New book aims to take tweens inside the ‘secret world’ of the Capitol

A new book geared toward middle schoolers is aiming to teach kids, teens and history lovers about the Capitol from the inside out.

Kate Andersen Brower, the author behind the best-selling book “The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House” — which focused on the real-life, behind-the-scenes staffers who make 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. tick — said she always had a sense of wonder about Capitol Hill. It’s why she penned “The Hill: Inside the Secret World of the U.S. Capitol” — no relation to this publication — which details both the history and inner workings of Congress’s home base. 

The book served as a chance to explore “the community on the Hill, and people who are really patriotic and stay there regardless of who’s the majority in Congress.”

“I’m hoping that kids, especially 11-,12-, 13-year-olds, will be drawn to the stories of the people who work there and how it’s becoming more diverse, not only in terms of representatives, but also when you just walk through Statuary Hall, you’re seeing a more representative example of the people who make this country great. It’s not just a bunch of old white men,” Andersen Brower said of “The Hill,” released Tuesday. 

She interviewed everyone from Senate subway car operators to cobblers who are “shining shoes for senators and members of Congress and VIPs who come to testify on the Hill, and just regular folks, too,” such as hair-cutting pros in the House and Senate barbershops. 

“I went in and talked to one of the barbers, and he said we try to make this like an oasis where you can have Mitch McConnell sitting next to whatever Democratic senator, and not have the feeling of the kind of deeply partisan atmosphere that’s now in Washington. There’s like a feeling of camaraderie there, which I thought was kind of sweet,” the author said. 

Andersen Brower acknowledged it’s a warts-and-all history, including telling the story of Jan. 6, 2021, when supporters of then-President Trump breached the Capitol in an attempt to stop Congress’s certification of the 2020 Electoral College results.

“It’s important that people remember the impact it had, not only on public facing people like Nancy Pelosi and Mike Pence,” but also on others, Andersen Brower said.

“I went down to the finishing shop in the basement of the Capitol, and I just randomly started talking to one of the workers there. He was working on a desk that was going to be used to upgrade a desk in someone’s office because there was going to be a changing of the guard,” she recalled.

“He said that on Jan. 6, they didn’t even have TVs in their shop, which is this big, cavernous kind of workshop in the basement of the Capitol. So they had no idea what was going on,” the former Bloomberg News White House correspondent said.

“He described kind of the chaos of that day. Family members were calling him and asking him if he was OK, and he had no idea what they were talking about.”

It was, she said, the “idea that these people who have nothing to do with politics or whoever is in the White House, are experiencing this event and feeling really scared for their lives.” After the riot, Andersen Brower said the workers successfully lobbied the Architect of the Capitol to install televisions in the space. 

Andersen Brower, whose 2015 book on the White House inspired a forthcoming Shonda Rhimes-produced Netflix series, said she hopes readers will come to learn from “The Hill” that “there’s so much more that we have in common than what divides us.”

“The Capitol was built in large part by enslaved people” and has “always been a place of immigrants,” she said, adding that strides have been made “to make it a more inclusive experience for people who are going to visit.”

“People get goosebumps when you see the Rotunda. I know I do. And I think that it stands for so much more than what we saw on Jan. 6, or the kind of anger that has come to define this election,” she said. 

“So I think that I would just like people to walk away feeling inspired by the journey of this country.”