[inaudible conversations] .. >> tomorrow at 4 p.m. eastern, douglas rush cough talks about his book, "present shock." then at 5, due to the recent passing of former british prime

minister margaret thatcher, a program about the relationship between prime minister thatcher and president reagan. watch these programs and more all weekend long on booktv. for a complete schedule, visit booktv.org. >> last month booktv launched our online book club with a discussion of the book, "the new jim crow: mass incarceration in the world of color blindness." here's what some of you had to say. on twitter, diane r. williams 2 said whole building of argument brilliant. in so many places i gained new insight. and enjoying life commented:

>> join us this month as we read jb bush's book, "immigration wars,: forthing an american solution." and post your thoughts on twitter at booktv using the hash tag btv book club. you can also watch jeb bush's recent appearance on booktv by visiting booktv.org and then join us on tuesday, april 30th at 9 p.m. eastern for a live moderated discussion on twitter and facebook. today booktv is live from the annapolis book festival with panels throughout the day. at 10 a.m. eastern, maryland in 1812, war, slavery and opportunity. 1 is, the changing landscape of suburbs and cities, and at noon, america's ongoing involvement in afghanistan. at 1, the ever-evolving roles of

women in society. then at 2, former congressman mickey edwards on politics in america. the annapolis book festival live today, part of booktv this weekend on c-span2. >> alex watson and his father, lynn university professor robert watson, talk about their campaign to get families to read and write together. the two have recently authored a book for children called "tsunami." it's about 50 minutes. [applause] >> thank you, and welcome, everyone. >> afternoon, everybody, thank you for coming. i'm alex, and this is my father, robert. [laughter] all right. so the year was 1946. world war ii had just ended, and the people of hawaii finally felt safe. unknown to them, 2,000 miles

away near alaska there was a different kind of threat. in the middle of the night, there was a major undersea earthquake which triggered a 1 100-foot wave completely destroying a lighthouse, and the lighthouse keeper was swept out to sea. the massive wave headed straight for hawaii. without warning, the first waves hit at dawn, they were only 2 feet high. it was april 1st, so some thought it was an april fool's day joke, but it wasn't. it was picked by the early hawaiians because -- [inaudible] outside the bay sits a small island called coconut island. the problem with the bay is that following the tsunami making it higher and much more forceful, the wave was 20 feet high when it washed over. it was much higher and stronger

when it hit hawaii a few seconds later. the downtown was destroyed. homes, buildings, businesses. the wave was so powerful, it even carried a train up a hill. another train was draged out to sea -- dragged out to sea by the receding wave. 25 miles north of hilo is a ridge called -- [inaudible] at the bottom of a cliff, on the peninsula was a school. it was beautiful but a terrible location for a school. the children had just gotten up and went to school when the wave hit. they couldn't outrun it, so the 24 students and the teacher were swept out to sea. in the town there was a boy, and he had just woken up and brushed his teeth when his brother

announced a wave was coming. his brother and father were holding on to each other, and his brother let go. larry and his father or lived through the tsunami, but his brother was never seen again. 159 people died on the big island that day. 96 in hilo alone. in 1948 the u.s. government set up the tsunami warning center, a series of seismic wave monitors in the ocean. this is a tsunami tracking buoy. how they use this is when the wave comes, the buoy goes up, and they can track where the wave is coming from, and they can predict how tall it will be and when it will hit. thankfully, scientists can now warn people in hawaii and around the world that a tsunami's coming, even if it's only an hour or two. another big tsunami hit in 1960, but this time people had

warning. can you believe some people gathered on hilltops to watch it? well, the tsunami didn't arrive at midnight, so most people gave up and went home. unfortunately, it did eventually end up hitting about an hour later at 1:00. even with the warning, 61 people died. these tsunamis changed hilo. after the 1960 tsunami, the town that was a short distance away from the strike zone, the devastated area was turned into a nice green park with a memorial to the people who died. the book that i authored with my father takes place in hawaii's national park. this book is about a family with two children who go on a trip to hawaii, paradise, and the two kids get to bring along a friend. who could possibly go wrong? >> that was the opening line of the book -- [laughter] what could possibly go wrong? >> well, when the family's hiking through the park and an

earthquake strikes just offshore, there's a series of massive waves that hit the island. they're walking through an underground cave where lava used to flow up into the main volcano. now it's hardened and turned into stone leaving a nice tunnel. during the earthquake, the ceiling collapses, and the four children are separated from their parents. this book is a story of how they have to go through all kinds of exciting challenges while the massive wave is racing towards the island. the children learn about the bay island landscape, volcanos and history of the island. they have to "news of the world" to survive. -- in order to survive. and most importantly, they learn about themselves including that they were a lot tougher than they originally thought. my family took a vacation to hawaii last year. my father said it would be an interesting, it will be an excuse to research for the book. [laughter]

well, we visited hawaii, and the sites where the tsunamis hit. and one of the places i went was white mountain. it's about 14,000 feet high, so during the winter the snow freezes on top of it, and haas why it's white. -- that's why it's white. and that other picture is a crater, and we hiked across that. >> that was pretty cool. so for his next book, he's going to pick another fun location. [laughter] because he knows that research is an important part of writing. [laughter] >> and these are some pics from hawaii. that's me on top of -- [inaudible] and that's an observatory called the tech observatory. it's the main one up there. and it was pretty cold, and judging that the air's so thin on top to have the mountain, it was kind of hard to breathe. and the picture over there on

the top right is a tradition celebrated by the hawaiians that shows how the hawaiians went from tahiti to mar case saw in these large canoes. it's not a canadian goose even though it's a cousin of it, it's the hawaii state bird. so it's a pretty funny picture. >> >> yeah. >> next slide? here are some more hawaii pictures. that's, that's a picture of a gecko. what happens is the early hawaiians, they would carve these pictures into stone just to kind of tell a story, kind of like the story that i wrote in a way. and the geckos are real common there, so i guess one day they just decided to draw a picture of it. >> and it's still there. >> yeah. they're still there today. this picture is my sister and i, who's sitting right there -- [laughter] we hiked, we were hiking down

into the crater which i showed earlier. it has beautiful red flowers, and it can survive the sulfur and the gas and stuff even on the crater. most plants can't survive that. pretty cool. and the bottom right picture just shows how tall it is. it's even taller than the plane and the clouds when we were flying. next slide. okay. well, oh, yeah. it was very cool to experience what my characters experienced. fortunately, we didn't experience a tsunami. i also learned that during the 1960 tsunami there were a group of kids who were camping at the

volcano national park. when the wave hit, some of them were carried out to sea, but this is the exact spot where my book is set. i want to end this talk with two points. after the tsunami hit japan, i thought of the story of the tsunami hitting hawaii. i thought of the characters, the setting and ending. my father writes books, so i approached him with the idea. i had a lot of fun researching this book. i got a trip to hawaii. [laughter] it was also fun to come up with the characters to develop their personalities and give them names. for example, in the book the kids encounter two criminals who were able to escape because of the earthquake and tsunami. >> it wrecked the prison, so some criminals escaped. >> i named the leader scar, and to help readers understand, we wrote that apparently scar once got into a fight with a knife. one of the characters points

out, you should have seep what happened to the -- seen what happened to the other guy. and car's partner was -- scar's partner was a huge man that looked like a big coconut. we made him so big that they happened to cut the sleeves and neck out of the prison jacket so he could fit. also when he stepped on the bus that transported the prisoners, the entire bus leaned towards his direction. so we made him so big and tough there was only one possible name for him, tiny. >> tiny. [laughter] he came up with the name. >> yeah, thank you. it was also fun to develop the storyline, the adventures, twists and turns and the surprise ending which i won't tell you about, you'll have to get the book -- [laughter] parents and teachers always try and get kids to read, and politicians and first ladies are trying to get parents and kids to read together. we got a guide booklet, and we put it on our web site,

let'swritetogether.com and just to help people write. and it gives helpful tips and information, and we also have a blog on the web site where i'll just post, i'll just post about how to write a book and some helpful tips. so i think it's real cool, and i i want people to be able to experience what we experienced -- >> so if you go to trimark press.com, our publisher, or you go to our let's write together web site, we're posting tips on how to write a book with kids and their friends, kids and their parents or kids and their grandparents. a lot of grandparents being retired have time on their hands, so ec write a book with their -- so they can write a book with their grandkids. we try to break it down. >> it was really fun, actually, we enjoyed it. >> we walk you through step by step. >> and also we have bookmarks in the back that have web site and some of the fun events we'll be

doing. speaking of those, we also have these essay writing events which we'll host for kids of the area. they could write essays and submit them to us, and the best essays will get -- the best kids who wrote essays will get their essays published into their book. >> hopefully, it'll be a transformational endeavor for kids to see their name in print. >> the last thing i want to mention is sign scientists know more about hurricanes and ore natural disasters than tsunamis. what we do know is they are caused by the movement of tectonic plates, a massive undersea earthquake, a landslide into the ocean and a meteor crashing into the ocean. these waves can travel speeds of hundreds of miles per hour. witnesses have described them as sounding like a train which is how we described them in the book. they travel across entire oceans and swallow whole cities on the coast. also tsunamis have struck

throughout history. while doing research for this book, i found out almost every country and culture have stories of these giant, massive killer waves, and that's an example of one. it's a picture of a scoop news tsunami, and it's called the great wave. scientists say the tsunamis strike on average every seven years. in recent years they've hit indonesia and japan, and that's indonesia in 2004 and japan in 2011. and one of the worst in recorded history ever occurred in japan many 1896 when a 100-foot-high wave killed 22,000 people. in the 20th century alone, about 50,000 people have died from tsunamis. we still don't know when they will hit, so it's not if, but when the next one strikes. so beware of the wave, thank you. >> thank you. [applause] >> we're happy to take

questions. you can queue up here at the microphone, or if you're shy about that, raise your hand, and we'll repeat nice and loud -- >> we also have a -- >> oh, yeah, doris, could you also pass one? circulate one? okay, we'll start in order, one and two, and then the microphone is in the middle. >> a really simple question, are you really 12 years old? [laughter] >> is he really 12 years old? [inaudible] [laughter] when he first came up with the idea -- >> i was 10. >> yeah. came up and got me up, must have been 6 or 7 in the morning or something like that. you know, usually i ask for a little bit more time to sleep but he said let's write a book together, and as a father, you know, other than getting married and having two children, that's probably the most exciting thing that's happened to me, so i bolted right up and said, you bet. i said, look, here's what we need to do, which if any of you

want to write a book -- >> it was a great experience. we want other people to exappearance what we experienced. >> yeah, it was a lot of fun. but the idea of -- i told him to sit down and come up with a storyline. have you ever been to a really fun place, is there a place you want to go, fun family vacation? set it there. is there a movie that you like? think about something of science and use that as the plot, come up with characters. and i made him, i told him give them names, breathe some life into them and then develop all those characters. i asked him to come up with some ideas of what's the protagonist. i asked him to think about the concept of foreshadowing. so he had to look this all up and came back in a few days and had it laid out. and there's a lot of foreshadowing concern. >> oh, a lot. >> so as you're reading, you can kind of see we're trying to bait you as to what might be happening later in the book. so that was a lot of fun.

ma'am? and if you hear bag pipes and sirens, we're not in scotland, there's no tsunami hitting. that's the parade behind the dell ray library. >> i'm interested in how you work in the process of writing. for example, kids are very technologically different in terms of writing than my generation. even now i write longhand before i go the computer. do you go to the computer first? and do you edit? because i know the young people when they're writing now, there are short rs, i mean, i'm still a stickler for grammar and periods and all the other things. how is it in terms of a process that way for the two of you? >> um, well, we didn't go directly to the computer. what we'd do is we'd just kind of talk about it, what we wanted

to do in each chapter, and we had a notebook where we just wrote down some -- >> ideas. >> we just made an outline of what we wanted to write about. >> we would do a lot of walks, bike rides, jog. and while we walked together and ride together, we would discuss, i would say, well, give me a good twist. and he would come up with ideas for twists, and then we'd chew on it and pick which one we thought was best. and then hammer it out and sit down at the computer and write. i think one of the things that is good news for me as a professor, i hear you loud and clear. students will ri where, if they want to say how are you, they'll write r u, and the good thing that i think my wife of and i are very happy about, my daughter isabella and my son alex they love to read. they both have libraries in their bedrooms. they probably read more than me. so by reading so much, i hi it's helped their slow cab area and

their writing, their -- vocabulary and their grammar. >> who did the actual writing, putting the language down, and did you have any creative differences? how did you solve them in. >> good. >> okay. first, the differences, we didn't really have too many arguments. [laughter] >> no, we -- surprisingly, i'd say 95% of the book we wrote lock step. and, again, after a jog or a bike ride when he would say i want to develop this character, here's how old i would want him to be. i would say, well, what kind of friend would he take to hawaii with him, and as a parent if you say you're bringing a friend on a vacation, i'd have some questions, so what questions do you think the parents would have? so i kind of prompted, but he wrote it. i did editing, and then he would edit me, so we went back and -- >> we had this tag team experience. he would write a little, and i'd

edit, and then we'd come together and discuss our ideas. >> a lot of days he would sit in front of the computer, and i would sit beside him, and as he's typing, i would say how would they describe this? you know, when we went to hawaii, we saw the tsunami memorial, and he had read that a tsunami sounds like a freight train. so we both agreed we should make it realistic. how do people describe it. so we described it coming like that. and even in our book he saw this when we were in hawaii, before tsunami comes, the water recedes. it's almost like it pulls the water out. so what happened in indonesia is people walked out on the beach to pick up fish thinking what's going on, and then kaboom. so he remembered all that, so he said, well, we'll have the water recede, then we'll make the sound of a freight train -- >> we wanted to make it as realistic as possible. >> it wasn't a difference, per se, but we debated whether we

should kill off a character because it's a kids' book. and we went around not disagreeing, but just con temperating which direction we should go. >> and we found a way in between. so, yeah, we decided the character would die, but we wouldn't describe the death. >> yeah. it wasn't a gruesome description. he's there -- >> he's there, then he sees the wave coming, he runs, he turns around, he's gone. >> we try today handle it -- and as alex said earlier, a tie in with hawaiian gods. in reading this you'll pick up a lot -- in fact, it was his idea to put a little glossary of hawaiian terms in front, and he used actual hawaiian with words to describe things. and so you'll pick up a wee bit of the language and culture and all that. but we tried to, tried to make sure that the hawaiian gods and some ledge gemmeds in hawaii, it's a subplot that weaves its way through the story which i think you'll enjoy.

it's kind of fun. ma'am? >> what's the targeted age for your book? >> i think around 9-14, something like that? >> i'd say that's fair. we think you could probably get away 8-15, but i think he's probably right. what was good with his age and his friends, a lot of times i would tell him if he was writing at night when i was out working or writing myself, i would say think about your friends and a recent book you read and target it there. so we were careful to make sure -- and we've had our publishers, trimark, they all read it and liked it. we've had friends and family members read it and they liked it. so adults liked it too. but it was valuable for alex because i would say, you know, what language would the kid -- the kids in the book are about his age, so he knew the language they would use. and one fun exercise i remember telling him at one point, make sure -- a pet peeve of mine when you read novels, all the characters sound the same, and it's all the voice of the writer. so certain characters, the sister of the -- >> for example, yeah.

one of the characters, like he said, to make it sound more of their age, their generation, one of the characters spoke too perfectly, so i added some likes and some ums and stuff. >> yeah. to talk like a teenager or a kid. and the one, there's a prisoner who's bad, and the kids have to escape from and deal with these prisoners. in hawaii everybody says bra like, all right, buddy or bro. so the guy's always talking to the characters saying bra. and little terms we tried to bring into it. so i had him learn, you know, a couple dozen words in hawaiian so we could make it as authentic as possible. these are good questions. again, you can line up here too. i'll continue to repeat 'em. yeah. >> [inaudible] and what was the -- [inaudible] >> okay, what was the funnest part of writing a book and the worst part of it. toughest part. the toughest part.

well, which one do you want to -- >> we'll start off with the bad stuff first. [laughter] get that out of the way. the worst part was definitely writer's block. i hate writer's block. it gets to a point where you lose all your ideas, you can't think of anything. so to help get around that, we'd take little breaks, and we'd discuss some things, what we wanted to change or keep the same and what we wanted to do. so it was, it was hard to manage, but we got through it. >> yeah. the best way to deal with writer's block is to get away with it and come back. i would say why don't we ride our bikes to the park, and then while we're throwing a frisbee or kicking a soccer ball, we'd pick it back up, and sure enough it would come to you, and he'd say, hey, i think the characters should do a, b or c, and then we'd go back and get back on it. >> another example is writer's block is kind of like a puzzle. because you do a puzzle, and after while you get kind of stuck, and you don't know where

the pieces are, where they fit. so you leave, and then you come back maybe the next morning, and you find mistakes and stuff. >> yeah. i remember, i think it was the second or third time before our publisher told us they were ready to move forward, we wanted to proofread the whole manuscript, and i couldn't believe -- i would say, look at this, we missed this, and he would say, oh, my gosh, we spelled the guy's name wrong. tell them about the cover, the back cover. yeah. this was good. our publishers found this. >> our main quote for the novel is what could possibly go wrong, and that's on our back cover. we spelled possibly wrong. [laughter] >> i know. that's what could go wrong. so we learned about -- he learned a good lesson in proofreading. and we thought we had this thing nailed. and it's ready to go to print, and barry and penelope say, hey,

look, there's something you missed. we couldn't believe it, we missed the back cover. we were so focused on the trees -- >> your brain tricks you. you think you know what you're going to read. you know what's supposed to be there, and even if there's something wrong, your brain doesn't catch it. >> sure. what's the best thick about it? -- thing about it? >> oh, the best. the best? the funnest part, i think, was definitely coming up with the characters. i liked giving them all different attitudes and different ways of talking and coming up with the names and all that. it was pretty fun. >> yeah, you know, i remember you saying to me at one point that sometimes you're frustrated when -- any good author will do this, and i'm sure you've all experienced it -- you're reading, and you want a character to succeed, or you want the bad guy to get what's coming to him, and then the bad guy succeeds -- you want the couple to come together and love one another, and you find yourself immersed in the story. so he was saying to me that sometimes he's frustrated in the

books that he reads, but it was of really fun having control over the characters. but i remember early on saying make sure you have some twists and turns that looks like the characters aren't going to make it and the bad guys are going to prevail. so it was fun. >> that's not the best part. the best part was, obviously, the vacation to hawaii. [laughter] >> and then the other best part's going to be when you all buy a book, and he makes some money. the best part for me is, you know, as a father -- and all of you can appreciate this as parents -- you know, instead of having your kid say they just want to play video games or having an attitude, having your kid say they want to write a book. i said yes immediately. i think even if he had not sketched that outline and developed the characters, because i said to him if you do all this, i'll help you, and i promise you we'll get this thing published. and he did it all. even if he didn't, i probably would have pushed him into it because it was so much fun. and another good part, i think,

for both of us. our publisher, trimark, one of the reasons why we picked them, they're local. but they were very generous in that they let him help design the cover, they let him design the font. he sat down with barry and penelope, and he picked the font. there's little icons and logos on each -- >> each chapter has a logo. >> which kind of foreshadows what's going to happen, and some of them are hawaiian logos. he picked them all out with them. he kind of got a chance to walk through the publishing process whereas i've used about a dozen different publishers, and i think two of them allowed me to pick the cover. so he got to actually walk through the process which was really fun. there's one back here and then the young lady in the front. >> number one, how -- [inaudible] >> i'd say about half a year to write. >> yeah, i'd say about six months. >> and then that was for writing

the week itself. then how long did the -- >> about another six months or so. it was faster than usual. i mean, i give myself -- i try to produce a book a year which is probably, and that's why the bags under my eyes. [laughter] and a patient family. but what we found is we would have days where we would write a chapter, you know, or i would tell him i have to go give a speech, work on it. and i'd come home at, you know, midnight from a town hall, and i'd turn it on to see what he did, and the whole chapter's done. but then he would have a test at school or water polo practice or tennis practice, and then i would have a deadline. so we might go two, three weeks where we didn't put a word down. so we did it in chunks like that, but maybe six months i'm guessing. >> the other thing i want to talk to you about, my son writes -- [inaudible] and my granddaughter is now a writer. >> tell her to check our web site out. let'swritetogether.com.

>> she wants to be a science fiction writer, what is the future though of actual published books versus what's going to be e-books? >> well, i think the whole world, the communication -- the question was about the future of publishing in terms of the written, the published book held in your hand. you know, politics, education, the media, corporate america, everything is on the wave, to use our expression, of technology. for example, my courses at the university, i have an electronic blackboard, and we're completely paper less. my students, lynn university is one of the first universities in the country to go to ipad, and my students' assignments are on their ipads, they're electronic. they submit them electronically. i don't get papers anymore. so everything's moving in that direction. i think for the next few years there'll be a printed book, and there also be a digitized or

electronic format. eventually we'll move in the direction of kindle and nook, but i think -- by show of hands, how many i don't have you like -- how many of you like having a book if your hand? how many of you like going to the library? i even like, if i go to -- my wife and i went to mount vernon at one point in virginia, george washington's home, and i liked going into the basement and pulling old, dusty books off the shelf. you know, so dusty you sneeze. then you know it's good history. [laughter] fiona. okay,ist pell la and then fiona. >> [inaudible] >> the first step of writing. >> well, the first step is, obviously, to think of the plot. what's going to happen -- whoa. [laughter] be. >> we'll edit that out. >> what's going to happen in the book. because, um, you want to think of what the book's going to be about. you've got to think of what age group you want it to be, what

you want to write about. >> i think it wasn't even the title. i told you it would be neat if it had a one word title, and he just said tsunami, which makes sense. so even the title wasn't the first thing. it was just to think about, you know, where is it set, what do you want to say, what do you want to happen a. and i told him come up with foreshadowing, make twists and turns. he did all that himself. i think the only thing i said was make sure there's a good moral at the end of the story. there are some nice lessons, so to speak. eurozone that. >> what advice would you give to a kid who wants to write a book? >> oh, that's good. what advice would you give to a kid that wants to write a book? >> no matter what people tell you, you know what you're doing is right, and just if people say don't write a book, that's not cool, writing a book with your dad's not cool, come on. [laughter] >> unless you have a cool dad. >> i'm not saying you're not cool. [laughter] >> professor.

>> just keep on pushing forward. whatever you want, whatever you want to do, just do it. get it done. when you start with something, you've got to finish it. >> yeah. and, you know, a book is a challenge. so it's not a light walk in the park. this is, you know -- and double-spaced, printed out, i guess this was 200 or 300 pages, ended up 100 and something be, what, 180? >> something like that. >> so it's a good pool. but, you know, i think it's good for your confidence. i mean, he's 12 years old now and has a published, a book in print, and he's speaking on national television and in front of a group of well educated, sharp folks. this is -- when i was 12, there's no way i could have done this. [laughter] you know? i was keeling with acne -- dealing with acne and throwing a football in the back yard. so it's a great confidence booster. and if a kid writes a book, you can do anything. and if you write a book, imagine how well in school, imagine the confidence as you approach your

next -- oh, a three-page english paper. that's a walk in the park mow, right? ma'am -- one here and then over in the middle. >> is alex going to -- are you going to have an opportunity -- [inaudible] >> an opportunity to present this to folks his age. yeah, we've got a couple, we've got a half dozen area libraries over the next six, nine months that we're going to go to and do some in the summer when kids are off school. what we need to do is set up some schools too. this is the very first talk. this is his very first speech. >> good job. [applause] >> shocking. hawaii, yeah. so we'll try to probably set up some area libraries for school groups. and we've talked to a couple of libraries in the area that are going to have can kids

programming day. a library in boca has a kids' reading program that this is going to be a featured event for i think in september. so -- >> [inaudible] >> yeah. so we're hoping as many kids. and as he mentioned earlier, we talked about this idea of a kids writing project. so we're going to invite schools all around the area to have the kids write short stories and submit them to us. and we're going to have volunteers help us grade -- judge them, i should say, and pick winners to get them published. >> one, two, three. and then four. >> [inaudible] on a novel. i can't read it because he says there's too much sex in it. [laughter] >> those are the kind you want to read, right? when you're 16 or 20 -- [laughter] >> -- for getting it published. >> well, getting published. a lot of publishing companies are having difficulties because

the electronic platform, people aren't reading as much and so forth, competition. self-publishing is the big thing these days on both macs and various word processing packages. there's various i-publish types of ibook programs you can publish yourself. there's publishing companies and pr firms that'll help you publish yourself. you can do it online with facebook, twitter and youtube. or some people use a literary agent. we chose not to. payoff what i do for a living -- because of what i do for a living, i felt we could definitely get a publisher. >> and we have such great publishers. >> there we go. and tear here today, trimark. but you can use a rate area agent. we -- literary agent. we chose motto. every library has book events including this library. go to a book event and talk to one of the authors and ask advice. miami hosts one of the country's

best book fairs every year in the late fall. go to the book fair, and they have how to publish, demonstrate talks, they have publishers there, literary agents are soliciting clients. i contacted the university of hawaii press because when i taught there -- he was born in hawaii. we figured with the hawaii theme, they might like it. then we were thinking about it, and i said let me find a local publisher, because my dream was that he would actually not just write a book, but he would get to do all the things we discussed earlier like design the cover. so i found a local publishing company, and that local angle we really thought was important. so, you know, go online and find out if there's any publishers in the area. go to the miami book fair, go to your local library, call your local university and talk to an english professor or a professor that writes, thicks of that effect -- things of that effect. you had the order earlier. >> i was wondering, you're talking about publishing and

spreading the word around about your book in this area. but the first thing i thought about was the storm of -- [inaudible] that affected -- >> yeah. >> are the people and the children up there. >> yeah. >> i think that would be a perfect contact to identify with the storm that they went through, the ocean and everything else -- >> yeah. i think on monday we'll ask our publishers' marketing department to contact schools and libraries in connecticut and new jersey. and it might be -- and new york. and it might be therapeutic in a way for kids to read something that they've gone through and see that it's not just them. it always helps us to deal with tragedy if we know, it takes a village. if we know others -- [inaudible] >> yeah. yeah. that's a great idea. thank you for that. >> if you, if you're turning this into a project of getting adults and children to work together on writing, i would suggest that you partner with

seniors, because there's an awful lot of seniors around that are writing -- >> in south florida? really? [laughter] have to keep our eyes open no, that's a good idea. this is a very young audience. no one's old enough to be a grandmother or grandfather. [laughter] you know, you're retired, you have time on your hands, check our web site out and our publisher's web site and write a book with your grand kids. what a wonderful way of bridging the generations and understanding them and them understanding you, maybe even setting it with something they're interested in or them setting it historically with world war ii or, you know, some kind of setting that it would be an educational experience for them as well so you can all pick up a copy of the book then and get some tips for your kids and grandkids. >> has this given your daughter an incentive to write a book

with -- >> you want to take that? >> he doesn't have a daughter. >> yeah. but we talked about this in the house a lot. >> so we're kind of like a boy group, so she wants to write with mother. >> been talking about it. my daughter's talked to both myself and my wife, and she's actually started -- i said the same thing to her, put together a storyline, come up with names of characters. i'm not going to tell you what it's on, but she's already worked out a little bit. she's only 9, so she's worked out an idea. probably this summer we'll all sit down with her and encourage her to write a book and go back to a publisher. >> one more question. one more question. >> yeah. >> was your english teacher impressed? >> was your english teacher impressed? >> yeah. she was pretty impressed. >> did you give of a copy to her? showed her in yeah, okay. there we go. there was one in the back and then we have two up here. >> alex, first of all, i want to

congratulate you on -- [inaudible] i hi it's a great thing -- it's very impressive for a 12-year-old to do an undertaking like this. on behalf of all of us, i want to congratulate you. [applause] your father and the presentation, you were the star of the show. [laughter] [applause] >> notice where i'm standing. >> i think he belongs where he is. >> thank you. >> and i wonder, alex, if you have any plans for your next book and if you can do this for a career. >> um -- >> funny you should say that, about the next book. [laughter] >> should i give away, like -- >> sure. >> i won't tell you the ending though. topic is we're planning on making a series a of about ten books would you say? it's about a kid who he's about

12 or 13, and he has a father who's a scientist, and he comes up with a time machine. so they go to try it out, but it gets, it breaks, so they get warped around to all kinds of locations. we named the series time zone. >> they're going to travel all over the world throughout time, and the kid will battle in the coliseum with gladiators, he will go back and cross the delaware river with george washington, go back and, you know, fight in the french and indian war and, you know, meet pharoahs and meet moses and meet, you know, all kinds of neat things going around history. so that'll be, it should be fun. and if it takes us several years to produce them, the kid can age with them. you know, for example, i notice one thing, he reads a lot of series, and kids his age whetherst the hunger games or whatever or harry potter, they love a series. and it's fun to follow the character from book to book to book. so this could be fun or us to watch the kid and his father or grow and change. >> yeah.

coming of age as they develop. >> coming of age, yeah. >> i think the other hand up first, then you. >> okay. >> i have to tell you, not only are you -- [inaudible] but i think you should be very proud of the way you conduct yourself. >> yeah. [applause] >> thanks. >> he's a great kid. >> [inaudible] and i think the next book -- [inaudible] how do you become such great role models to children -- [inaudible] and how did all this happen to this family? i'm sure you're both -- [inaudible] with lots of other things, and yet your children seem to be

benefiting from a very special -- >> that might be the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me. [applause] but especially, i write, you know, columns in newspapers and do tv commentary on politics, so i get a few nasty e-mails from time to time, so that was nice. um, you know, i must say that my line is always thank god they both took after my wife. [laughter] but i think one thing that helps both of us is we're both educators. so we're around young folks, and we prioritize education and reading with our kids. they grew up in a household that has lots of books and celebrates that sort of a thing. they also grew up in a household where we all go to vote, and the kids go with us into vote and get the little voting stickers. we make sure it was a household where our kids travel all throughout latin america, europe, you name it. they see the world, and they have friends from all over the world. so they're exposed to the right kind of a thing. and we also -- >> [inaudible]

>> well, but i think all that, the base that's the framework, i think, that you do. i don't think, you know, my wife -- >> i have it in my blood. [laughter] >> good dna maybe. you know, there's no how-to book for parenting. and the wonderful thing is, you know, my sister and i are different, our kids are different, my wife and i have different views. there's not a 10-step manual, but i think what you can do as the basis is make sure your kids travel, that they friend up, that you expose them to reading and open mindedness. you know, i do a lot of human rights, civil rights, women rights, fights against anti-semitic behavior and things of that effect, so that's part of their upbringing as is recycling every day. here i give them the go recycle. so i think that there's no how to, but i by those are all the building blocks for decent parenting, i would hope. [applause] >> what i see is a wonderful

respect that you give him as well as -- >> and i will say for the viewing audience, we did not set this up. [laughter] i assure you, i did not plant in the audience. but that's nice. >> i've always said it's amazing, i hear the child come in after school, and the father and mother are talking about their day. and i said to hem, i've never seen a family like this before, including my own. and so what you have, the relationship, is just -- [inaudible] >> well, thank you. and, again, one of the, one thing we do, my wife and i are both very busy, and i think every parent these days is a full-time taxi driver. he had a lead in the school play again, he's many tennis, water polo, karate, i mean, you name it, he plays in the jazz band, piano, he plays the clarinet in the other band, he even plays the bag pipes.

we learned the ukelele when we went to hawaii, and my daughter's the same way, she does a hundred things. one thing we've tried to do, for example, is because of what i do for a living, you know, as a professor of history and politics is, for example, when we -- i had to go to washington, d.c., so we took the whole family along. and maybe papa has to go do a little research, but then that night we'll all go to, you know, to the lincoln memorial, or we'll go to the smithsonian the next day or something. i sometimes lecture on a cruise ship or overseas, so what we do is we, some of you in the audience i recognize from our cruises. so what we'll do is we'll take the whole family along. and goodness, the kids at a tender age yet to go to the hermitage in st. petersburg, so history's coming to life for them. i'm on the board, for example, at the truman foundation, so they've been to the truman home. they actually stayed in the true

han home overnight. so what a fun thing for them. so my work and my wife's work, my wife teaches languages. so he is fluent in spanish as is my daughter, and he has some french and italian. so we try to make our lives theirs and vice versa as much as possible. but these are good questions. >> i was just going to -- originally i was going to ask you if you had self-published his book, i don't know how you became so, you know, comfortable with -- [inaudible] but i'm trying to say that i imagine you'd try self-publishing for him. >> no, i didn't want to self-of publish his first book. down the road he could do whatever he wants, but i really thought it was nice to get his first book out in print with an established company and to see the steps in process, the copy editing, the marketing, you know, the formatting of the book. i thought that would be a good process, so i told him we're going to find a publisher for

sure. and then, um, you know, what he does with the next books that we do together and did with my daughter if he decides to be a writer -- whatever he decides to do is good with me -- he can make those decisions. but i guess i'm also traditional. i've not self-of published. i've used university presses, you know, rowman and littlefield, i use established presses, and i'm comfortable with it. one of these days i suspect we'll all -- let's take one or two more. yeah. >> how long did it take to write your book? >> how long does it take to write a book? >> about six months for us. >> with yeah. >> you know, i think it depends on how much hours a day. it's hard when you're real busy, so there were some days we didn't write at all. if we wrote every day, we'd get tired of it.

>> also we got, we got it done pretty quickly because we wrote during summer break. so i didn't -- school wasn't a factor in that. >> yeah. we did the lion's share of it in summer, including our trip to hawaii. yeah, last question. >> are you going to write another book after the series? >> after the series? [laughter] okay. >> um, i'm sure. i'm pretty sure i might. it's in the blood. >> yeah, i love to write. i find it to be fun and therapeutic actually. so, yeah, i definitely will. he and i are planning a series, yeah, we'll continue to do that. let me just thank everyone for coming out and competing with the parade. [applause] thank you to the delray library. thanks to c-span and booktv. i'm not sure if they've ever done a show with a teenager, or

a preteen or a tween. thanks, everyone. well tone. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> visit booktv.org to watch any of the programs you see here online. type the author or book title in the search bar on the upper left side of the page and click search. you can also share anything you see on booktv.org easily by clicking share on the upper left side of the page and selecting the format. booktv streams live online for 48 hours every weekend with top nonfiction books and authors. booktv.org. >> today booktv is live from the annapolis book festival with panels throughout the day. at 10 a.m. eastern, maryland in 1812, war, slavery and opportunity. 11, the changing landscapes of cities and suburbs. and at noon, america's ongoing involvement in afghanistan. at 1, the ever-evolving roles of

women in society. then at 2, former congressman mickey edwards on politics in america. the annapolis book festival live today, part of booktv this weekend on c-span2. >> the title, saving justice, comes from bob's decision not to resign after the saturday night massacre. which, by the way, he thinks should have been called the saturday night involuntary manslaughter. [laughter] because nixon didn't plan it, but just blundered into it. bob believed that the president has the authority to control everyone in the executive branch and to fire insubordinate personnel. and cox had proclaimed his insubordination on national tv. whether a president is wise to exercise that authority is for history to decide. attorney general richardson had promised the senate that he

would maintain a special prosecutor in place. and he thought, therefore, that he had to resign when nixon asked him to fire cox. but bob bork had not made any such promise, and he thought that the president is entitled to dig his own grave if he insists. he also thought that he should not gain by the dealed and certainly should not appear to be a toadie. so he planned to fire cox and quit. richardson and the deputy attorney general talked him out of resignation. there was no line of succession in the department of justice after the solicitor general. so if bob had walked the plank, the department of justice would have been leaderless. no one knew who the president might install. richardson, ruggles house and bork all figured it would be a political shill leading much of

the department's senior leadership to resign and crippling the department. so bob bork saved justice by staying. had he quit if protest -- in protest, he trouble would have been treated as a national hero and confirmed to the supreme court in 1987. perhaps he would have been appointed by ft. ford in 1976 -- by president ford in 1976 to the seat that went to john paul stevens. he was on the list that edward levey sent to president ford of possibilities. but had he quit, the nation as a whole would have suffered. so he stayed in office in the sg's office. he was so determined not to benefit that he turned down an opportunity to be appointed as attorney general, he turned down the chance to work from the attorney general's more elegant office, he avoided the attorney general's private dining room, and he even turned down the attorney general's chauffer and limousine during the time he was acting attorney general.

i can't say much more about those times. they occupy the last six months of 1973, and i did not arrive in is solicitor general's office until mid 1974. but everything bob bork says in his book he said in 1974 too. richardson, rubbing leshouse and the people who worked with him most closely then such as edmund kitsch and keith jones tell the same story. and bork's narration in the book is entirely consistent with the man i knew for 40 years; intellectual, considering consequences before acting and absolutely honest. he's also the funniest man i ever met. that didn't come through in his 1987 hearings, but the book is full of his wit. [laughter] the life of a solicitor general, like the rife of a judge, is -- life of a judge, is reactive. other people decide what suits to bring, the solicitor general

controls the government's presentation in those suits to the supreme court. what petitions to file, what responses to file, merits briefs, oral argument. and the solicitor general also decides when the government will appeal an adverse decision by a district court or seek rehearing in a court of appeals. the solicitor general has authority to decide when, if at all, to participate as am cushion curiae in the supreme court or court of appeals. it's a broad portfolio. it requires a large base of knowledge plus the ability to learn fast. the solicitor general does not control who litigates about what, and he doesn't start the process be within the justice department. cases that awe arrive are farmed out -- that arrive are farmed out to litigating positions, civil, civil rights, antitrust, tax, lands and natural resources and the environment. they make recommendations which go to the sg's assistants and deputies. sometimes there's an internal

conflict. the department of justice includes the bureau of prisons in the criminal division, and those people always want to defend wardens and guards in suits by prisoners. the civil rights division tends to favor the prisoners. somebody has to resolve those fights. or an assistant to the solicitor general may think that the criminal division's statutory theory of prosecution is weak. the solicitor general has to resolve those issues personally. bob bork conducted many conferences not only to settle fights within the government, but also to hear presentations by private counsel. it's one of the office's traditions that anyone -- a litigant, a potential amicus curiae -- can be heard by the solicitor general personally before the united states files a brief in the supreme court. bob prepared carefully and asked sharp questions at these meetings. as he said in the book, he tried to advance the positions of the ex