Learning Not to Drown â€� Reader Q&A

Questions About Learning Not to Drown

by Anna Shinoda (Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ Author)

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Answered Questions (1)

Hi! I'm currently reading the book, which is spectacular by the way, but I'm also having to write a book report on it. I was wondering if you could list at least 3 major lessons learned for the book? And maybe some details if its not to much to ask. It would help me tremendously, and I would greatly appreciate it.

Anna Shinoda I haven't been on Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ in a while! I am very active on Twitter - so in the future (if you use Twitter), let me know that you've posted a questionâ€¦m´Ç°ù±ðI haven't been on Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ in a while! I am very active on Twitter - so in the future (if you use Twitter), let me know that you've posted a question and I can jump on in to answer it.

Thanks for reading... I am glad you are enjoying it!

I am guessing we are past your book report time, but I will answer anyway.
I'm going to write my answers as what I learned while writing Learning Not to Drown.

1. Probably the biggest lesson I learned was to have patience. I started writing this book in 2003, and it wasn't published until 2014. In that time, I had some major life changes - I got married, had children, moved, and did a lot of travel. The publisher, Atheneum, had to push my release date back several times - sometimes because too much was going on in my life and I couldn't make a deadline, and sometimes because they needed more time. Each date change was really frustrating. But eventually the book came out, and I actually think that it was better because of the extra time. For example, when I had my children, I understood better why Clare's mother kept trying to keep Luke in the family, and revisions to my novel portrayed her differently. She was no longer as one sided as she once was. She had fears and a past and her own skeletons guiding her actions.

2. The prison system in the United States needs major reform. The US has the highest incarceration rates in the world. While violent offenders need to be incarcerated to keep people in our society safe, the prison system is failing the non-violent offenders, many of which are minorities. Incarceration has become a business - with some prisons being privately owned (the US Department of Justice is now phasing out privately owned federal prisons, but there are still privately owned state jails) . There are some great documentaries to check out: "This House I Live In" and most recently, "The 13th".

3. The families of those incarcerated are deeply, deeply affected and emotions often live in a grey area. I know this personally - my own brother is a violent criminal and most of his life has been spent in prison. But I also know from the research I did while writing the book. By reading online accounts in message boards or talking in person with people who have a loved one incarcerated, I heard over and over that love exists side by side with confusion, fear, disgust, betrayal, anger, and loss.

I wrote a little about my personal experience here, with lots of links to the information discussed above: (less)

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