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Now children's biographer Kathleen Krull and Caldecott Medal-winner David Diaz have teamed up to tell her incredible story in Wilma Unlimited: How Wilma Rudolph Became the World's Fastest Woman . I talked with both Krull and Diaz about their own heroic efforts to bring this book into being in time for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta.
AC: I understand that this book was produced at breakneck speed--at a pace befitting Wilma Rudolph herself.
KK: Harcourt was excited about publishing it in time for the Olympics. The idea hadn't occurred to me. The joke is that the subtitle is "How Wilma Unlimited Became Harcourt's Fastest Book." But everyone did an amazing job.
AC: How did you get your idea?
KK: From Wilma Rudolph's obituary. She died in 1994 of a brain tumor. She was 54. I read a number of articles about her at that time. She sounded like such an amazing person. I hadn't really known about her before thatÑI'm not a big sports person.
AC: Do you wish you'd had a chance to interview her?
KK: I would have loved to. She wrote an autobiography, but it's somewhat superficial. I would like to know more in-depth things, more about how she survived all she did. And I would like to know what she would say to girls today, what advice she might have.
AC: The fact that she had polio was of special interest to you.
KK: Yes. I lived through the same epidemic, and I have a fairly severe case of scoliosis. One theory is that it resulted from an undiagnosed case of polio.
AC: Did you have any contact with David Diaz?
KK: Needless to say, I was thrilled when I heard he would be illustrating the book. He's brilliant. I've been an admirer of his work for a long time. We met for lunch before he started the project. It's pretty unusual for an author and illustrator to get together that early in the process. We talked about how to make the most of her life, how to maximize the drama.
AC: How did you and illustrator Kathryn Hewitt decide to write your Lives of the Artists/Writers/Musicians series?
KK: The art came before the text, which almost never happens. I was Kathryn Hewitt's first editor. When she showed me her work, she submitted some caricatures of people she admired: scientists, philosophers, musicians. They knocked me out. I wanted to think of a way to use them in a project for kids. Music has always been a big interest of mine-I minored in it in college-so we started with the Lives of the Musicians book.
AC: How do you decide what details to include in these profiles?
KK: I keep my eye out for the most colorful, concrete things. The books really clicked for me when we were researching Beethoven. I was sifting through tons of material about him-everybody who ever met him wrote something. In a couple of books I read that his favorite food was macaroni and cheese. As soon as I read that, I had a real focus on what kinds of things I wanted to look for. I knew that would make Beethoven real to kids. So I look for things about their clothes, their underwear, their boyfriends and girlfriends. Gossipy tidbits.
AC: Will you watch the Olympics differently this year after writing the Rudolph book?
KK: Oh yes, I'm going to watch all the track and field events. I tend to get real weepy.
AC: You'll of course be thinking of Wilma.
KK: It's such a thrill to be able to publicize her life. So many people these days try to blame their circumstances for their actions. Here was a person who had everything against her, and somehow she surmounted it all.
©1996, ProMotion, inc.