Try making the Potato Dumplings using the recipe at the back of A Coal Miner's Bride. Design a Venn diagram comparing Private Leon Nasevich to Stanley. Many of us have never seen a coal mine, nor do we know what the mines were like. Here are some websites that may help you discover more about mining in the United States. For instance, although many books tell what it was like to be a wealthy and powerful coal operator or the coal miner, few books tell what it was like to be a child who worked in the mines.
Fewer books tell what it was like to be a girl.
Anetka's story came from the gaps. The research process is also similar. For both fiction and nonfiction, my work begins with secondary sources. The secondary sources give me a good overview or background of the historical time period. They also point me to good primary sources, such as contemporary newspapers, letters, diaries, and memoirs.