Katherine Applegate: Hi, this is Katherine Applegate, and I'm the author of Home of the Brave.

I'm gonna tell you a little bit about how I came to write the book and then I'll read you an excerpt.

I had lived in Minneapolis for several years when I decided to write Home of the Brave. I love it there, by the way, it's an amazing, exciting, warm hearted city but they have got to do something about that whole winter thing. It can get very cold there. I'm talking, you know, 40 degrees below zero, not windchill kind of cold. And while I was there, there were a lot of refugees from Sudan and other countries relocating.

I have also tremendous admiration for immigrants and refugees for the bravery it takes to start your life from scratch in a completely unfamiliar place. And I kept asking myself, how hard must it be to move here to a place where, not only are the customs and the food and the culture all new, but even the weather is wildly different.

So that's how Kek, the main character in Home of the Brave, was born. I'm gonna read the first chapter of the book now, which is written in free verse. And I chose free verse because I wanted to convey, as best I could, how Kek was struggling with language, particularly with idioms and slang and all the complexities of English. Which actually, is a very difficult language to learn. And that's why I chose to write it in verse. So this first chapter is called "Snow." And it begins right as Kek is landing in Minneapolis on a plane.

When the flying boat returns to earth at last, I open my eyes and gaze out the round window. "What is all the white?" I whisper. "Where is all the world?"

The helping man greets me and there are many lines and questions and pieces of paper. At last I follow him outside. "We call that snow," he says. "Isn't it beautiful? Do you like the cold?" I want to say, "No, this cold is like claws on my skin." I look around me. Dead grass pokes through the unkind blanket of white. Everywhere the snow sparkles with light hard as high sun. I close my eyes. I try out my new English words, "How can you live in this place called America? It burns your eyes."

The man gives me a fat shirt and soft things like hands. "Coat," he says. "Gloves." He smiles. "You'll get used to it, Kek." I am a tall boy, like all my people. My arms stick out of the coat like lonely trees. My fingers cannot make the gloves work. I shake my head. I say, "This America is hard work." His laughter makes little clouds.