurisdictions to find a counterfeiter need to pay him pretty well and there's a man from connecticut paid by the connecticut colonial legislature to track down sullivan and bring him to justice. >> your profile to whether counterfeiters of the time. one was david lewis. who is he? >> he is born in the allegheny country of pennsylvania 1788, and he learns the counterfeiting trade in the moneymaking enclaves along the border between the united states which is a major counterfeiting hot spot in this period. just in time in 1814 or so when

the state charter is a bunch of new banks which is part of this broad movement in the first few decades after the revolution an explosion of both banks and bank notes across the country which really opens up the opportunity for the counterfeiters. so lewis is poised to take the advantage of the new evin. >> samuel uppon is my favorite because he's the least conventional. he's a shopkeeper in downtown philadelphia. he runs a stationery store in chestnut street and when the civil war comes in february 1862 or so he starts to print considered it currency which he sees reproduced on the cover of the philadelphia inquirer. he sells these notes from his shop and he doesn't call them counterfeit he calls them facsimiles and his ideas they are going to be souvenirs' essentially because which was credible because people mostly of the rebellion would be crushed very quickly but as the war goes on it becomes more

serious he expands his enterprise to become a major counterfeit operation. >> did he get caught or punished at the end? >> he's never punished. the salt hates him. his name appears in the town of richmond newspapers. but he's never punished because he is counterfeiting the currency of the government as emphatically not recognized by the union and the federal government certainly knew what he was doing. there's endless speculation about whether he may have received funding from the secretary of war but there is no evidence either way. >> at what point did this country but to a single currency? >> it happens during the civil war and there is a number of remarkable and unprecedented steps the federal government takes in 1860 which wouldn't have been politically possible without the civil war. so before the war as we said you had more than 10,000 types of currency.

after the war the only paper money is federal. it's either printed directly by the treasury in the form of the greenback's or it is printed by a system of federally chartered banks. and counterfeiting subsequently declined quite dramatically not only because that but you had the founding of the secret service in 1965. the mandate is to go after counterfeiters stomach's was extremely controversy lacrosse there's a number of steps the federal government has to take. the most dramatic is to break the power of the state banks which are deeply entrenched interest we have congressmen and senators to advocate aggressively to the centrists. bin is the author of this book moneymakers the wicked lies and surprising and ventures of three and maturing as counterfeiters.