Deborah Wiles Remembers ‘Bobby’

Children’s book author, Deborah Wiles, chats with us about her biography picture book, Bobby: A Story of Robert F. Kennedy. Beautifully illustrated by Tatyana Fazlalizadeh, Bobby tells the life story of President John F. Kennedy’s younger brother and covers the assassinations of JFK, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy himself. “Bobby is really a picture book for all ages. I really, truly believe that picture books can be, and should be, for all ages because you’ve got the younger readers, but then you’ve got, there are adults who are reading to them and this book definitely is a 48-page picture book, so it’s longer than most picture books, but we’re covering Robert Kennedy’s life…”

Wiles explains that a pivotal moment in Kennedy’s life happened when his brother ran for president and he helped by managing his 1959 campaign. After his brother was elected, he was appointed Attorney General and became one of his closest advisors, but things all changed when JFK was assassinated in 1963. “His grief was so deep. He left the Johnson administration. He’d stayed for some months, transitioned, and then left. We didn’t hear from him for months. Eventually, as we talk about it in the book, he comes out of that place of mourning and decides that the voices of the American people growing louder and louder asking for civil rights, marching themselves and trying to change the world, he might have a job to do here, marching against the war in Vietnam. There were things that were happening in the country that he could see he might be able to be useful and help. So he ran for senator from New York, and his life began again.”

For Wiles, her hope is that this book will be read not only for enjoyment, but also be used in other ways as well. Most importantly, she wants Kennedy to be remembered, especially with the younger generation. “I was really surprised that over the 15-year period between hearing about this, or thinking about this story and deciding to write it in its publication, no one has written about Bobby Kennedy to young people, and I just thought it was just so important. I thought this is a story of change and revolution within your own self and then how you’re going to make it come alive in the world is an important story for us to leave young people with.”