Author Delia Ray uses Iowa history in her latest novel, ‘Finding Fortune’

On Nov. 10, Iowa children's author Delia Ray enjoyed the release of her fourth middle-grade novel, 'Finding Fortune” (2015, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $16.99, ages 8 to 12). I was fortunate enough to ask Delia a few questions about her newest release.

Q: Delia, you do a wonderful job setting up the story in 'Finding Fortune.” In the first chapter, we meet Ren, the 12-year-old main character, who has been in a lot of pain over her parents' recent separation. Her father deploys to Afghanistan and Ren convinces herself that her parents' year apart will be just what they need to avoid divorce. When a new man enters her mom's life, 36 days before her father's return, she knows she has to do something drastic to rid this threat. Ren runs away to the nearby, dying town of Fortune after seeing an ad for a boarding house in an abandoned school. There, she meets a cast of colorful characters she not only comes to care about, but also determines to help, including Hugh, a lonely 8-year-old boy and Hildy, the elderly owner of the boarding house whose dream is to open a button museum showcasing the amazing history of the early 1900s button boom termed 'the Gold Rush of the Mississippi.” When Hugh and Ren discover that Hildy has been searching and searching for a family treasure that will secure the opening of the museum, the two become Fortune Hunters and the mystery begins!

'Finding Fortune” is subtitled, 'A mystery about treasures lost and found.” As a writer of award-winning middle grade novels, how do you go about finding a treasured story worth writing about? Do you feel that you seek them out or do they often find you?

A: It's a mixture of both. I'm often amazed by the coincidences and magical timing of encounters that lead me to a book idea. The seeds for 'Finding Fortune” were planted years ago when I was on vacation with my three daughters in Florida and we visited the Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum on Sanibel Island, where I happened to catch sight of a mussel shell in one of the display cases that was punched with holes and came from the Mississippi River near Muscatine. Until that moment, even though I had lived in Iowa for quite some time, I had never realized that buttons were once made from shells or that the former pearl-button capital of the world was less than an hour from my home in Iowa City. What if it hadn't rained that day of our vacation? I never would have ended up in that museum where the idea for 'Finding Fortune” got its start.

On the other hand, I think part of my job description as a fiction writer is to always be on the look-out for potential story ideas. The glove compartment of my car is filled with scraps of paper where I've scribbled notes about a fascinating piece I heard on the radio or some odd snippet of a conversation I overheard in the aisle of the grocery store.

Q: Ren's favorite book and a source of comfort is 'Little Women” and her favorite chapter relates to her own best daydream of her father returning home from Afghanistan, just as Marmee and the March girls have the best Christmas ever when their father returns home from the Civil War. What did literature mean to you when you were growing up? Were there favorite books that you read over and over like Ren?

A: 'Little Women” was definitely one of my childhood highlights, although I didn't read it over and over again like Ren. I tore through the 'Little House on the Prairie” books by Laura Ingalls Wilders and the Nancy Drew mysteries. I basically loved any book that featured brave and plucky girl characters setting off on adventures and using their wits to come out on top. My sister and cousin and I spent one whole summer reenacting our own version of Nancy Drew and fighting over who got to play Nancy and who would settle for playing the sidekicks, George and Bess.

Q: History bolsters as the living backbone of your novels. In 'Ghost Girl” (2003, Clarion, $17.99, ages 10 to 12), we travel back to the one-room schoolhouse in the Great Depression days that President Herbert Hoover and his wife built in the Blue Ridge Mountains to serve the unschooled population; In 'Singing Hands” (2006, Clarion, ages 10 to 12), although a personal family story, readers get a taste of late 1940s Birmingham, as well as an understanding of deaf culture; and, in 'Here Lies Linc” (2012, Yearling, $16.99, ages 8 to 12), your only novel set in contemporary times, it also celebrates and revolves around history with Iowa City's famed Black Angel statue at the Oakland Cemetery. In your Author's Note from 'Finding Fortune,” you say, 'I wrote this book in the hope that it will encourage curious readers to always be on the lookout for the ... Hildys of the world, who keep our fading history alive.” What about history inspires you so much as an adult, and did it also inspire you as a child?

A: I grew up in Tidewater Virginia - across the river from Yorktown, Jamestown and Colonial Williamsburg - in an old farmhouse that was built in 1830, so I feel as if history is in my bones. One of my most vivid memories from childhood goes back to the day I was building a fort in the woods near our farmhouse, rolled over a rotten log and found an antique key more than 6 inches long. My parents rented a metal detector and we spent the next few days unearthing all sorts of treasures including old coins, Colonial-era silverware and medicine bottles. I'll never forget the thrill of rubbing the dirt from those objects and trying to imagine all the stories behind them. I get the same thrill when I uncover a hidden story from the past today, and that's the spark of curiosity about history that I hope to pass onto young readers with my books.

Q: In learning and writing about the Muscatine button industry for 'Finding Fortune,” your research must've amassed countless details you fell in love with, but couldn't keep in the final book. With every historical novel you've written, does it get easier to sort out details and cut those that aren't needed, or is it just as difficult every time?

A: I still wrestle with those decisions. During my pearl-button research, I was fascinated to discover that in 1911, there were so many children under the age of 14 working in Muscatine's button factories, that they formed their own union. But that was a case when I had to remind myself of something my very first editor used to chant: 'Story is everything.” In other words, no matter how juicy a historical detail might be, if it doesn't help to move the plot forward, you need to cut it. So I reluctantly decided that the members of the Juvenile Shell-Carriers Union would need to wait for another book to make their appearance.

Q: I love the emotion you've beautifully captured in Ren's story as she cares so deeply about keeping her family intact. What do you think Ren learns by the end of the story that young readers can take away from 'Finding Fortune?”

A: Before the discs of shell were polished, drilled with holes and turned into buttons, they were known as 'blanks.” Throughout much of the novel, Ren carries an old button blank in her pocket as a lucky charm, desperately hoping that it will help change the fortunes of her broken family. But by the end of the story, Ren realizes that she is responsible for her own fortune - for adjusting to life's ups and downs and creating her own good luck by moving forward in a positive way.

To learn more about Delia, 'Finding Fortune,” and her books, visit deliaray.com.

' Wendy Henrichs is a children's author living in Iowa City.