STEPSISTER PRESS: “Making Way: Sailing Into The Revolutionary Storm” by Dick Farkas with drawings by M.A. Papanek-Miller and designed by Jessica Larva
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Written by Dick Farkas with drawings by M.A. Papanek-Miller and designed by Jessica Larva, Making Way: Sailing Into The Revolutionary Storm is an adventure story that takes place on the waterways of colonial America, on a schooner (sailing ship) named Commerce. The story embraces a group of unlikely teenagers who find each other, an experienced sailor and a dog who collectively embark on a life changing journey during the political upheaval that surrounded the start of a new country. The teens face uncertainty living in a society not yet crystallized and not yet framed by a clear value system, which creates questions and presents dilemmas as their lives unfold. The main characters are challenged to reflect on and measure their own simple logic and their moral instinct against the mores and discrimination of the society around them. With every chapter, the drawings are in conversation with the written story, and they provide a visual context for the revolutionary era time period. The story, drawings, and book design evolved as a creative collaborative project which gave rise to this book as an object to hold, read, see, and experience.
“Young adults today face challenges unimagined just a generation or two ago,” says Farkas. “The characters in Making Way: Sailing Into The Revolutionary Storm were also confronted by choices never anticipated in their world. In both, the pace of change is accelerating. Readers are coaxed to offer choices to their peers and begin to focus on the consequences.”
“As the last title in development by outgoing StepSister Press founder Annie Heckman, I was honored to have the opportunity to shepherd this title to fruition,” says StepSister Press / Bridge Books Publisher Michael Workman. “Our publication of Making Way: Sailing Into The Revolutionary Storm also marks the launch of our focus line of new Young Adult titles.
“I couldn’t think of a better way to launch our Young Adult line than with this moving story of Alan, Na, Nev, Chris, Rose and Bud’s teenage adventures on the waterways of colonial America. This story of struggle and survival, charged with the first encounters of a new world depicted in such classic young adult titles as Chandler Warner’s Boxcar Kids, while also recalling the moral development that takes place in Huck Finn’s travels on the waterways of the Mississippi.
“Brought to life by M.A. Papanek’s exquisitely wrought drawings throughout the book, and cohesively drawn together in an attractive book design by Jessica Larva, we expect Making Way: Sailing Into The Revolutionary Storm to transfix and thrill our target 12-18 age group, and Young Adult readers in general, for years to come.”
