Thoughts on a Conversation

My friend and colleague, Dr. Simmons, and I stood on by the balcony on a packed second floor of our local Barnes and Noble waiting for the event to start. The crowd was humming-- moms rushing children through to see if they could get a better view, the lucky people who came early in seats sitting up tall hoping to see if they can maybe catch a glimpse early, wristbands indicating who was here to get their book signed, teens talking about extra credit they are getting by attendance and clearly more than a few teachers, librarians, and even authors themselves waiting for them to show. It isn't often that there is an opportunity to see two hugely popular young adult authors in one settting. It certainly isn't often that I find that I am able to be at the event myself. I was excited. After waiting a bit, we caught a few glimpses of Jason Reynolds through the stacks-- it was about to start.

Reynolds is here to promote his newest book, Look Both Ways: a Tale Told in Ten Blocks, which was released the day before and is a finalist for the National Book Award in Young People's Literature. Published by Atheneum, Look Both Ways is marketed for ages 10-14; however, as Laurie Halse Anderson points out, it is a book for everyone-- for adults, for curriculum, for readers. I came home from this talk and immediately ordered it on Amazon and am excited to read it myself and then include it in our high school library.

This is not Reynolds's first mark in the world of YA. His books Long Way Down, The Boy in the Black Suit, and All American Boys are all breathtaking examinations of youth and society in this time where the conversations he is having with his readership are just. so. important. These conversations surround our biases, what it means to be human and a part of this human family, race, and how we treat our children. That is all from my perspective, though, an educator and a mother who cares deeply about our youth and the experiences and relationships that shape them as they grow. Jason Reynolds is one of the many YA authors who have taken on that task to provide what we as librarians like to call windows and mirrors-- books and characters that allow us to see and reflect upon ourselves but also allow us to grow in empathy and understanding with those who experience life differently than the way we do ourselves.

When asked by Anderson what he hopes young readers might take from Look Both Ways, he responds that he hopes readers will "Read slowly, think critically, talk about what it really means.. not just what you are taught it means. And then read it one more time." This book is in 10 vignettes-- separate but connected stories about the way home from school. Isn't that truly a model of how we want our students, our youth to approach life? To read it slowly, to think about it, to talk about it, and then approach it again?

Reynolds has a lot to say about education, and about his own education. When asked what kind of reader, or student he was, he replies that he was disengaged. The immediate sink happened in my soul. Oh no, I thought. I have heard this story before. But what he said next was so arresting to me that it rang in my educator, mom, person brain for the rest of the night: "I wasn't pushing back as much as I was begging for something else. I wasn't reluctant, I was starving. I was being fed something I didn't have the tastebuds for... my mouth just didn't work like that." Starving. Being fed something he didn't have "the tastebuds" for. How many times have I seen that story sitting in my classroom? In my library? In my home? This, too, is a conversation we need to continue, or start. I don't have the answers, but am so thankful to be in a community of writers and readers, students and educators, friends and neighbors that want to have this conversation too. How can we do better for the students who feel this way?

There are so many components to the problem--but one of the solutions is being offered by authors like Laurie Halse Anderson in her follow-up memoir to Speak, Shout, and Jason Reynolds in books like Long Way Down. When asked by an audience member about what he thinks happens at the end of Long Way Down, he replied that he will never speak about the ending of that book-- for young people, Reynolds says, it would be "disrespectful of me to give you the answer. You can make that choice. I need you to tap into the critical thinking and imaginative part of who you are. Life is going to work very hard to take your imagination. We desperately need you to hold on to that to make the world better." He notes that these books and conversations make us uncomfortable, and they do. They should. Reynolds tells the rapt audience in the upper floor of a Barnes and Noble on a Wednesday night that this discomfort and these conversations are "necessary for us to make a safer world."

And that's what we all want, right? A safer world for growth to happen, for conversations and connections to be had and made, and for our youth to explore and grow into themselves. A woman with a young, African-American boy by her side asked Mr. Reynolds as the night came to a close how he would advise the youth, specifically black youth growing in today's world and he replied with two pieces of advice: First, "the greatest gift you can give yourself is yourself." And second, "Everything that makes you mad are the things that make you magic... learn who you are and then grab a hold of that."

This, in part, is why we read and why we hand books like the ones written by Anderson and Reynolds to our youth. Let them have the time and opportunities to read slowly. Give them the space to think critically. Be open to have the conversations about what it all really means, not just what we want them to see, and then encourage them to read it all one more time.

Librarian

Dowingtown West High School

Email: mnass@dasd.org
Website: http://adventuresinlibrary.blogspot.com/
Phone: 1111111111
Twitter: @dwestlibrary