I’ve been working on a project near and dear to my heart: turning a magnificent history of American immigration into a book for young readers.

The book is called A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America. It was written by Ronald Takaki, who was a leading scholar of immigration history and a professor of  ethnic studies at the University of California at Berkeley. The young people’s adaptation, which I have based very closely on Professor Takaki’s original text, will be called A Different Mirror for Young People.

This writing project has been special for me for two reasons.

First, most textbooks in U.S. history classes spend little time on the great waves of immigration that shaped this country. Textbooks often ignore the relationships among immigrant and ethnic groups, or between immigrants and native-born Americans. Professor Takaki’s book focuses on how different ethnic and racial groups of immigrants cooperated, competed, and were pitted against each other by politicians and employers. It also looks at the experiences that different immigrant groups shared–the ways the groups were similar, and also the ways in which each group was unique.

Second, I not only admired and respected Professor Takaki as a scholar, I cared for him as a friend. I was lucky to get to know Ron and his wife and colleague, Carol, years ago, when I turned another one of his books into a multivolume series on Asian American history for kids. The Takakis’ warmth, generosity, and passion for learning and communicating were inspiring. We remained friends, and I was always delighted to see them when our paths crossed.

Ron died in 2009. His work touched the lives of many students, teachers, and readers. I know it would please him enormously to know that A Different Mirror will soon be available to young readers.

If you’ve ever read any books or stories by horror-master Stephen King, or seen any of the many television shows and movies based on his work, you might like to know more about his life . . . his difficult childhood, his early love of all things weird, and how his powerful imagination made him one of the most successful writers in the world.

I chronicled King’s life and career in Stephen King. You can read a starred review of it here.

Have you ever wondered whether animals have emotions, such as happiness and sorrow? Or how they “talk” to each other? Or what it means when two animals play?

I’ve always been curious about those things, and now I’m exploring the mysterious subject of animal behavior for a new series of four books. The books will be How Animals Think, How Animals Feel, How Animals Communicate, and How Animals Play.

The scientific study of animal behavior is called ethology, and it’s a busy field these days. Researchers around the world are making fascinating discoveries about everything from the language of hyenas (they’re not laughing, they’re communicating) to the personality types of trout. Yes, trout!

Science is giving us new insights into the inner lives of the animals that share our world. I’m excited about bringing that information together for young readers in the books I’ll be writing next.

Today I’m working on captions for my book about Stephen King, the author of Carrie, The Shining, and lots of other terrifying tales.

You might think of King as a horror writer, but he has written other kinds of books and stories as well. He’s written about baseball, about growing up, and about his own life as a writer.

My book Stephen King tells the story of his amazing life and career. I also analyze two of King’s novels and two of his short stories in detail.

Making a book doesn’t happen overnight. I finished writing Stephen King several months ago. Since that time, the publisher has been getting the book ready to be printed. Writing captions is one of my last tasks as the book’s author. I have to look at all the pictures that will illustrate the book, then write a caption for each one, explaining what the picture represents. Beneath a picture of King as a little boy, for example, my caption will say how old he was when the picture was taken.

Choosing pictures for Stephen King was not easy. Thousands of great photographs document his career as a writer. Some of the most fun photos are posters and scenes from the many movies that have been based on his work. My book couldn’t include them all, but I’m happy with the final choices.

Next step: The book goes off to be printed. I can’t wait for this one to come off the printing press!

This morning when I checked my email, two messages caught my eye at once. A friend had sent me an email headed “Howard Zinn died!” And Zinn’s agent had forwarded me a link to this article in the New York Times.

Howard Zinn was a historian who wrote about American history. He was also an activist who marched in demonstrations and spoke up for causes he believed in. I’m proud and honored to have worked with him on one of his projects.

A few years ago, Zinn wanted to create a version of his best-known book, A People’s History of the United States, for young people to read. He was busy with new writing projects, though, and he didn’t have experience writing for kids.

Zinn’s agent suggested that I might be able and willing to adapt the book for young adults. I admire Zinn’s book a lot, so I was happy to accept. With Zinn’s book as my starting-point, I cut out some material to make the text shorter–this was the hardest part of my job! Then I added some explanations and definitions to make things clearer to younger readers. Howard Zinn read all of my changes, answered my questions, and supported me every step of the way.

The result was A Young People’s History of the United States, published in one- and two-volume, hardcover and paperback formats by 7 Stories Press. Like Zinn’s original book, A Young People’s History tells the story of American history from the “other side”–not in the words and deeds of explorers and generals and presidents, but in the voices and experiences of Native Americans, women, indentured workers, laborers, and activists.

Zinn believed that only by accepting all of our history, the shameful parts as well as the successes, can we know who we are as a nation. He also believed in the boundless power of ordinary people to accomplish extraordinary things, and to bring about change. Through working with him, I shared both his outrage at injustice and his hope that people will build a better world.

His death is a sad loss to the world, but I am full of admiration for his life.