Telling tales of bravery in dark times

The stories of her own parents have long been a source of inspiration to Deedy. When Fidel Castro came to power in Cuba, her mother and father made the difficult decision to offer shelter to those attempting to flee the country, despite concerns about the safety of their own two children.

"They were not people who could stand by and do nothing," she says.

Eventually they too needed to leave Cuba, and the family of four boarded a plane to the United States, carrying nothing with them but Deedy's beloved cloth doll. When an official first strip-searched the family and then slit the doll open with a knife to see if anything was concealed within, the already frightened three-year-old Deedy screamed and dissolved into hysterical tears.

It wasn't until she was actually en route to the US that she recovered her doll and made an astonishing discovery. The official, evidently moved by the tears of the child, had taken the time to crudely pin back together and reshape the torn doll.

For Deedy, that incident in early life has come to exemplify the type of story she's most apt to seek out: moments of kindness in unexpected places.

That's why, she says, the story of King Christian jumped out at her when she first heard it recounted at a story-telling festival in Tennessee. It wasn't told by a professional storyteller, but rather was casually mentioned by a listener. Deedy, however, was immediately captivated.

She spent more than a year gathering information about that period of Danish history over the Internet and in libraries. She wrote the book by hand on yellow legal pads, as she did all six children's books she has authored. Most often, her desk was a table in a diner or a waffle house. As the mother of five daughters, she says, escaping the house is the only way to focus on her work.

But once completed, the only copies of the book disappeared when her house was broken into. For a year, she tried to rewrite it but could not succeed.

Finally, one night, desperate to find a quiet spot to work and think, she drove to a resort in the mountains, only to discover she couldn't afford the expensive rooms there. But a desk clerk, moved by her story, offered her a lovely suite at a deep discount.

There, in one night, she rewrote "The Yellow Star."

"Once again," she points out, "the kindness of a stranger."

At the moment, Deedy feels far from composed when she thinks about current events. The mere mention of the terrorist attacks on the US causes her dark eyes to fill with tears.

She is also candid about expressing fear of what lies ahead. "It's autumn," she predicts. "We haven't come to full winter yet."

But what she clings to - and what she hopes "The Yellow Star" will communicate to all readers who pick it up - is a certainty that "whatever we perceive as good in the world has always endured, and it always will."

E-mail marjorie@csmonitor.com

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