I’m excited to welcome Cynthia Levinson back to Cynsations. Last month, I attended an Austin book talk with Cynthia and her husband and co-author Sandy Levinson discussing the new edition of their book, Fault Lines in the Constitution (Peachtree, 2025).
At most children’s literature events, there are at least some young readers in the audience, but in this instance the crowd consisted entirely of adults. It reminded me that “middle grade books” appeal to all ages, and to think beyond libraries and bookstores for speaking opportunities. Having a timely topic doesn’t hurt either, and that’s where we begin our conversation with Cynthia.
Your three most recent titles, Free To Learn: How Alfredo Lopez Fought for the Right to Go to School, illustrated by Mirelle Ortega (Atheneum, 2024), Who Owns The Moon, co-authored with Jennifer Swanson (Peachtree, 2025) and Fault Lines In The Constitution, all feel very timely at this moment. We’ve talked previously about why you wrote Fault Lines (see Cynthia’s 2017 Cynsations interview), could you share with us the inspiration behind the other two books?
Somehow, many of my books turn out to be relevant to the moment (and not just because, like my middle-grade about Hillary Rodham Clinton (Balzer + Bray, 2016), they’re about a presidential candidate!). I’d say that the reason is merely coincidence or serendipity. After all, as we all know, these books take years from idea to research to proposal and drafts to sale to editing to publication. How could anyone have crystal-ball insight so far in advance? I certainly do not.
The real reason, I think, is that there are issues that are universal and, therefore, always timely. They include the quest for justice, which I tend to write about through various lenses. In some cases, the lens is civil rights or immigration or the role of democracy. These are recurring topics in America. No matter when I think up or publish a book about them, they’ll be timely!
I started working on Free To Learn in 2018. (As I said, these things take time, especially for me. I’m a pokey writer and researcher.) But the idea nudged me even before I started writing for kids because I moved to Texas and started working in education in 1980 when Plyler v Doe was working its way through the courts.
Admittedly, when we look at the Moon, most of us don’t immediately think of social justice! But the issues raised in Who Owns The Moon? are very current.
Just think about the dominance of Starlink, Elon Musk’s satellite company, in space. Or recent news articles about the U.S. placing nuclear reactors on the Moon. Or the likelihood that astronauts from various countries could be facing each other on the lunar surface within the next decade, at most.
All of these issues raise, well, as the subtitle says, conundrums, and I wrote about all of them.
How did the topic occur to me? My husband, Sandy, and I had recently finished writing the second edition of Fault Lines In The Constitution, which was proposed to us by our editor, and I wondered whether there was such a thing as space law. Turns out there is—lots! And, again, at the request of our editor, we’ve just published the third edition of Fault Lines.
What guides your choices about which projects to pursue?
When I do school visits, kids often ask me how many books I’ve written. I say that I’ve written dozens of books. I’ve published nine or ten. If I had a more efficient way of choosing which projects to pursue, I might have a higher batting average.
On the other hand, I seem to be curious about a lot of topics, and curiosity that refuses to let go propels the projects I pursue.
When you begin working on a project at what point do you decide what age group and format you’ll focus on?
Sometimes an editor tells me what age to write for when they ask me to write a book. At other times, I experiment and write drafts for multiple age groups, even in different formats, such as straight text or narrative or graphic novel. Generally, I hear or find a voice and follow it.
Watch Cynthia’s book talk with the Texas State Library and Archives about Who Owns the Moon? below.
The third edition of Fault Lines includes two new chapters on impeachment and secession. With everything currently happening, how were you able to limit it to only two chapters?
Ha! That’s a great question. You’re right: we could have added so much more. Sandy seriously wished we could publish the book in a three-ring binder and send out updates.
As it is, we address twenty-one—count ’em, 21!—fault lines in the Constitution. They include the low-hanging fruit that everyone thinks of, like the Electoral College and gerrymandering, as well as more oblique ones, like the date of Inauguration Day.
Some of the topics almost everyone has been unaware of until recently, including federal control of Washington, DC and the president’s power to declare emergencies.
It baffles me how we managed to ignore impeachment in the first two editions; that chapter is long overdue. Sandy and I discussed secession a lot before I agreed that its not being in the Constitution is actually an oversight.
How would you describe your collaboration with your editor?
Kathy Landwehr at Peachtree is my most exacting editor, and I am truly grateful for her detailed edits and high standards for vocabulary, sentence structure, sense, and accuracy. Sadly, she is retiring after 35 years at the company. I will miss her.
How do you stay grounded in the value of this work during challenging times–politically, socially, economically?
Do I have to stay grounded?! I often feel like I’m flying off the handle, if not off the Earth.
I’m very grateful to be able to write the books I do and hope that publishers won’t retrench on buying them. They are my way of responding to these times.
Where are you finding hope–or strength–these days?
I find hope and strength in my readers, in young people, many of whom are politically engaged and socially active. Go, kids!
Cynsations Notes
Cynthia Levinson has written multiple non-fiction books focusing on social justice for young readers, including We’ve Got a Job: The 1963 Birmingham Children’s March; The Youngest Marcher: The Story of Audrey Faye Hendricks, a Young Civil Rights Activist; The People’s Painter: How Ben Shahn Fought for Justice with Art; and Who Owns the Moon? And Other Conundrums of Exploring and Using Space.
Awards for her books include the Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal, the Carter G. Woodson Book Award, the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award, and an NAACP Image Award finalist, among many others. She likes to travel, cook, and go to plays and museums. She tries to take a constitutional most days.
Gayleen Rabakukk holds an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts and is currently a student in the Library Science Master’s program at the University of North Texas. She also has an undergraduate degree in Journalism from the University of Central Oklahoma. She has published numerous newspaper and magazine articles, and two regional interest books for adults. She is represented by Terrie Wolf of AKA Literary Management.
She is a member of Lago Vista’s Friends of the Library and also leads a book club for young readers at the library. She teaches creative writing workshops and is a bookseller at Paper Bark Birch Books in Cedar Park, Texas. She loves inspiring curiosity in young readers through stories of hope and adventure. Follow her on Instagram and Bluesky.