>> Joe Davich: Hello.
I'm Joe Davich,
executive director of the
Georgia Center for the Book,
an affiliate of the National
Center for the Book
in the Library of Congress.
There are affiliate
centers for the book
in every state and
many US territories.
We all help carry out
the mission of
the National Center
for the Book,
which is to promote books,
reading,
libraries and
literacy nationwide.
We also promote our
state's literary heritage
by focusing on books
and authors
with a connection to
our states and territories.
Every year, as part
of our participation
in the Library of Congress
National Book Festival,
each affiliate chooses books
with a local connection
to be part of the
roadmap to reading.
These great reads
from great places
are a collection of books
for adult and young readers
selected by affiliate
centers for the book
to celebrate our literary
landscape and heritage.
Books may be written
by authors from the state,
take place in
the state, or celebrate
the state's culture and history.
You can learn more
about this program
and the other centers
for the book at read.gov.
Today, we are speaking
with great read authors
from Region two East,
which includes states
and territories from
the Allegheny Plateau
and the Misty Blue
Ridge Mountains
to the Azure blue waters
of the Caribbean Sea.
Our speakers were invited
by affiliate centers
for the book from Florida,
Georgia, Maryland,
North Carolina, Puerto Rico,
South Carolina, Virginia,
the U.S. Virgin Islands,
West Virginia
and the District of Columbia.
It is my great pleasure
to introduce the authors
participating in our
discussion today.
>> R. Eric Thomas:
So "Kings of B'more"
is a platonic rom com,
I like to describe it.
It's about two best friends
who are facing
their last day together before
one of them moves away.
And I'm trying to reckon with
this idea of separation
and their changing lives
as any, you know,
16-year-olds are experiencing
and trying to figure out
whether their friendship
can withstand
the distance and
the separation.
It is a contemporary
gloss on the 80s movie
"Ferris Bueller's Day Off."
They go on a Ferris Bueller
style day of adventure,
and it focuses on two
black queer teenagers
in contemporary Baltimore.
And it is it --
I see it as a romp,
but I also see it as a
reflection of a Baltimore
that I know and I don't
usually get to see in books.
Baltimore that is full of
art and full of life
and full of vibrancy and
has a lot of opportunity
for two black teens, two
queer teens, which is something
that I think if you look
at the pop culture
about Baltimore,
you don't see a lot.
But as somebody who is from
Baltimore, I know to be true.
>> Shay Youngblood: "Mama's
Home" is a children's book
inspired by my
own growing up.
I was raised by eight
plus mothers.
My birth mother died
when I was young
and I was raised by great
grandmothers, great aunts,
some grandfathers in there,
but was a community baby.
And so "Mama's Home"
is about this little girl
whose mother has to
go away for work.
And every day of the week,
Monday through Saturday,
she goes to the home of a
different big mama.
And each time she goes
to visit with the big mama,
all of them have, of course,
different points of view
and show her different
kinds of things,
feed her different foods.
But she wants to be a
different thing, a different --
she wants to be a pilot when
she was with one big mama.
She wants to be a singer when
she's with another big mama.
And at the end of the week,
her birth mother comes home,
they have a big feast
and she gets to sleep
in her own little bed in
her own little house.
And it was very much like
my own growing up,
having different homes
that I was welcomed into
and had all these
different perspectives
on what I could be and where
I could go into the world.
>> Zach Weinersmith:
My book is an adaptation
of Beowulf for Children.
That's how I usually pitch it.
It's 600 lines of
unrhymed verse epic.
And my daughter liked it.
My daughter is
very distractible person.
She's very smart, but she
doesn't usually listen to me
or and she doesn't
usually listen to me.
And I had a lot of
trouble getting her
to talk to me in the car
because when you're a parent,
you imagine your kids will
talk to you and they don't.
And I used to take her on a
drive to school every morning
where she also wouldn't
pay attention to me.
And one time as a kind
of joke, I started telling her
a sort of version of
Beowulf minus all the, like,
horrible violence and killing
and eating people and stuff.
And she was just super engaged.
And the really weird part is
so I kept telling her this story
day after day because
she just kept asking more.
I actually had to pull
my old copy
of Seamus Heaney's Beowulf
just to remember what happened,
and she kept asking for more.
And the really weird part is
I started working in elements
of the old English style of
verse meaning, you know,
allusions and
alliteration in the lines
and a certain
sort of high tone.
And she just got more into it
and she just kept
asking for more.
And there were like scenes
I didn't understand
until I had to explain
them to her.
And so this story kind of
got away from me
and I started what I would
do is I would rush home
and just write down
anything that kind of
came out nice verbally
when I was telling it to her.
And over time it grew into
an actual story that was,
I thought, completely
unpublishable and then,
you know, for a second
took a risk on us,
I think, and hopefully
they feel it worked out.
But, you know, fundamentally,
it was just for my daughter.
I thought there weren't
many people like her.
But it turns out there
are at least a few.
>> Dinah Johnson: My book,
"Indigo Dreaming",
is really special to me.
It was inspired years
and years ago
when a delegation from
the South Carolina
and Georgia Sea Islands
visited Sierra Leone
and the president
of Sierra Leone brought
a delegation to
the South Carolina
and Georgia Sea islands.
So the culture there,
the Gullah Geechee culture,
has been traced back
to West Africa.
So that's really important.
I want young readers
to understand
the relationship between
Africa and the Americas,
and many children do
not understand that.
And I was really thrilled
that Ana Acuna agreed
to be the illustrator
because she's from Brazil,
which is such an important
place in the African diaspora
everywhere in the world
where there are
people of African descent.
So it's a very special book
and it went through
lots of iterations and finally
found the right editor,
Luana Horry,
who had the vision
to help me make it into
what it should be.
So I hope it's just
a beautiful book
that reminds us
that we are part of
a family that lives
all around the globe.
>> R. Eric Thomas: I think
that a lot of times
we believe that the
world that we are
being shown through
media or the world
that is available and
a lot of the books
that we maybe grew
up with is the only world
that's out there and
in that world maybe
is not a world that we
totally feel like we exist in.
And that's I think that
creates a conflict.
It creates a conflict
for young people.
It created a conflict for
me as a young person,
not necessarily seeing myself
or my experience
reflected in books.
And I think one of
the beautiful things
about story and
the beautiful things
about art in general
is that it can serve
as a both a mirror
and an affirmation.
And so with "Kings of B'more",
I wanted to hold up a mirror
to life as I understood it.
And so these boys are surrounded
by love and caring
you know, mentors
and family members.
They have a very diverse
group of friends.
There isn't a point
in the book
where they experience
homophobia,
even though they're both
to out queer teens,
which to me does not--
is not a fantasy of the world.
it is a way that
the world can exist
and perhaps does
exist for some people.
And again, this takes
place over the course
of like three or four days.
And so, you know,
there will be challenges
in their lives,
but in this moment,
they don't have
to encounter that.
And so a reader does not
have to encounter that.
And what happens
when you don't have to--
when you're not reading
a story where
the only purpose of the
story is to explore trauma?
And I think it's so important
to remind readers
of all stripes,
all varying identities,
that their trauma is not
the only important part
of their story,
that their joy and their --
the things that they love,
the people that they love,
the places where they
find themselves
and the questions
that they have about
the universe are
equally as important.
And so in I think it is crucial
to remind readers,
young and old,
that we are a--
we are more than
the worst thing
that's ever happened to us,
and we are more than
our 'difference.'
And that when we
see that everybody
is actually just their
own individual self
and that individuality is
what makes us important,
then we stop seeing
ourselves as stuck
in these little boxes
and we get to embrace
all kinds of stories,
all kinds of experiences,
which leads to empathy
and which leads
to us embracing ourselves
and loving ourselves more,
which I think is the
most important thing
for children and young
adults to encounter
in literature is
a version of themselves
that they love and that
they can carry into adulthood.
>> Shay Youngblood: You said it.
I want to just
I just want to cosign.
I want to say yes.
I want your answer
to be the answer.
Really beautiful.
And I will say that
when I was growing up,
I just wrote a blog post.
When I was growing up,
my library card
was my passport to the world.
I lived in a place
that was small.
There was -- you know,
I went to the library,
the first library
for blacks in my community.
And it was a place
where I could travel.
I could go into that library,
pick up a book
and travel a thousand miles
in a few hours.
And that was really--
it was important to me to
see that the outside world,
the experiences
and the lives of people
in other places
around the world
and that there
was outer space.
There was a, you know,
lots of places to explore.
And it was when I began
to read books by people
that looked like me,
by African-American authors
especially, you know,
Nikki Giovanni,
Maya Angelou,
that I began to see that
my story could be important.
I was reading stories
that were similar to mine,
you know, hearing,
reflecting my story.
And I thought,
well, you know,
if they can tell these stories,
I can tell stories, too.
And so it became a way for me
to find out more
about myself and
about the world.
So writing and books and
sharing books for me,
sharing stories are a way for
me to share my own story,
but also to encourage people
to write their own stories.
>> Zach Weinersmith:
I've kind of wishing
I wasn't going third
because those were both
really good and I'm just
going to whiff on it here.
I'm hesitant to sort
of claim a mantle
of being part of
contemporary conversation
because I'm really trying
to transliterate
a poem that may be as
old as the fifth century.
I will say that the theme
that for me is engaging
in which I hope
a theme way back
when is this idea of
the sort of perfection
of struggle when things
are hopeless in particular.
And in addition to that,
my hope was
to write a contemporary poem
that kids could enjoy as a poem,
not as a kind of
we often inflict poetry
on children and
they don't want it
and therefore
don't appreciate it.
I tried to write
something that they could
that would let them
sort of see their struggles
as something that
could be cast into
a high-toned sensibility,
if that makes sense.
So I'm going think
I can say it as eloquently
as Eric or Shay,
but I did try to, I guess,
give kids something
they could draw on
at some point that made
these sort of struggles
of early childhood
seem real.
>> Dinah Johnson:
Nothing could be more important.
We live in turbulent,
confusing times
and children need to be
part of those conversations.
My dissertation is
actually on the
history of African American
children's literature,
and one of my favorite
publications
was a publication that lasted
for two years, 1920 and 1921
called "The Brownies Book"
that was published by
W.E.B. Dubois
and Jesse Fawcett.
And it was a book,
mainly a magazine,
mainly for African American
children, but for all children.
And they confronted
all kinds of topics,
including how we are part
of
a world community,
anything you can think of.
And children are intelligent.
Children deserve those answers.
>> R. Eric Thomas: Shay said
my library card
was also my passport
growing up.
And it opened up,
you know --
to echo Shay, it opened
up a world of possibilities
and a world
of discovery.
And I was so compelled
by this idea
that you can walk into
a library and, you know,
I was using card
catalogs at the time,
so flip through a card catalog
for a particular subject
and the whole world
opened up for you
and that there was a number
that was assigned,
you know, to every
possible story
and experience question
that you had.
And so I would spend
hours in libraries.
Like I said once at a
was giving a talk,
and I said that, you know,
some people talk about
their astrological signs,
their sun and moon rising.
And I like I'm very curious,
like what people's library
signs are like, you know,
I'm from the Enoch Pratt
Library in downtown Baltimore,
but I'm also from the
Park School library,
and I'm also from
the Woodlawn Library
in Baltimore County.
And then as a college student,
I was at the Towson Library
at the Columbia University.
I could go on and on.
But I say all that to say
that like every one
of those libraries was
a different kind of a universe.
And every librarian
in those libraries
was the both like
a sort of oracle
and also a fortune
teller and also a guide.
And so, yeah, and
so through that discovery,
you know,
I came across authors
like Zora Neale Hurston,
who, you know,
"Their eyes were watching God"
was like
so deeply important to
me as a young child.
And I think it was because
it spoke to an experience
of blackness and a
perspective on black experience
that was so rooted in
a love of ourselves
and our community
and that's really sort
of the journey that Janie
goes on in that book.
And that was a very
early love for me.
And then later on I
discovered writers
like Colson Whitehead,
who continues to be like,
so deeply important
to me as both a writer
and as a thinker
and who again,
is also writing about blackness
in so many different ways
and tones and shades,
whether it's like
speculative sci fi
or a sort of alternate history,
or just sort of straightforward
sort of contemporary farce.
Just a really
invigorating writer,
somebody who makes
me really proud to be
both a reader and
excited to be somebody
who has a library card
and can go find out
what else he's up to.
>> Shay Youngblood:
Eric snatched
"Their eyes were watching
God" right out of my head
right out of my mouth.
And I love how you voiced
your literary lineage.
I love that because
I could do that.
At one point I had
five library cards.
I was traveling so much.
Everywhere I went,
I got a library card
and I felt a little bit guilty
but I am a voracious reader.
During Covid, you know,
you couldn't go to libraries.
It was very difficult
to get to libraries.
And so that was my, again,
my window to the world,
being in the library.
I have to say that
one of my a book
that made the one a
very deep impression on me
in addition to
"Their eyes were watching God,"
that was a very
emotional story for me.
I was in it, living it,
and I felt like
I was swept away
in another world.
And when I read a good book,
the world falls away.
And that has become my goal
in a way as a writer.
I want the world to fall away
and for a reader
to be kind of deep
into the book.
And one of the first books
I read that did that for me
was "The Big Sea"
by Langston Hughes.
And again, I traveled all
the miles with him
in this story about traveling
around the world.
And it inspired me as
a young person to take off
for Paris with $200
and speaking very little French.
And eventually it inspired
my second novel,
"Black Girl in Paris."
And when that --
and that book for me
was a way I wanted
to empower people
who were reading that book
to be adventurous,
to be bold,
and that you don't
have to necessarily
get on a plane and travel far
away to explore the world.
You can be where you are
and explore who you are,
the world around you and
to just be very curious.
I'm a teacher
and so by nature --
a creative writing teacher
and by nature
I encourage people
to tell their stories.
But also as I move
through the world,
people tell me
I've got a great story.
You should write it for me,
or I have a great story to tell.
And I was like,
have you written in --
and they start telling
me the story.
Have you written
any of it yet?
And one of the things
I love to do,
whether it's my Lyft driver
or the cashier at the bakery,
is I say, okay,
get yourself a notebook
and I want you
to make a list, that's all.
Just make a list of some of
the most exciting
scenes in your story.
And when you go
to the dentist,
I want you to pull
out your notebook
and I want you to write
just a small paragraph,
one of those scenes,
and it can start anywhere.
You can begin,
start where you are,
but start to write
down your story.
Don't keep it in your head.
Start to get it
outside of your head.
Or, you know, young people
aren't as necessarily --
everybody's not writing
the way we used to.
I write everything longhand.
But just to encourage people
to not only tell their stories,
but to begin to
write them down.
And it's not necessarily
about being published,
but about sharing their
experience with other people
because you never know
how that's going to
help someone out
of a situation,
help them feel empowered
or help them feel hopeful.
So as I said, my passion
and my purpose is teaching,
and that's what I feel
like helping people
to tell their stories
is what I do,
whether I'm on the clock
or whether I'm in my Lyft.
>> Zach Weinersmith: Kind of
like awkward, solitary person.
The story that popped
to mind fortunately
which is T.H. White's five book
"Candle in the Wind series."
People know the first book,
which is called
"The Sword in the Stone,"
but it's not nearly the best
book in the series.
And part of why it was
motivating for me is because
you have a person who's
living this kind of quiet life
and who is deeply interested
in these old sources
of literature that nobody
reads anymore
and who writes very
strange books.
And he ends up writing this
series that's deeply drawn
on these old French and
old English stories.
And it becomes
weirdly popular.
And so for me as a person
doing an adaptation,
this is a story
I love very deeply
and I love especially
the words and the tone
that it employs
this Beowulf poem.
You know, we don't
know who wrote it
or anything other than that.
It was probably
an oral poem.
We don't know
much beyond that.
But I love the sound of it
and I didn't think
you could write a book
like that anymore.
Or I thought if you did write,
if you did trick a publisher
into publishing it,
that no one would
understand it.
And they sort of would say,
the highlight of my career
has been people
who send me pictures
of them reading it
to their children
who seem to enjoy
the way they read
it to them,
the way they're induced
to read it by the --
So the sort of lesson
I've drawn from that
in which I hope other
people can draw from,
is that I think I've
gotten too cynical
about what's possible
to do in a book.
It's very easy if you're someone
in publishing universe,
In my other hat,
I'm a cartoonist
and I write popular science.
It's very easy to
get very cutthroat
and very business oriented
and the modern world
is very obsessed
with like, influencers
and people who can like,
make engaging content
every single day.
I thought maybe the
world didn't have
the patience for
something like this.
And they do.
And, you know, the lesson
to me was I need to be
I need to be doing
even weirder stuff.
It turns out there is this well
of desire for something
that's maybe a little bit deeper
and stranger and more ambitious.
And so I wish I'd
learned that sooner.
>> Dinah Johnson: Every
single person has a story,
which is why I
love visiting schools.
I love being a teacher
and having discussions
with young people.
The book that started
my whole journey
in children's literature is
a book called "The Times"
that used to be by the
poet Lucille Clifton.
And it's a beautiful book
that is set decades ago,
but it deals with all the
important things
like family,
community, history.
It even deals with
changing technology.
It's set at the time
when televisions
start popping up
in neighborhoods.
A whole bunch of people
in the neighborhood
would sit down and watch
the television together.
Everybody didn't have one
in every house
and in every room
in that house.
So, Lucille Clifton is very,
very special to me.
And also that book deals
with empathy and humanity.
So no matter
when it was set,
it deals with those really
important human concerns.
And the other thing I want
to address is, yes,
the whole idea of
everyone having a story,
I think that is so true.
And it's really special now
that there are
just so many platforms
because almost all
of human communication is
storytelling in a certain way.
So I encourage young people
to tell their stories
however they can.
If they write lyrics for rap
music, if they're gardeners,
if they're photographers,
if they like to sew,
or if they like telling stories,
as opposed to writing stories.
So I think we all
have a story to tell.
Each one of us has
a story to tell.
>> Helaine Becker: My book is
"Counting on Katherine:
How Katherine Johnson
Saved Apollo 13."
And the reason
I wrote this book
started when I was
nine years old
because I was a
diehard feminist.
Starting then, when
people first said,
Girls aren't as smart
as boys to me
and girls can't do
math and science.
And I said, are you
out of your mind?
Have you ever met the
boys in my school class?
They are definitely
not as smart as I am.
So I became a feminist
then and I was always
a fan of justice
because otherwise
the world doesn't
make any sense.
So fast forward
and I was given a job
by National Geographic
to write a book
about space, and it
was summer vacation.
So my son, I hired him to
be my research assistant.
There was one section
where I needed
some space pioneers,
and I said to him,
Michael, you know
your mom, right?
You know what you're
going to give me?
Because, yeah, yeah,
no, dead white guys
are not all dead white guys.
You know, we have to
have all kinds of other things.
So he went off
to the research.
He said, mom,
I found somebody.
You are going to love her,
and it was Katherine Johnson.
And I was astounded that
there was nothing about her.
This was before
"Hidden Figures."
So I'm just like, what?
How come this person's
story has not been told?
I am going to tell this story.
So the first thing I did was
I had to track down
Katherine Johnson.
Not so easy.
She was 96 at the time.
She didn't really have
a web presence,
but I did actually
do some sleuthing
and found her address
and wrote to her
and asked for her
permission and blessing
to write the book.
And what was
very amusing was
her daughter actually
wrote back and said,
well, we checked you out
and my grandson has
some of your books.
So we decided you're okay,
you can write the book.
So I interviewed her by phone
and I met her family in person.
She was not able to
take visitors that much
at the time and
wrote the book.
And for me, it's an
extremely important book
because it's a true story
and it tells about
what all people can do
girls, women, people of color.
If we have our brains
and we have our opportunity,
we can do all things.
She was huge.
There would have been no
successful space
program without her.
And we need to know
her story, not just girls.
Boys need to know it, too.
You know, it's not just
for African Americans.
It's for everybody.
Because we all need to know
that we're all human beings
and we're all capable
and we can do great things
when given the chance.
>> Carole Lindstrom:
Well, I am a member
of the Turtle Mountain
Band of Ojibwe
and my tribe is located
in North Dakota.
So we are water protectors.
It is my book.
And it was inspired actually
by another tribe
that they call the
Standing Rock Lakota.
And they are also
in North Dakota,
but they are south in
what is North Dakota.
So I heard about the --
back in 2016, the camp
that was set up
and started by, you know
really young people
and, you know,
writing on horseback
to the Capitol to bring
awareness about this situation,
about the pipelines
and the water and how,
you know, the pipeline
leaks will affect
not just native peoples,
but all of us,
because, of course,
water is connected, as are we.
And so, yeah,
I started to like you know,
starting to find
all the information
they could about it back then,
which, like I said, was 2016.
And I wasn't really
anything in the news
like the mainstream
media news about it.
It was mostly like social media
was where I was learning
about it through Native friends.
And so I started like
reaching out to them
and like learning
about what was going on
there at Standing Rock.
And I live in the
Maryland area right here,
right now, so it's really
quite far from me.
And I had a young son,
so I really wanted to be there
and I really wanted to
be a part of it,
to use my voice because
I felt very strongly about,
you know, standing up
for the water and the land.
And then, of course,
the camps grew.
All 574 federally
recognized tribes came,
as well as the other
thousands of --
there are over a
thousand that are not
federally recognized
tribes came,
people from around the world,
indigenous peoples.
It grew into just a huge really
a movement of resistance.
And so I just felt helpless and
I thought, well, what can I do?
And living in D.C.,
I'm fortunate because I do --
I am able to go to
any kind of protests
and I take my son who he
was eight years old at the time,
but now he's 16 and
he's actually dragging me,
which is great, anyway.
So when I thought, well,
I could write a book,
maybe if I write a story
about it because
you know, maybe
someone will read it.
Just thinking maybe one
person would read this
and start to understand
what's really going on,
that it's not just
an indigenous issue.
It's an oops, sorry,
all of us issue.
So I wrote the story
and it started out like
is a young adult novel,
basically back when I wrote it,
because I felt like there
was a lot of information
I needed to share.
But I thought, well, this is
going to take a long time
to finish because and I want
people to know about it now.
So I sort of well, I did turn
it into a picture book
and yeah, I did not expect
what has happened with it.
So I'm just very honored
and grateful
at the way the world really
has embraced the story.
And, you know, obviously
know and understand
that this isn't just
an indigenous issue,
this isn't all of us issue.
And since it's been
in the world
when it came out
in 2020, you know,
I've spoken to so many
wonderful educators,
librarians, teachers,
and they use it not just for,
you know, a picture book
for the 4- to 8-year-olds,
but it's been used
in middle schools.
you know, a picture book
for the 4- to 8-year-olds,
but it's been used
in middle schools.
It's been used in high schools.
It's used in colleges to
build curriculum for teachers.
So, you know, just the power
of a picture books in general.
But the power of your voice to
for young people
is so important.
I say to them always like,
you know, one voice is make --
wrote a book and
this is what happened,
so you just never know.
So that's where the
inspiration came from.
So thank you for that.
>> Kelly Starling Lyons:
I am honored that
"Dream Builder: The Story
of Architect Philip Freelon,"
was selected to represent
Washington, DC.
I first heard the
name Phil Freelon
when I moved
to North Carolina.
So Phil Freelon
was an architect here.
He lived with his
family in Durham.
And everywhere
I went I seemed to be
something that
he had created.
So whether it was
the Durham Bulls Athletic Park
or a terminal and
parking garage or airport,
the International Civil Rights
Museum in Greensboro,
the Gantt Center in Charlotte,
I kept hearing this
name Phil Freelon.
And then there was
all of this celebration
around the creation of
the National Museum
of African American History
and Culture in Washington, DC.
And when I read
who was creating it,
there he was; Phil Freelon.
So it was actually
a team of three.
Sir David Adjaye
was the lead designer.
Max Bond,
a pioneering black architect
was part of the team.
And Mr. Phil Freelon
was the lead architect
and architect of record.
And an editor at Leon Low
reached out to my agent
and said, we'd love for Kelly
to write about an architect
who created the
African-American Museum in DC.
And immediately I knew I
wanted to focus on Mr. Freelon.
He is someone who has
such a rich and powerful story.
He was born and
raised in Philadelphia,
in upper middle-class home.
He had a teacher, mom,
and a businessman-dad
and brothers and a sister
who were loving and supportive.
And in that environment,
he really thrived.
Early on, he knew
he had a gift for art,
a gift for math and science.
But what I love that I learned
through interviewing him
and his wife, Nina, who's
a Grammy nominated jazz singer,
who was so wonderful
and helping to make Phil's story
come to life was that
he struggled with reading,
so he had a reading challenge.
I thought it was so important
for kids to know
that a hero who can seem
larger than life has a journey
and that they have trials
and struggles
that they have to overcome.
And so this story of this
man who created this jewel,
this crown of a museum
that is realized
the dreams of generations,
that he had a path
to get to that point.
And it was because he was
poured into by his grandfather,
who was part of the
Harlem Renaissance
by his parents and his siblings,
by believing in himself.
And Mr. Freelon really
wanted to pass that message on.
Sadly, he passed away from ALS
before the book was published.
But I'm so honored that kids
can read about his story
and how he used his life
to build dreams
all over the country
and that they have the power
within them to build
dreams too.
>> Gillian McDunn:
So my book is called
"When Sea Becomes Sky."
And it is about a girl
and her younger brother.
They lived on an island
in North Carolina
and they love to hang
out in the salt marsh.
So that's the place
in between,
like where the freshwater
and the salt water meet.
And it's kind of
a special place because
the animals that live
there have to deal with
a lot of different extremes
because they have
to deal with the salt water.
When there's more salt water,
they have to deal
with fresh water
when there's more fresh water.
So it kind of becomes this sort
of special in-between place.
In the story, the girl's named
Bex and her brother Davey,
they go every day to their
little isolated corner
of the salt marsh, and they
never see anyone else there.
But their island has been
having a drought.
And so the water
in the salt marsh
is getting lower
every single day.
And one day,
they're out there
and they see something
sticking up above the water
and they get closer and they
find out that it's a statue.
So they kind of get set
on this adventure
as they're kind of figuring
out the mystery of where
the statue would have come from
and trying to understand that.
Meanwhile, they learn
that there's a development plan
that's going to destroy
their whole area.
So they decide maybe
if they can figure out
more about the statue,
they can leverage that
and try to protect this
place that kind of feels like
it just belongs to
the two of them.
So I'm very much inspired
in this story by where I am.
So I live in North Carolina
and I love it here
and I love going to the beach
and I love going to
the salt marsh.
So definitely inspired
by those things.
And I'm also inspired by what
I came from when I was a kid.
So one of the things
that I dealt with
when I was a young
person growing up is that
I had a brother
who passed away.
And so I was really looking
to deal with some of the themes
of like grief and loss,
kind of bringing it into like
a different area, looking
at the art and kind of
the unpredictability of nature
and the world around us.
>> Helaine Becker: It's crucial.
And I can tell you that for me,
I'm a very smart lady.
And the reason
I'm a smart person
is because I was a
voracious reader as a child.
My mother was a teacher,
so she taught me how
to read before first grade.
And I read absolutely everything,
absolutely everything,
you know, the back of
the cereal boxes,
but every single book, whether
it was aimed at me or not,
adults, children, whatever.
And that's how I learned
about the world.
I also learned about myself
from meeting characters
in books that were maybe not
like me on the outside,
but like me on the inside.
And that formed who
I became as an adult.
Now, I would not be
as broad minded.
I would not know as
much just general facts.
I wouldn't be as empathetic
if I hadn't been a reader.
So for us as adults
to create books
of every kind of stripe
that you can imagine
from every kind of point
of view is essential
for every kind of reader.
You don't know
what's going to appeal
to any particular person,
but I always tell kids
when I go to schools, there is
a book that's just for you.
And if you say you
don't like reading,
it's because you haven't
found it yet, but you will.
And it is part of how
as a country, for example,
how we are going
to come together
if we're sharing stories,
common stories
that are inspirational,
stories that also rely on fact.
You know, you
can't just make it all up
like that's great
if it's a fantasy,
but we have to tell
the real stories as well
about real people who
did things despite odds.
Like Gillian was saying,
you know, that it's people
don't have a silver spoon
necessarily over their heads.
The people who have
succeeded have done so
by overcoming all
kinds of challenges.
And kids are going to
have those same challenges.
You know, that's
the way life is
by having all the
different stories.
You're also preparing kids
for dealing with
trouble in real life.
You know, if you're
dealing with grief in a book,
then when grief
comes into your life,
as it inevitably will,
you're more prepared
than if it hits you
just out of the blue
and nobody has even
mentioned any of this to you.
So if you want to
prepare children
to become full human
beings and competent adults,
they need books,
stories of all kinds.
>> Carole Lindstrom:
Thinking about the question,
I think about me
because I was born
a long time ago
in the 60s.
When I grew up,
I never saw myself in books.
I never saw myself
in a positive way.
If Native people
were portrayed in books,
that was always in
a negative way, stereotypical
or, you know, the Savage Indian
and that sort of thing,
especially for me.
As I said, I tried --
I loved reading.
Obviously, we all do
when we were young.
Otherwise, we wouldn't
be authors and creatives.
But I just remember
loving in my home life
sometimes
it was not so great.
So for me, books
were a great escape
and a wonderful place to go
when I needed to get away.
And when " Little House
on the Prairie" series
was like the main sort
of series available to me
when I was young,
and as a young person,
I loved the family unit
and the closeness
and the way the father
and the mother and the children,
you know, related to each other.
And I wanted that
in my family life.
But yet, when I saw how
I was portrayed in my people,
I knew that they
would not welcome me
in that family ever
at that door.
They would probably --
you know, it would not be good.
So I was very torn as a child
and very ashamed of who I was.
Just of all books, books had
an effect on me in that regard.
And so as I now have
a voice in writing books
and the world of
publishing and I will not,
you know, all stories
must portray native especially,
and I can just speak
as a native author
on Native children
as a positive way.
We must be shown
contemporary in the world
as we are, not
as people from the past.
You know, those
things get said to me.
I thought you were gone.
I thought we got
rid of you all.
You know, things
that are very hurtful
and children should
never have to deal
with those type of things.
They should be apart.
They should see themselves
in books and they should --
And other children
who are not bipoc Lgbtq+
should see other
those children in books
so that, you know,
that's what community,
that's how
we build community
is by having all of
these books available,
especially to communities
where there is not a large,
diverse population or
a large Lgbtq+ population,
because that stuff is key
to creating the empathy
and the need, you know,
that we need in this world.
I mean, because
kids get it.
When I talk about
we are water protectors,
it isn't hard to tell them
about the importance of water.
They get it, they know.
It's not like trying
to go all through mud
and all this other red tape
we have to get through
to speak to adults.
So my hope is --
so I have so much
hope for the future
because I know young
people know what's important.
So, yeah, I love writing for
kids and it's just a gift
and I love it and I'm grateful
for it every day, so yeah.
>> Kelly Starling Lyons:
So "Dream Builder,"
it was a chance to help
kids realize that they matter,
that they are here for a
reason and that they have gifts.
And just like Phil Freelon
, who, you know,
had this journey where
he doubted himself
and he felt bad because
he couldn't read at first
and then he grew and
he, you know, found
what he was meant to do,
that's the same thing that
we want our kids to know.
So that's why it was
really important for me
to share Phil's -- Mr. Freelon
story from when he was young,
all the way until he became
this brilliant architect.
One of the other aspects
of his story is that
when he went
to architecture school,
which he loved
and he really excelled,
he didn't see himself
in the architects
that were being shared.
And so one of the things
that's really cool about him,
I live in the triangle where
he built his practice
and raised his family,
and he's a founding member
of the 100 Black Men
chapter here.
And their motto is, what
they see is what they'll be.
And so what happens
when you go into a space
and you don't see
people who look like you
that are realizing these
different dreams,
do you wonder
if that is something
that you can aspire to?
Mr. Freelon found those
architects on his own.
He dug in the library and
there they were waiting for him.
So he found,
you know, Julian Abel,
who actually designed
part of Duke University
right here in the Triangle.
And he also found
Paul Revere Williams,
who was an architect
to the stars in Hollywood.
And those were people,
along with his grandfather,
was part of the
Harlem Renaissance,
who he drew from and
he knew because they did it,
that he could do it, too.
But also love and
I think is also a lesson
to pass on to kids about
what they can do
is that he became an
architect with a purpose.
He made a pledge that
he would never design prisons
and he would never
design casinos,
and he would only design
things that lifted people up
and brought joy
and brought light.
And so I think it's
so important for kids to know
that they have the power
to make a difference,
to change lives and
big ways and in small ways.
When I go into schools
and talk about Mr. Freelon,
I often say that the kids who
likes to draw and they raised--
a bunch of kids raised
their hand.
Who likes to build?
And that's my opening because
we have more in common
than we have differences.
But when it comes
to books by black authors,
when it comes to books
with black figures
that are on the cover,
sometimes what I call it is
the fear of a brown face.
And there are usually adults
that are the gatekeepers
that are keeping kids
from our books.
But kids always find a way in.
They always connect.
So I would urge adults
to please get out of the way
and let the kids,
you know, dream and grow
and connect and love and be
with each other through books.
Books are safe spaces where
we can talk about hard topics,
where we can see ourselves,
where we can find commonality.
And so that's what I think
is the power of books
and what all of our books do.
I'm really honored to
be on this panel today.
I'm a fan of everybody's work.
And so please,
you know, just remember
that kids know
what they need.
And if we get out of the
way, they will often find it.
>> Gillian McDunn:
That was just really lovely.
I'm just trying to soak
it in for a minute.
So I would say that writing
for children is a great joy.
It is the best audience
you could ever have.
And I know that because
kids will carry around
a book with them,
whatever they do.
I see that with my kids
and they're brushing their teeth
and they're walking up
and down the stairs
and you're like, look
where you're going.
And they're just so in
like willing to enter into
those stories and willing
to make those stories
a part of who they are, too.
So it is a joy to write
for children
and it is also
 a great privilege.
One thing I talk about
when I see kids
and we do school visits
is that reading creates empathy,
and empathy is a superpower.
So the more stories
that you get to read
by different people,
by people who are like you,
by people who
are not like you,
all different stories
being represented,
you are becoming stronger.
Your heart and your mind
is being engaged
and you have that opportunity
to make connection
with others,
which is really what
I think we're all here on
the planet to do.
So reading is a really
important conduit to that.
>> Helaine Becker:
Pretty huge question.
And I've been wrestling
as I'm sitting here thinking,
how am I going to approach this?
Which story do I want to tell?
What's going to make
the difference?
So I decided I'm going
to tell you a little bit
about my own story.
I wanted to be a writer
since I was five years old.
I started reading and
I immediately started writing.
I knew right away that the
two things were connected,
that real people wrote books,
and I was a real people
so I could write a book.
By the time I got to fifth
or sixth grade,
I was everyone knew Helaine
is going to be a writer.
She's going to write a book.
This one's going
to be an accountant.
This one's going
to be a writer.
He's going to be the scientist.
And so that's -- I'm 11.
And then what happened?
I got into junior high school
and I lost confidence
because that's
what happens often
when you become a teenager.
You know, people often
know that your body,
your body changes when
you're going through puberty,
but people don't know that
your brain always changes.
Like when you're a kid, your
brain is organized like this
To absorb information.
It's like sponge.
As adults,
our brains are like this.
They're designed to
see patterns and make patterns
and see connections
between things.
So when you're a teenager,
your brain goes
from this to this
and your teenage years,
a lot of the time
it's spent like this, right?
The connections are not there.
So what happens
is people lose confidence
because your brain's not
working the way you always did.
You know, things
are just not right
and you're doubting yourself.
So this happened to me and said,
why should I get to be a writer?
I'm not lucky enough.
I'm not pretty enough.
I'm not smart enough.
I don't know the right people.
There's no fairy dust on me.
I'm just an ordinary person.
So I stopped writing.
I gave up because
I thought, there's no point.
And okay, I went on with
my life and things were good.
And it wasn't until,
you know, I was 125 years old
that I realized I had
made this huge mistake
because I still wanted
to be a writer.
I still wanted to be a writer.
And the mistake
that I had made
was that I stopped writing
because the moment you stop,
that's the moment
when your dream dies.
Okay, yeah, it was true.
The moment I stopped; I was
never going to be a writer.
But if I had kept writing,
I could have
eventually become a writer.
And even if I didn't,
I still had a dream,
and the dream
keeps you going, right?
The dream makes you get
up in the morning and say,
I have a purpose;
I have a goal.
I have something
that I want to achieve.
So I started writing again
and it took five years
before my first book
was published
and another five years before
the second was published.
And after that, you know,
it's not been a straight line.
I can tell you know,
I've written a lot of books,
but every single
one of them was a challenge
and it's still a challenge.
But it's exciting to me
because often two people
now say to me,
oh, you write for children.
Isn't that cute?
When are you going
to write a real book?
Have you all heard that?
When are you going
to write a real book?
And I'm like, oh,
because to me,
writing for children is the
most important kind of writing.
Because, you know,
I remember all the books
that I read when I was a kid
that really influenced me.
You asked me what
I read last week.
I won't be able to tell you.
You know, I still read
all the time.
I don't know what I read,
but the books
that changed my life
were children's books
and what gives me
the gratification now,
what makes me happy that
I did return to the dream
is when a child comes
up to me and says,
did you write that book?
Yeah, he said,
my little sister learned
how to read using that book.
Or did you write that book?
Yeah, it really helped me
when I was going
through a bad time.
And, you know, there's no
nothing else in the world
that to me is more
valuable than knowing
that you are affecting
somebody's entire life
in that positive way.
So that's my story.
>> Carole Lindstrom: Yes.
For this one,
I also had a tough time
trying to think about
what to say, what to talk about.
But I think I want
to talk about librarian
that meant something special
to me as a young person.
Again, as I said prior,
that books were a real big save
saved me a lot, as I know
they do for a lot of people,
especially young people;
they're, you know, escape.
And so the library
moved down the street
from my house when I was --
I don't even know,
maybe eight or nine.
Oh, my gosh.
It was like the happiest
day of my life
so that I could walk down
there or ride my bike.
And so that's where I was
every Saturday and Sunday,
first thing in the morning,
as soon as the library opened
and I was there and
I stayed all day long,
you know, pretty much anywhere
I would be in the stacks.
And back in my day, you know,
we didn't have
the different picture books
and middle grade and YA.
It was like juvenile fiction
adults, you know?
So I was just always
wanting to know why,
always, why were things,
why the way they were.
So I just spent most of the day
in the stacks
and the nonfiction area
just pulling books
off the shelf
and sitting on the floor
and looking through them
and just trying to make
sense of the world
and there was
a librarian there.
She was older, she had white
hair and I don't know her name.
And I know she didn't know mine
because I would
never have told her.
I would never have
spoken to anybody.
I was way too shy.
But when I went to the library
and walked through
those doors,
I always looked for her.
I was just so happy to see her.
And when she would ask me
if I ever needed help,
she was always pointing me
in the right place.
And I just think a lot of
librarians and educators
and teachers don't realize
how important they are
and the impact they
have on children's lives
every single day
and that some days
they have a really tough times
and the world
is really hard right now,
of course,
and especially with books
and banning and whatnot and --
But I just want library --
I want all educators,
libraries, every people
just with books to just know 
that there is a child somewhere
that really is so grateful for
 you and loves you so much
and will never tell you because
they're way too shy.
But you are really making
a big difference in their lives.
And I just thank you.
And I know that child
feels the same way.
So that's all I have
to say about it.
Thank you.
>> Kelly Starling Lyons:
 Thank you.
And I love the theme
of everyone has a story.
Early in my children's
book Journey,
I went to the Writers
Workshop at Chautauqua,
which is created by the
Highlights Foundation.
And one of the speakers was
editor and author, Patty Gooch.
And her message, one of
the many powerful messages
that she gave was, Write
the story Only You can Tell.
And that is a message
I've carried with me
through my entire
children's book career.
And to me, what
it means is that
who you are is not just enough;
it's everything.
So it comes from your passions,
things that you love.
It comes from trials, things
you've had to work through
and figure out, that
you've triumphed over
or you're still in the
midst of navigating.
It comes from whose you are.
So your family and your
community and your faith home
and your culture, and it
comes from where you're from.
And I think all of those
things are where
we find the best stories,
that treasure that
is already inside of you.
So I would say to kids,
you know, when you're thinking
about stories and thinking
that authors, you know,
that that's something
that's way out of your reach,
just dig into your heart and
put who you are on the page.
And that's magical
and that's powerful.
And we need your voice.
I also think about kids
that may be
a bit intimidated at first
by the written word,
and I think it's really
important as picture book --
as a picture book author,
to celebrate and shout out
our illustrators who do
such a masterful work
of visual storytelling.
So Laura Freeman,
award winning author,
did the art for
"Dream Builder."
And she really just brought
so many things to life.
I always tell kids,
you know, read a picture book,
read it for the meaning,
read the words,
but you really miss something
if you don't go back
and read the art.
So please, with you know,
when you look at picture books,
take your time and look
at all of the messages
and all of the meaning
that they've put
into those illustrations.
So when everyone
has a story,
it could be that your
story comes out in writing.
It could be that your
story comes out in art
and that is perfect
and wonderful.
It could be that you
want to tell your story
with a voice function
of your cell phone.
You want to do it orally.
That's also wonderful.
There's no one right way
to tell a story,
and I just feel really blessed
that I get to do
what I love every day.
I think that I'm very grateful
to the National Book Festival
for celebrating our work.
So I just wanted to share
a few resources
that might be helpful 
for parents,
librarians and teachers.
I'm a founding member of a blog 
called the Brown Bookshelf,
and we've been around
for more than a decade,
and we have a vast
archive of profiles
and spotlights on black
children's book creators.
So I also wanted to share a 
few other resources for you that
include the African American
 Children's Book Project.
We need diverse books,
American Indians
and children's
literature, cynsations.
And I also wanted
to shout out
the Authors Guild
and Pen America,
who have been working
so hard to educate
and to mobilize against
book banning.
Books are being reviewed,
they're being challenged,
they're being banned
and we can come together
and stop that from happening
by celebrating and
supporting those books.
>> Shay Youngblood:
So when "Sea Becomes Sky"
is definitely the most
personal book that I've written.
And the reason for that is it's
 the book that I really wanted
when I was a kid and
I couldn't find it.
So I mentioned
my brother passed away
when he was nine and I was 11.
We were really close.
And whenever I have
even now the problem,
I often look to books
for answers.
Especially as a kid, I often
 look to fiction for answers
to kind of see what 
other people did
in similar situations.
And so my favorite book
during that time for me was
"Charlotte's Web,"
because I think it is just
such a beautiful story
that is, you know,
it's such a short
number of pages
and there are so
many feelings in there.
And it really gave
me permission to have
all of the emotions
that I had when Andy died.
But there was one thing
that it didn't explain to me
in that story, you know,
spoiler alert, but, you know,
Charlotte dies and then we kind
 of fast forward a little bit
and the baby spiders are born
and everybody is kind of like,
you know, clearly Wilbur
is feeling better.
And as a little girl, 
I was like,
wow, how did that part happen?
I want to know the part
where you start to feel better
because that's the part that
I'm having a hard time with.
And I do want to feel better.
I still want to know
how to do that.
So, that was really--
that was something
that has been with
me since I was 11
that I've wanted to write
a book that shows that part,
that where things start
to get better.
And so that was definitely
what I tried to do
with "When Sea becomes Sky"
and hopefully kids out there
who have experienced grief will
 kind of feel seen with that.
And possibly for kids who
haven't experienced it
will have some of those thoughts
and can make some
of those connections,
you know, before
they unfortunately
have to deal with
it in their own lives.