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Good morning, Alana Ka. How
are you doing today. Hello, it's

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wonderful to be here. Thank you
so much for having me. I'm doing

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well. Oh my god. I'll
tell you what. This book is coming

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out at the right time, and
I mean this in the most positive way.

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There's so much change in the world
right now, and a book like

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this The Blood Years is going to
share with readers the importance of writing down

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your family history. I hope this
book will be embraced by younger readers,

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you know, teenagers and grown up
for life alike. I think this really

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is a book for really anyone who's
interested in learning more about this time in

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history. So I'm so jealous of
you writing about your grandmother's teenage life.

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I mean, because I mean,
I don't know that much about my own

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grandparents. Yeah, I am lucky. My grandmother, Frida was a natural

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storyteller, and I was a very
inquisitive kid, and whenever she was a

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brilliant grown up. Whenever I asked
a question, she would answer it honestly

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and wait for me to ask a
follow up. And in that way,

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she's sort of gently shared with me
and Anoy's story of family and of tragedy

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that she gave to me sort of
in degrees as I was ready to hear.

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It was that the inspiration behind getting
the opportunity to speak with survivors of

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the occupation. It was so important
to me to do a lot of research

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because I'm a novelist, so this
is not just my grandmother's story. It's

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my grandmother's story made into a novel
for which I had to weave in a

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lot of other experiences, and so
I didn't. But I didn't want to

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make stuff up about the Holocaust.
There's enough terrible, real stuff that happened

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that it felt vitally important to me
to honor the real stories of survivors and

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people who didn't survive. So I
did an enormous amount of research, listening

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to testimonials through the Holocaust Memorial Museum
in DC, reaching out to survivors that

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are still alive. I worked with
a woman named Ruth Glassberg Gold who's a

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survivor of Front of Its Romania and
also the author of a memoir called Rooth's

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Journey, who read a draft of
this book. Can help me with my

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veracity. I read memoirs, I
read fiction written by the get my hands

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on it. Was very important to
me to tell Dorey Wright the wife's family

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has the roots in Romania. So
that's maybe that's the reason why I'm so

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attracted to this, because I really
do want to know her roots as well

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as my own roots. And I
think that's the kind of generation that we're

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evolving into. It's not just about
MEMI me, it's about Okay, how

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did we we we get here?
Oh, I hope you're right. That

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is a very good point. It's
really interesting about the city that my grandmother

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is from. Turn of It's Romania, it's now Ukraine. This town changed

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hands several times during this book,
and one of the periods of this book

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is when the Russians came in and
took over turn of It's Romania. And

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as I was writing this book,
Russia took over Trinity, Ukraine, the

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town that you know. It's this
very all full cycle moment. There's a

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character in my book who says everything
is cyclical, and for me, that

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was a cycle moment, like in
live action watching the city be taken over

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again by Russia. See, now
it reaches beyond family and it goes into

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community because now you're telling the history
of Ukraine. Which which is in you

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know, just in turmoil right now? Exactly. Yeah. It is so

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interesting and kind of terrifying how true
it is that cycles repeat themselves. And

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as a younger person, it's something
you hear, but well, that can't

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really be true, you know.
And then as you get older and you

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live long enough to see the cycles
occur, and as you become more educated

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and so you're able to reach farther
back into history than your own lived experience,

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and you can start to see these
cycles as they're happening. One of

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the things that's taking place in the
real world is something that your grandparents had

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to deal with, and that is
letting go of everything to seek a better

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tomorrow. I just can't imagine that, but yet you bring truth to those

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pages. Absolutely. And my grandparents
came here. In fact, my father

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was born in Europe, so I
was the first generation to be born here.

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And they came here, like so
many wonderful Americans, with nothing,

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with no language, no no English, with no connections, and they built

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a life that you know, last
night I had the book launch for this

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party, and my three siblings and
our five children were all there in the

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room with me, and it was
absolutely. And my grandmother is no longer

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alive, my father is no longer
alive. There's no one above me and

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my chain. But here was me
and my siblings and my children. It

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really gave me chills to see what
they had built, which they couldn't have

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known. You know, when my
grandmother was living the experiences that inspired the

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blood years, she didn't even know
she was going to be alive tomorrow,

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let alone alive to come to this
wonderful country and create this family that I

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get to be a part of.
You know, we need books like this

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in the way of the things that's
happening to this nation as people are coming

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into this country as well, because
we need to learn that we all came

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into this country. My grandparents came
from Germany. They brought with them a

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bead that was so important to my
grands In fact, it was so important

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that he gave it to me as
a young child. And I don't know

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where the bed is now because I
moved away from Montana. But the fact

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of the matter is it was so
important to him to bring that to America.

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I love that detail us exactly the
sort of detail that would go into

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my book if it had been part
of my family history. I so want

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to know the story behind that bed. Yeah. We are a country of

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immigrants, and that is I think
one of the things that makes us such

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a strong country, and it makes
me so proud. Whenever I get to

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meet anybody, I always ask about
their family and where they're from. I

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find it to be so fascinating the
sort of mosaic that makes up for our

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country based on people from all over, from one author to another author.

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And now as a podcaster whose words
have been banned as well, what do

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you go through? Because I go
through a morning period and I also go

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through a very hurtful period when when
something that I have done is banned or

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taken away. How do you deal
with that? Yeah? Yeah, Panama

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has listened to me for you know
a year now. As one of the

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most challenged and banded authors in the
United States, many of my books have

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been removed from schools and libraries across
the country. I think it's such a

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loss for young readers. Many of
my books are for readers, as you

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know. I have picture books that
have been removed from collections, middle school

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books, young adult novels. I
think it's really scary as someone whose family

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came from a time and a place
that I talk about in the blood years

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where things were taken away, you
know, the right to be a professor.

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You know, my Jewish family,
they couldn't teach in the university,

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they weren't allowed to own a business. They know their books were taken from

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them. You know. I think
when we start taking away opportunities to learn

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about one another, when we start
banning voices and silencing things, and is

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never a good indication of the sort
of a general greater picture of what's happening

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in a space and to the people
who live in it. So I am

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horrified by the very actual small percentage
of people with very loud voices who want

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to limit children's access to curated collections
that have been put together by educated educators

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and librarians. I think it's horrible. And I'll tell you it was just

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a couple of weeks ago that the
President said that a broken democracy doesn't find

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itself at the end of a barrel. It's in the silence. And so

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it's like the silence. We can't
be silent. We're creative. People don't

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silence us from saying something. Yeah, it is scary and it becomes when

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one feels afraid to share their creative
work for fear of what will happen to

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it and how one will be seen
for saying and writing the things I've had

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people write to me, and you
know, say terrible things to me.

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It's tempting to sort of be quiet
and get small, but it's that's the

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exact moment where it's important to be
louder and speak up. And so I'm

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really grateful that my books have years
is being published. So many of us

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grew up reading the book about Anne
Frank And it makes me wonder, since

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you bring up the subject of a
safe home and how it's really not a

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safe place, sometimes I have to
ask, in these modern day times,

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would you open your home to be
a safe home for somebody who you need

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to hide? Wow, that's a
heavy question. For the last thirty seconds,

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I think we have an obligation to
Yeah, we are living in a

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home. The home is the United
States. And are we even bigger than

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do we have an attic or do
we have a space where we could hide

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an individuals? So what are we
doing to protect the environment of people who

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are endangered right now in our own
communities, and I think our voice is

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what helps to create that safe space. If we speak up when we see

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things happening that aren't okay, if
we vote by going to our local school

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board elections, by going to our
city council meetings and paying attention to what's

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happening, we are creating a home
that is faith and if we don't,

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we're allowing the people who don't want
it to be safe to make the decisions,

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which is something that again, yeah, in my book, is something

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my characters experienced. Wow, you
got to come back to this show anytime

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in the future. The door is
always going to be open for you.

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Alana, Kay, thank you so
much. I so appreciate your having me,

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and please, I do hope your
listeners will find a copy of The

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Blood Years and you know, and
I'm very hopeful that this book will have

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a wide readership. So thank you
for helping me. You'd be brilliant today.

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Okay, thank you so much.
Have a wonderful day out there.