Fashion Fighter by Deborah O’Dowd
Questions and Answers
1) What about the title Fashion Fighter? What does it mean?
I knew I was writing a book about a girl with a super-hero heart… My mother told me a story about my niece and how when she was four she put on as many dresses and dress up things as she could and announced that she was Fashion Fighter! I just couldn’t get the phrase out of my head. A great alliteration. Very catchy.
2) What made you become a writer?
I can’t do math. I was fired as a waitress… Writing kept me out of trouble… Even when I was getting my Masters Degree in Social Work, professors must have thought I was an “A” student, scribbling furious notes. Ha-ha. Probably, I was editing another poem. I can’t help it. Writing owns me.
3) Where did you get the inspiration for the character “Cheeks?”
I’m a mother of three boys. “Cheeks” is an accumulation of my three boys, their cousins and even my sisters, brother and parents. For example, one day my son asked me, “Mom, how do you feel about Mountain Standard Time?” Okay… bizarre… I can’t make that up.
4) What does “Cheeks” want?
Seven-year-old Cheeks meets her biological father for the first time and discovers he has lost his legs in the war in Iraq. She wants to know why we are “doing a war.” Also, she wants everyone to see pictures of war so it will stop.
5) Talk about the heroes in your book. What makes a hero?
Cheeks is a hero because she inspires others with her ‘swirling against death” idea. Her biological father is a hero, too, because he is an Iraq War Veteran with a Purple Heart, but also because he speaks out for his fellow soldiers and for a new G.I. Bill. But this non-violent ‘battle’ for peace cannot be won alone. The heroes are on every page: students, teachers, principals, bikers, Grannies, etc.
6) What is the message of Fashion Fighter? What are you trying to say?
We are all in this together. You are the hero. No matter how big or small. Don’t wait for someone else.
7) Tell me about the setting. How is the setting important?
The story is set in the West University of Arizona neighborhood in Tucson, Arizona, next to a dual-language elementary school. Many of the characters are bilingual. “Cheeks” family is a blended, stepparent family in which the issues of language and immigration color characterization and setting.
8) Were there other inspirations for this book?
Iraq Veteran, elementary school teacher and peace activist Leonard Clark inspired the character R-Daddy standing up for his “fellow soldiers.” After I wrote the book, a good friend encouraged me to meet Leonard. Now we are engaged.
9) This isn’t just a novel. The last section is poetic and civic language lessons. What’s that about?
Reading and writing are reciprocal. It just made sense. I’m the author of Poetry Made Easy where you can find lots more poetic language lessons.
10) Are there other messages in Fashion Fighter?
Yes. For example, Cheeks sees homeless people in the park and asks her mother why they are homeless if there are empty buildings around or if there’s space at home. Her mother’s tired answer of, “That’s not how things work,” doesn’t satisfy her (or even her mother).
She also wonders about her bio dad. If he needs a place to live, why can’t it be at her house in the empty basement? When her stepfather tells her “that’s not how things work,” Cheeks wonders, “Why not? Are big people more or less confused than little kids?”
11) This is a children’s book? Are these children’s topics?
These are topics for all thinking human beings, big and small. The book presents opportunities for inter-generational conversations and a “Call to Non-Violent Action.”
In this country, we’ve got some REALLY BIG PROBLEMS in full bloom. The question is, Do we care? Or will we pass on “learned apathy” to our children and grandchildren only to end up banished to nursing homes ourselves as a consequence (assuming we’ll still have a constitution, a country, and a military to defend us by then).
Our children are smart. They are our future. Let’s treat them that way.
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