Hey, it's Empire's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbong. You know, with all the books and movies and

documentaries made about World War II and its aftermath, you'd think that by now there'd be

nothing new to explore. And yet, I'd never heard of Mabel Grammar until I listened to today's

interview. She was a journalist who went to Germany after the war

and found all these mixed-raced-race children in orphanages, children who were not being adopted

because of their skin color. The author Siddiqua Johnson also had never heard of Mabel Grammar

until she went down a random Google rabbit hole and discovered the subject of her new novel.

It's called The Keeper of Lost Children, a fictional story based on grammar's life.

Here, Mabel is the basis for her character, Ethel Gathers.

This is Johnson's first historical fiction novel.

And she spoke to NPR's Emily Kwong about the responsibility she felt working in the genre.

When writer Sadiqua Johnson gets an idea for a story, the hairs stand on the back of her neck.

And that's exactly what happened when she learned about Germany's Mishlingskinder,

the thousands of biracial children with German mothers and black American GI fathers born

during and after World War II.

Many of these children were abandoned to orphanages until one woman decided to intervene and find

them homes. And that history inspired Sadiqa Johnson's new novel, The Keeper of Lost Children.

She joins me now. Welcome to All Things Considered.

Thank you, Emily. It's so great to be here.

What's striking about this novel is told from three vantage points by three characters.

Who are they? And what are they each struggling with? We have Ethel Gathers, who is inspired by the

real-life Maple Grammar, who is a journalist, who was a journalist, who went over to Germany, and she discovered these mixed-race orphans, a little known consequence of World War II in orphanages. And she decided that something needed to be done. And then we have Sophia, who is a young girl living on a farm.

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