[ Music ] ^M00:00:12 >> In memory of Dick Robinson, and sponsored by the Institute of Museum and Library Services. ^M00:00:19 ^M00:00:29 [ Music ] ^M00:00:39 >> Derrick Barnes: Hello, my name is Derrick Barnes. I am the author of Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut, the King of Kindergarten, and Superworm, and I Am Every Good Thing. I hale from Kansas City, Missouri, but currently I live in Charlotte, North Carolina, with my amazing, beautiful wife, Dr. Tinker Barnes, and our four sons, the mighty, mighty, mighty, mighty Barnes brothers, Ezra, who is a sophomore at North Carolina A & T, Solomon, 16-year-old Silas, who is 14, who is the cover boy for Crown. And our youngest son, who is about to be 10 tomorrow, June 13th, Nnamdi. And we are working on a few new books. A lot of graphic novels, picture books, middle-grade novels, and hopefully you guys will love those as well. I fell in love with reading early on. When I was--I started reading when I was like 4 years old. But I didn't start writing and really getting into reading until I was in the fifth grade. I fell in love with hip-hop music, which is essentially the poetry of our era, in the late 70s, early 80s, I really love artists like Run DMC, L.L. Cool J. You guys may not know these artists, so ask your parents. Public Enemy. Big Daddy Kane. And my teacher at the time, her name was Mrs. Shelby. And Mrs. Shelby recognized that I had a love affair with hip hop music and the lyricism of those artists at the time, and how well they crafted words. And so she introduced me to the artists from a period in American creative history called the Harlem Renaissance. And this was a group of black artists who were painters and writers and poets, and one artist in particular was from my home state of Missouri. And his name was Langston Hughes. And she gave me this book right here, The Best of Simple, by Langston Hughes. And Langston Hughes is my favorite writer of all time. From Langston Hughes, from these stories, which were essentially about a man named Jesse B. Simple, who lived in Harlem, and he loved the blues, and he loved jazz, and he just had a hard time, just making money and just getting along, but somehow, some way, Jesse B. Simple made it. And through this book, and through Langston Hughes, I learned a lot about character development. I learned a lot about dialogue between characters, and he has been the most influential writer, I would say, in my entire career. I still find new works from Langston Hughes that I haven't read before. And I'm just so proud that he is from my home state, and I always think about making him proud, every time I sit down to write something. So thank you, Langston Hughes, for being my literary hero. I really try to be as authentic and as genuine as I possibly can. I am a black man from Kansas City, Missouri. My family comes from Clarksdale, Mississippi, in the deep south, and Mississippi has a rich history in civil rights, and my family is, you know, deeply entrenched in that entire movement. So being the father of four black boys in this country, I think I owe it to them, and every little boy that looks like them, to tell their story. I think a lot of times in pop culture, we're talking about films, television shows, they have a tendency to show African American boys through one lens--either they're a great athlete, you know, they love basketball; or they love hip hop music, or sometimes they connect black boys with violence. And having four sons, who have four totally different personalities, again, I feel like I owe it to them to tell their stories and to present them in a broad spectrum, like, we are all not the same. And we all have different likes, dislikes, goals, interests, fears, and I want to present black boys, black and brown boys, in a most authentic, real way that we possibly can. Because quite frankly, everybody is not blessed enough to have a black or brown boy in their immediate environment, and some kids don't have a chance to go to school with black boys, they don't live in neighborhoods, where black boys live next door to them. So some people may have pre-conceived or negative ideas, things called stereotypes, where you kind of assign these ideas about people that may or may not be true, but most of the time they are not true, because we are all individuals. That's one of the reasons why I wrote I Am Every Good Thing. This is actually the son of the illustrator of the book, the magnificent Gordon C. James. His son's name is Gabriel. And I wrote this book because I saw a clothing ad in 2018 where this huge clothing company had the image of an African American boy, wearing a gray hoodie, that said "the coolest monkey in the jungle." Now, I've never--I've been a father for over 20 years, I've never referred to my black sons as a monkey, whether he be cool or not. And so I felt obligated to write a poem that listed all of the positive good things that we all think about, no matter what race you are. And I wanted the world to know that we care about our sons as much as anybody else cares about their sons, no matter what race or what country they come from. No matter where black boys come from. We care about them, love them, have huge dreams for their lives. And so I just though about every positive thing that I could think of, like waking up on a Saturday morning during the summer, going swimming. The center of the cinnamon roll, you know, when you unravel everything, and that middle of that cinnamon roll has all that gooey goodness in it, you know? Just every good thing that came to my mind. I thought about my sons, and I thought about all of the black boys that I write these books for. And the poem was maybe about three or four pages? And it became the text for I Am Every Good Thing. I have multiple processes when it comes to drafting the ideas to come up with new books. It depends on the age group that I'm writing for. So I write picture books, I write chapter books. I write middle grade novels. Graphic novels. And they all take a different process. So, for example, in picture books, again I'm the author of The King of Kindergarten, and I wanted to write a book where I centered this little boy and his family kind of nurtured him, and prepared him to go to school for the first time, which is a very universal experience for all of us, you know, whether we are children or parents. So I kind of laid out the perfect day, you know, for him, like what it would be like to meet his new classmates, what it would be like to meet his teacher, what kind of fun things they would do in the classroom. And I wanted the book to be positive. All of the kindergarten books that I read before, the kids were always nervous, which is a very normal thing for us to go into new environments, especially starting school for the first time, to be nervous. But I wanted this boy to be full of confidence. And you can see his big, beautiful smile. He has his crown cocked to the side, and has one of my favorite rappers of all time, the Notorious B.I.G., one of his favorite--most famous pictures is him wearing a crown that is cocked to the side, so I wanted to make sure that I gave that picture to the other illustrator, Vanessa Brown, who I loved to death--she's an amazing illustrator. Shout out to Vanessa. So I wanted to make sure this book was full of confidence, so that you guys who are going to read this book felt good about going into school, you know, for the first time and making new friends. And so next year, we're coming out with the queen of Kindergarten, obviously, because every time I did school visits, I would have mothers come up to me and say "what about our girls?" So this is for you. The Queen of Kindergarten. Now, I think The Queen of Kindergarten, and you guys don't get mad at me, I think the Queen of Kindergarten is going to be better. The thing I did different with The Queen of Kindergarten is, in this book, I wrote it in third person. That means that I told the story not from the little boy's point of view, but from an outside person's point of view. So it could be somebody observing him. It could be his teacher. It could be his parents. But it's not the main character, which is the boy on the cover. ^M00:10:23 In The Queen of Kindergarten, I wrote that book in first person. That means I wrote it from the little girl's point of view. Her name is M.J. Mallone. She is going to be the queen of kindergarten. And that book is similar. But she is going to school for the first time, just like this character here, but the story is going to be told from her own voice, and what it feels like to be in a new classroom, and her mother gives her a tiara. The same tiara that she wore on her first day of kindergarten, and she gives her a whole list of things that queens do in order to present themselves as being regal. So, you know, for example, she tells her that every room that queens enter, they shine a light on the entire room, which means they enter the room with a lot of positive energy. Queens are very helpful. Queens are very kind. So M.J. Mallone, the main character of The Queen of Kindergarten, goes throughout her whole first day of kindergarten, trying to do these very queenly things. So I hope you guys love the book. It comes out in March 2022. So yeah, that's my entire process. And one of the most important things I do, no matter what age group I write for, is character development, which means I think about the main character, what they look like, what their favorite songs are, their favorite colors, what kind of detail, the people that are in their family. It's like creating a whole new human being. And that is the most important part of telling any story, if you want to keep the attention of any reader. When you guys read books, you want to not only read about interesting characters, but sometimes you want to learn about a character that may be similar, you know, to you, and may have similar interests. And so character development is probably the most important aspect of being a children's book author. The first bit of writing that I did, I was 10 years old. At that time, I was just writing hip hop lyrics, because my best friend at the time in the fifth grade, his name was T.J. Hill, we would go at recess and battle against other kids, in the fifth grade. He would provide the beat, he was beat box, and I would rap. And sometimes we would switch off. But that was the only writing that I was doing at the time. I think I was pretty good until I learned about Langston Hughes and Cal T. Cullen, and Robert Frost, and all these famous poets. And one day, my fifth grade teacher had an assignment for us to write our first short stories. I had never written a short story before in my life. And so I wrote a short story about these dogs traveling across the country, looking for this magic bone. I had just watched 101 Dalmatians, and Lady and the Tramp, these Disney movies. So I wrote this story, and I thought it was very exciting, and of course I shared it with T.J., because that was my rhyme partner. I gave it to him, and he looked over it, and he was like, man, this is horrible! This is the worst thing I ever read before! He thought it was so bad. Really hurt my feelings. But I was a really shy kid, until that day, you know, I felt very strong about, you know, my abilities. I didn't know it at the time, but I discovered a strength that I had, which was telling stories. I was--I had a pretty strong grasp of the English language. I had a pretty decent vocabulary, which helped me to create these stories, and I was able to stand up in front of my classroom, little shy Derrick Barnes, got up in front of my fifth grade class, and I read my story, and they loved it. They thought the funny parts were hilarious. They thought the action parts were very exciting, and T.J. apologized to me, and we continued to go on recess, and just really whoop up on people lyrically, you know? And I started writing every single day from that point on. I was 10. I'll be 46 this year, so I've been writing for over 30 years. And the most exciting part about being a writer is that you can create a whole new world, you know, seeing real-life issues, real-life problems that affect all of us, but inside the world, in the mind of a writer, you can create solutions to those problems. And I enjoy that, because I know that I will create a book that maybe you will get your hands on, and it will spark an idea in your head, and you may come up with a real-life solution that may be very helpful for everyone. So we can use our creativity and our imagination to really affect change, really affect positive change on the world. And that's what I try to do every single time I sit down to write. Advice I would give to aspiring writers, no matter what age you are, but especially young aspiring writers, is to read every single thing that you get your hands on. Every genre of writing. Read chapter books, read poetry. Read a lot of non-fiction, because you're going to need that information. Read middle-grade novels, if you are on that reading level. But what you're trying to do as a potential writer is to develop your own voice. That means that you are creating a style that is unique to you and to only you. So when people pick up your books, or people pick up your poems or your short stories, even if there is no name attached to it, when they read your work, they'll be able to recognize it by the type of writing style, you know, the way the characters are created, and the way they interact with each other. We are constantly trying to work on our craft, our own voice, our own writing style. And the best way to do that is to read the works of others. And to figure out the things that you like, and the things that you don't like, the things that are exciting to you, the things that are boring, and you just kind of take pieces of every single thing that you write, and you like, put it in a pot, stir it up, and you make it your own. So you have your own voice. And I just can't express enough how important it is to read every single day. Thirty minutes to an hour, every day, find a quiet place in your home. You can go out in the backyard. You can go out on the porch. But get lost inside of your favorite book. It doesn't matter what it is. You can read graphic novels. You can read comic books. You can read novels. You can read non-fiction books. I love to read biographies about famous people. It's important to me to learn to figure out the steps that other people have taken in order to become great, because I try to be great. And I hope that you're trying to be great too, at whatever you do. Most importantly, we are all working toward trying to be great people, and to treat other people with kindness, and with love, and you can do that with your creativity. I know there is a lot of creative and talented people here doing this, and you may be the next great children's book author. Who knows. But it starts with opening up those books every single day. I want to thank everybody for sitting with me, and sitting in my office, this is suite 116, this is where I work on and type all of my books. I want to thank the National Book Festival for having me, and hopefully we will be in person next year. Thank you all very much. Peace, and blessings you all. ^M00:18:29 [ Music ]