high

I was too high to write last night so I didn’t blog, but this morning I’m worried I won’t remember every detail of  yesterday’s amazing school visit. In case you don’t know, I don’t drink or smoke; I was high as a kite yesterday because I absorbed the energy (love) of the kids and teachers I met at PS 282, and then I came home and participated in a Twitter chat about self-publishing in the evening. The night before I spent hours developing a new Powerpoint presentation for my audience of 200 3rd and 4th graders. I met those same kids the month before at their school’s readathon, and so I needed a new presentation on the books they haven’t yet read. Last time they were holding copies of The Boy in the Bubble and The Magic Mirror, so this time around I talked about the importance of “mirror books” and my motivation for writing books that center kids of color. I shared a few illustrations from my very first picture book, which I made for a creative writing class during my senior year of high school (1990). I ultimately dropped that class (I was failing!) but I kept the little book and when I asked the kids what they noticed about my pictures, a Black boy in the front row said, “That book isn’t a mirror for you.” Exactly. But this is what happens when, as a child of color, you consume nothing but books about white children. Every year I meet Black children who show me books they’ve made with blond-haired, blue-eyed families…it’s heartbreaking, but preventable (see Mia Birdsong’s rules for buying her daughter books). The students at this school are overwhelmingly Black and Latino, and their teachers are committed to 1) developing a love of reading in the kids, 2) developing book-buying habits by taking annual trips to the local Barnes & Noble, and 3) providing students with “mirror books” that counter the daily erasure kids of color face in this society. One boy came up to me and tugged at my arm saying, “Remember me? Remember me? I was in the 3rd grade presentation last time.” I did remember him; he’s in the 5th grade but for whatever reason had been removed from his class during my last visit. He wanted me to know how much he loved reading Ship of Souls, and how he kept his face in the book and wouldn’t put it down—even when a friend invited him to go out. Another girl stood up during my presentation and said she and her friends had worked out some theories about D’s missing father. I had a vague idea about D’s father but told the kids I was pretty sure I’d have to write a fourth book in order to explain everything. “What is D’s special skill?” I asked them. “He’s good at math!” “Right. So if he inherited that from his father, what job do you think his dad might have?” “A mathematician!” And then one girl cried out, “A spy!” “Ah, that’s it!” I told her. And so now the fourth book is set: D’s parents were both spies but his mother left the CIA when she got pregnant. D’s father couldn’t—or wouldn’t—extricate himself from that shadowy life, so his mother made his dad promise to leave them alone. Kids don’t know just how much it helps me to talk about my story ideas with them; it makes a difference when you look into the faces of your readers and see how invested they are in the characters, how eager they are for the story to continue. Later, after lunch, I was heading back to the auditorium when a boy stopped me and asked about the titles of my “freaks & geeks” books. “Well, Book #3 is called The Return, and I haven’t come up with a title for Book #4. Do you have any ideas?” We agreed it should have something to do with math or spies. “What about The Code?” I asked him and he broke into the widest grin. “That’s it–that’s what you should call your book!” The kids had made art for me and they wrote down some really fantastic questions. One girl asked me if I had a particular interest in African American history since I included it in Ship of Souls and The Magic Mirror. Another girl asked whether I felt parts of Ship of Souls were appropriate for kids, which let me talk about how I changed the ending at a friend’s urging and how I felt urban kids were mature enough to handle topics that might worry some adults. Ms. Fraser, my fabulous host, admitted that she had the same concern when she first read the novel, but then shared it with her 5th graders and they LOVED it. And I love teachers who take their cues from the kids! My morning presentation focused on Bird and Ship of Souls, but the afternoon presentation introduced the 3rd and 4th graders to my Rosetta Press titles. I gave a version of this talk out in Berkeley last spring, but then left my flash drive at the school and couldn’t find a back-up copy of the slideshow. I remembered some of the narrative, though, and I think it went over just as well at PS 282. I’d tell the kids just enough of the story to get them hooked before asking, “How do you think the story will end?” Instead of taking their answers, I shrugged and told them they’d have to read the book and find out. The groans! The delicious agony! I need to make sure there are copies of all my Rosetta Press books in their new library. After that presentation two girls came up and asked if they could get a hug. Not an autograph or a free book, but a hug. Which is why I started yesterday evening’s Twitter chat like this: