>> Monica Valentine: Good morning. My name is Monica Valentine and I work in the Library of Congress. I want to welcome you to the 19th Annual National Book Festival brought to you by the Library of Congress. This festival is free of charge thanks to the generosity of donors large and small. If you wish to make a donation please do so on the festival app under the word donate on the app's homepage. We appreciate your support for this great celebration of books and reading. We hope this day inspires you to make the use of the incomparable resources of the Library of Congress, your very own national library. You can visit us in person on Capitol Hill or on the web at loc dot gov. We're thrilled to announce the library's brand new National Book Festival Presents series which will extend the reach of the festival with more exciting book events at the library starting next month. Please check loc dot gov for updates on all the programs for children as well as adults and ticketing for each one. We welcome your questions at the end of the presentation but if you have one for the author please make it brief and to the point. You are giving us your permission to use it for the webcast. And finally, I ask that you please turn off your cell phones and make sure you enjoy the rest of your day. Renee Watson and Ellen Hagan have a few things in common. They're both poets, educators, and activists. Together they've combined their talents to bring us "Watch Us Rise". Their book is the critically acclaimed socially-conscious tale of Jasmine and Chelsea, teenagers who find their voices when they form a women's rights club in their New York City high school. Ellen is the author of two poetry collections, "Crowned" and "Hemisphere". She's also the cofounder of the girlstory collective and is a board member for the I, Too, Arts Collective. Renee is the New York Times best-selling author of "Piecing Me Together" which received the 2018 Coretta Scott King Author Award and was the 2018 Newberry Honor Book. She's also the author of "Harlem's Little Blackbird", "The Story of Florence Mills", "This Side of Home" and her newest book "Some Places More than Others" due out September 3rd. Renee is the founder and executive director of the I, Too, Arts Collective. Please welcome Ellen Hagen and Renee Watson to share more with us about Watch Us Rise [applause]. >> Renee Watson: Good morning. Thank you for being here with us today. I'm Renee. >> Ellen Hagen: I'm Ellen. >> Renee Watson: And we're going to read from Watch Us Rise which she gave such a beautiful introduction of. Watch Us Rise is about Jasmine and Chelsea. I wrote Jasmine's chapters, Ellen wrote Chelsea's and they're best friends. They go to a school that is all about student voice, and we believe in you, and the principal is always saying, we want to hear what you think. You matter, your voices matter. But when the girls start to rise up and share their voices, the principal tries to shut them down. So, it's all about the girls rising up and taking up space and not being afraid to speak out and to speak up. >> Ellen Hagen: And the book really centers on this friendship and how young people can rise up together. It's poetry and blog posts are within the story and to, this morning we're going to share a little bit of some of the chapters and the poems with you all. >> Renee Watson: So, this is a black poster, Jasmine writes. And it's called "What It Be Like On Being a Girl." It be like men telling you to smile when you're all out of sunshine. Like your mouth being more familiar with saying yes than no. It be like hiding sometimes wrapped in puffy coats, too-loose dress, nothing clinging or low-cut. It be like wanting to be seen and not wanting to be seen all at once. Like knowing you have the right answer but letting him speak anyway. It be like second-guessing your know-how like fact-checking your own truth. It be like older women telling you how to get a man, even if they don't have a man, even if you don't want a man. It be like learning how to play hard to get, how to entice, how to be sweet honey always. It be like being told you're too sweet, too loose, too woman, and not enough girl. Too girl and not enough woman. It be like knowing all the world is expecting you to be nurturer when maybe you want to hunt. It be like a wild flame trying to burn, burn while everyone else wants to extinguish it. It be like being told it's okay to cry but it never be like rage unfiltered, anger expressed. It be like trying so hard to hold everything in, brilliance, emotion, waste, breathe in always, never let out. It be like stomach cramps and bloated belly, like cravings and moods that change like spring days. It be like trusting the mirror when it shows you your beauty. It be like trusting your heart when it tells you who to love, who to walk away from. It be like knowing you can always start again, but you can always create and make something because you are made for birthing. It be like meeting other women, older and younger, living in no more breath. It be like the spirits are inside you remaking you into something better and bolder every time you say their names, read their poems, learn their legacy. It be like knowing you are what praying women had in mind when they travailed for tomorrow. It be like knowing you are a promise, a seed. It be like knowing that without you planted and watered and nurtured, the world can't go on. >> We don't last long outside because it's too hot. Harlem sun is blazing down on us so we go inside and sit in the living room. The young artivists have arrived, dad says. He calls us artivists because we're all growing into ourselves as artists and activists. Well that's what he says. Chelsea is the poet, Nadine is the singer and a pretty good DJ, too. Isaac is the visual artist, I am the writer and actress. According to dad, art is never just art. And since there is so much going on in the world, we should be using our art to say something, do something. So, when he asks, what have you all been up to this summer? And we answer with shrugging shoulders saying, I don't know. He says, "You mean to tell me you haven't created anything this summer?" "Dad, are you seriously going to give us another summer challenge," I asked? It's not the first time dad has sent us out on a summer scavenger hunt of the city but usually it's a little more thought out. Like the time he sent us out with a map of Harlem and challenged us to find historical landmarks and spaces essential to the Harlem Renaissance. We had to take a photo in front of each place as proof. And then, there was the time he challenged us to go to movie theaters that showed independent films. We had to share our findings and write reviews. We're used to him sending us out with maps and lists of instructions but I didn't expect this today. "Let's call it the Brown Art Challenge," Dad says. We all just looked at him, blank stares. "I'm serious. Go out and find some inspiration. Create some art in response to what you see." Chelsea is the first to agree saying, "Where should we start?" And just like that the four of us are sitting with dad plotting and planning. >> Ellen Hagen: "Advice To Myself, From Chelsea to Chelsea". Be reckless when it matters most. Messy, incomplete, belly laugh, love language. Be butterfly stroke in a pool of freestylers, fast and loose. You don't need all the right moves all the time. You just need limbs wild. The equator, lava, ocean floor, the neon of plankton. Be unexpected. The rope they lower to save the other bodies, be your whole body. Every hiccup and out of place, elastic girl. Be stretch moldable. Be funk flexible, free fashionable, go on be hair natural. Try and do anything woman. What brave acts like on your hips. Be cocky at school. Have a fresh mouth. Don't let them tell you what's prim and proper, not your lady-like. Don't be their lady-like. Their dress-up girl, not their pretty. Don't be their bottled, saturated, died, squeezed, spanxed. Be guilded. Gold, papyrus, a parakeets balk and flaunt. Show up uninvited. Know what naked feels like. Get the sweetness, be the woman you love. Be tightrope and expanse. Stay hungry. Be a mouth that needs to get fed, ask for it. Stay alert, lively, alive and unfettered full on it all. Say yes when it matters. Be dragonfish, set all the fires, be all the woman they warned you against being. Be her anyway. >> Renee Watson: "This Body, a Definition Poem". Skin. Noun. One. Sensitive, dry, see doves soap, oil of olay, shea butter. See middle school pimples plumping up the night before picture day, always on the chin or nose. Two. Dark, see, slave. See negro. See age seven. See yourself playing on the playground when a white girl says you must eat a lot of chocolate since your skin's so brown. Hair. Noun. One. See assimilation. See smoke from the hot comb crocheting the air burning a sacred incense. See your mama parting your hair bringing iron to knap. Hold your ear, baby, she tells you so she can press Africa out. When black girls ask, is it real? Say yes. When white girls ask, can I touch it, say no. Two. See natural. Reference Angela Davis, Dorothy Pittman Hughes [assumed spelling] comb yours out, twist yours like black licorice like the lynching rope used on your ancestor's necks. Let it hang free. Hips. Noun. One. Reference Lucille Clifton [assumed spelling] and every other big girl who knows how to work a hula hoop. See Beyonce. Dance like her in the mirror. Don't be afraid of all your powers, too. You will not fit in most places. Do not bend, squeeze, contort yourself. Be big, brown girl. Big, wide, smile. Big, wild hair, Big wondrous hips, brown girl. Be. >> Ellen Hagen: To the ags in the subway that try to tell me how to change my body. My body is a tornado. Nor'easter. The eye of every storm. Yes my body a cacophony. Song, hydrant of butterflies collective. Not meant to be revised or edited, just exactly right the way it is. My body is a rallying, an assembling. It cannot be shot down or silenced. Won't be. We live holy and raucous in our skin. We are not made of fruit. There's nothing sweet about me. My body is a hurricane. Natural earth moving and shaking. We who don't shut up or down other girls and the kinds of noise our bodies make. We are protest of bones and will not be shushed or quieted. We've got our hands and mouths and teeth and breasts and blood all the way up and shining and blistering on up and into the great big blazing sky. Rage against the myth of beauty. Love the way you look always. Love your wild hair and lungs. Love your hips and each thigh. Love your crooked teeth, wide smile. See your face in the mirror. See the way your nose erupts. Call your face a beautiful carnival. Don't ever read beauty magazines alone. Who are beauty magazines for anyway? Trust and know who you are. Being a teenager really sucks sometimes. Sometimes quitting is the only way to figure out what comes next. >> Renee Watson: We walk into Rubies and Jeans, a store that opened about six months ago. It's got a high-end feel to it but the prices are reasonable. There's a mix of casual and dressy clothes and the atmosphere makes you feel like you're shopping in the classy, trendy boutique even though it's a chain store. Chelsea goes straight to the escalator. "The clearance racks are down here," she says. Nadine and I follow her and when we get off Chelsea walks over to the rack under the 40% off sign. She pulls a bunch of tops and jeans off the rack and tosses them over her arm. Nadine is looking through the bins of jewelry picking out rings and bracelets. "I'm going to try these on. I'll be right back," Chelsea says. "Ok." I roam around the store looking through the sea of clothes and see a section far back on the right side of the room with a sign that says plus sizes. I didn't even know this store had clothes that would fit me. I walk over to the plus size section, wondering why my sizes have to be in a special section of the store and not mixed in with the other sizes. There is a definite divide. As if a shirt with a 3x tag will contaminate the other clothes. I looked through the clothes. There's not much to choose from. Just two racks compared to a whole store full of options for thinner girls. Just as I pick up a sweater to try on, I see the advertisement on the wall. A model with full cheeks and curvy hips is standing with that half-smile, half-serious look that models give. In a room full of fat people, she'd be considered thin. The caption under her half-smiling, half-serious face says Rubies and Jeans Plus because every girl deserves to look beautiful. A store clerk sees me and says, "Not finding what you're looking for? We've got a bigger selection of plus sizes online. Free return if it doesn't fit." She gives me a sympathetic smile and walks away. Online? Why can't I try on the clothes here in the store? And why are there only two racks hidden in the way back of the store? I read the ad again. Rubies and Jeans Plus, because every girls deserves to look beautiful. I think about the word deserves and wonder what they mean by it. How about, I am beautiful the way I am? For a moment, just a moment, I think about taking out my black sharpie marker and rewriting the statement because every girl is beautiful. Because every body is beautiful. And then I think about crossing out the word beautiful because what does that even mean? This is a clothing store. It's just clothes. Wouldn't that be a good ad? Rubies and Jeans, it's just clothes. Come try something on [laughter]. I look back at the poster one more time before walking away. I studied the girl's body. She isn't thin but she is definitely not a big girl like me. I wonder why girls with bodies like mine can't even model the clothes that were made for us? Most times when I see body types like mine on advertisements, they are on posters like the one in the subway. Big body, sad face. Sometimes they are the before picture and a weight-loss success story. But bodies like mine aren't often even seen with happy faces, stylish clothes. I put the sweater back on the rack. I don't really need anything anyway. I always waste money when I'm shopping with Chelsea. >> Ellen Hagen: For New Year's Eve we all get together at my house. There's a party happening at Word Up that we'd all plan to go to and James's parents are out of town so he invited the whole class there, too. But none of us really wanted to go out. So, Isaac, Nadine and Jasmine ended up piled on the bed and bean bags in my room and the apartment was all ours. Pretty much my dream come true. To cheer Jasmine up we made a playlist that included her favorite songs. The best we'd ever created and it included a bunch of songs that Jasmine's dad used to love that we heard him play all the time. We pulled out a bunch of scarves, hats, and jackets and started to lip sync and dance all around the apartment. Isaac stood up on our couch and belted out Willie Nelson's "Midnight Rider" in a way that made us all wonder how many times he'd actually listened to the song to know every verse. And then Jasmine and Isaac did the Bebe and Cece Winans duet and I basically had to bite the inside of my cheek as hard as possible to stop myself from saying anything out loud. Kiss her already, you idiot. It was pretty awesome to be acting as wild as we were without any alcohol. I knew that at James's house everyone would be drunk at this point or at least tipsy. But Nadine was allergic and Jasmine and I didn't really like the taste of it and Isaac had one too many drinks at a part over the summer and threw up the whole night. So, he was taking an indefinite break. This is how I know these are my people, though. The ones who you can dance around and act silly with. The ones who you can do shots of soda with and laugh until it comes out of your nose. They're also the ones who you can cry with. By the end of the night, Jasmine was in tears. We huddle around her and tell her we'll be there the whole way. We also decide to make New Year's resolutions. "Make them with I statements," Nadine says. You know, like I resolve to each more spinach. "What," Isaac asks? "Start with I resolve. You know, make it from your point of view." "No, I get that. I just don't understand why you're resolving to eat more spinach." Nadine punches Isaac in the arm and we grab pens and paper. Jasmine writes, I resolve to mourn, I resolve to heal, I resolve to love. Nadine writes, yes, I do resolve to eat more spinach because I do want to grow healthy and strong. In your face Isaac. I resolve to practice guitar and get some new DJ gigs. I resolve to pass algebra, please. Isaac writes, I do solemnly swear to blow up as an artist, make art that matters. And I write, I resolve to say what I want, when I want, to whomever I want. My messages will be heard. I resolve to speak louder and longer, make my voice bigger and stronger. I resolve to be ocean and sky revolving. I resolve to show up, show off, show out, stay later, love harder, be there when it matters. I resolve to be a woman who wins. "Whoa," Isaac says after we read them all out loud, "I like these." "I love them," Jasmine says quietly hugging her paper to her chest. "I think I needed tonight." We all pile on top of her to hug. Jasmine looks at the paper again. "Isaac, do you think you could do some quick sketches on these resolutions?" "What do you mean?" "Something that represents women," Jasmine says pulling out her phone. "Oh yeah, what about the Venus symbol for the female sex?" Nadine pulls an image up on her phone now. I like the Venus symbol where the middle section is a fist. We start to compare notes. We find a heart with the words women plus power plus rights. And then a scale with the Venus and Mars symbols and a big equal sign. We find the symbol with proud feminist written inside it. Isaac starts to sketch. He changes it to womanist and feminist rights. And then he makes a Wonder Woman symbol with the words I resolve to show off my superpowers. Then we all start drawing and writing resolutions. We start Jasmine's playlist from the beginning and I pull out all my art supplies. I write Women Join Us. Resolve to stand up against sexism and women make all the difference. We find that we can do a poster with Rosie the Riveter. And then see a bunch where black women and Latinos are shown. So, Isaac sketches all of our faces and writes beneath it, all of us can do it and do it well. We write the future is female and he sketches faces all around it on a small sheet of paper. On my last piece, I write, Down With the Patriarchy in cursive handwriting. "I think I'll hand this to Principal Hays personally," I say and start to laugh hysterically. Maybe it's all the Coke and candy or maybe I just feel free and wild and like we're about to do something a little dangerous. "Wait, what are we going to do with these," Isaac asks sitting back to look at all the scraps of paper lying on the floor. "I have an idea," Jasmine says holding up a paper that reads, I Resolve To Protest and Rage Like a Girl. >> Renee Watson: "Walking the Streets of New York City", inspired by Henry Douglas and the Black Panther Party. Hello, men New York City. This is a teenage girl calling you again. A girl who walks past whistling men on my way to school, on my way from school, to and from everywhere I go. This is just to say I am not an object to call back to you like a yo-yo. Don't tug at me, pull me close. My body is not yours for taking, grabbing, slapping, commenting on. I am not the quench for your thirst. Don't tell me to smile. Don't make my fatness your fetish. Don't tell me my fatness is your disdain. My body is not yours for taking, grabbing, slapping, commenting on. Let me walk in peace. Let my feet be graceful or not, be high-heeled or combat boot. Let my face be in deep thought or anger or laughter or just be. Let me be without trying to make meaning of who I am. Don't call me baby, ma, sexy. Don't rename me. You can't name what you do not own. You do not own my body. My body is not yours. This body. My body is perfect and imperfect and black and girl and big and thick hair and short legs and scraped knee and healed scar and heart beating and hands that hold and voice that bellows and feet that dance and the arms that embrace in my mama's eyes and my daddy's smile and my grandma's hope. And my body is masterpiece and my body is mine. >> Ellen Hagen: "Girlhood". Noun. One. The state or time of being a girl as in, when I was. As in, used to be and not one anymore. As in, don't tell me who I am, how to act, what to say, who I'll be. As in, an infusion of cherry bomb, red bomb, lemon-lime explosion, sea of honey bun, clip-on, bubble gum, soda pop, purple rainbow, eyeshadow, lip gloss, blush, brush, unicorn, tye-died, diamond crusted necklaces, scarves that shimmer, shine. The whole outrageous girlish, coquettish, sparkling doll house. As in, girlhood you make me race forward. Pop culture raining down streamers of tutus and gloves with emojis. Heart necklaces to best friends, lockets and lace and hold on tight. You make me see myself tiarad and sculp-molded. Make me see myself in ribboned bows. Two. "Girls Collectively". The nation's girlhood as in Girl Scouts, girls of a certain status, the girls twirled, the sorority girls, class act girls, girls on fire, the smart girls, the brainy girls, the bad girls, the good girls. As in, why does everything anchor toward glitter? As in, you can't mass-market us. Fit us in a bubble, feed us chewing gum and lies. As in, we see the way you watch us. As in, let us tell you who we want to be. As in, back up. As in, you won't forget us. As in, watch us shut it down. As in, watch us break it loose. As in, watch us rise. >> Renee Watson: Thank you [applause]. >> Monica Valentine: So, we have a few minutes for questions. If anyone would like to ask a question there are two mics in the aisle. You can come. Feel free to ask a question and we can be in conversation with you for a little bit. >> So, I like your material. And I wonder did you always kind of express your thoughts using poetry or prose or did it just kind of, you wake up one day and said, I got a way to say this [laughter]. >> Monica Valentine: Do you want to talk? >> Ellen Hagen: Sure. No, I think I've been, you know, I kept a journal pretty seriously from the time I was seventh grade and I was always thinking and I had some amazing teachers who introduced me to Sonia Sanchez and Nikki Giovanni and people who I didn't know, you could write poems that talked about your body or how you felt or what was happening in the world. And I think that cracked something open for me at that age. And poetry felt like it was healing and it felt like I could explore all my emotions and how I was feeling in the real world in my journal. So, I've been, I mean, I've been writing poems that sort of sound a little like Chelsea for a long time. That felt like a safe place for me. >> Renee Watson: Yes. I write poetry prose. I've always done both and loved both. And I think that when we decided to write this book together we wanted to blend those things. We worked a lot with young people teaching them poetry. And we've mentored young girls. And so, we've seen young people raise their voices and use poetry as a way to kind of talk back to the world and to put their stories on record. So, we wanted to honor the young people that we work with by making sure poetry was a part of the novel. >> Ellen Hagan: Yeah. >> Renee Watson: Thank you for your question. Yes. >> I was curious if you could talk a little bit about your process collaborating and writing the book together? >> Ellen Hagen: Sure. >> Renee Watson: Sure. So, Ellen and I, guess we should say we're friends in real life. So, this collaboration process also worked really well because we know each other and trust each other and mutually respect each other's craft. So, when we decided to write together it was easier for us to come up with what to write about. And I would go to Ellen's house every time we wrote. We wrote the whole book together sitting in the same room. We had a list of like scenes that we wanted to write. I did all of Jasmine, she did all of Chelsea. And so, we'd set a timer, we'd write and then we'd face each other and read. And like, you know, share what I just wrote, she'd share and then we'd talk. Like, okay. Well if Jasmine just did that, Chelsea should do this in the next chapter. We just kept building like that. There was very little that we did on our own in separate spaces. We wrote the whole book together. >> Ellen Hagan: And it's funny because there's been a couple of people who've asked us in interviews, what was the biggest fight about or what did you most disagree? We're like, nothing, I don't know, what we're going to have for lunch [laughter]. I don't know. I was like, we, I mean, I think because we were -- you know, actually we did say one of our biggest struggles -- sometimes we'd get together and we'd talk for about an hour plus. And we'd be like we only have another hour to write so. Because we were thinking about the world and what was happening or we were talking about, you know, jobs or work or what was happening that we'd just read about or seen on the news. So, I think that was the most special part of it is that we got to spend so much time together that was work but it was also, you know, we just like spending time with each other so, yeah. >> Renee Watson: Thank you. >> Hi. I just wanted to know what like inspired you two to come together and write a book like on this topic? Because I know it's very like up-and-coming like now but like, you know, what inspired you, hey let's write about girls rising up? >> Ellen Hagen: I think we've been having this conversation for a long time. You know, we have, because we've taught young people we are often in conversation with them about what do they care about, what's happening in the world? You know, we talk a lot about how women are represented in the media, what they look like on magazines, we taught a lot of lessons that break down, what the media tells us we're supposed to be like and what our responses to it. So, I think this has been something that has been sort of bubbling up for us. I have two daughters and I'm always thinking about, what are the messages out there and we wanted to create nuanced real representations of girls, figuring out what they wanted to say, and figuring out how to speak back to those media representations. >> Renee Watson: Yeah. We had this idea in 2015. And really just practically speaking didn't have the time to write it for various reasons. So, it just happened that once we started working on the book it was a national conversation that was going on also so the timing was perfect in that way. But we have definitely been thinking about and talking about these issues for our whole careers, I feel. We've always put girls at the center of the conversation and we wanted to reflect, we wanted that to be reflected in the book. Yes. >> Hi. What inspired you to, you know, make a book about girls and then girls in color. Like, what was the mindset you had? >> Renee Watson: Yes. So, the young girls that I meet and work with, the girls in my family, my nieces, I wanted them to feel seen and validated. Especially black girls who sometimes aren't a part of the feminist conversation, who have all these expectations of what a strong girl is and are you being too bossy, too angry black girl, is your dark skin beautiful, is your hair texture okay, all of that stuff. I wanted girls who look like Jasmine who are big, or who are brown to have somebody in a book that represents them, that does not have low self-esteem, that isn't trying to change herself, that isn't struggling with, you know, feeling like she's not good enough. She surprised me. She's very bold and brave in ways that I'm not and in ways that I was not when I was in high school. So, I really wanted young girls, especially young black girls to have that representation in Jasmine's character. >> Monica Valentine: I think we have five minutes. >> Renee Watson: Yeah. So, do these last two? >> Monica Valentine: Yeah. >> So, I teach eighth grade reading and I teach eighth grade readers I should say and I just want to say thank you because we need books like Watch Us Rise and Piecing Me Together and all the other books. We need those books to feed our kids so that their brains can grow in the right way to know what they need to do and what they can do. So, I wanted to say thank you because you have no idea. I have letters from kids that after reading your books they feel empowered. And that, I'm getting like teary and I don't even do that. They feel empowered especially my young women. Strong independent women who don't feel so strong and independent and then they read your books and they are. So, I guess I do have a question and it's a question they would ask me is when is the next book [laughter] coming out? >> Renee Watson: Well the next book for me comes out on Tuesday. >> Ellen Hagen: Yeah. No, it's pre-ordered, five copies for the classroom library [laughter]. Yeah. << Renee Watson: Yes, so that's what -- my world is, thinking a lot about Some Places More Than Others which, yea. Comes out on Tuesday. >> Ellen Hagen: I've a book of poems coming out in fall of 2020 and then a middle grade novel and verse called "Book of Questions" at the moment from Bloomsberry in winter 2021. So, soonish. >> Renee Watson: Soonish. >> I will let them know because that will be their question and then they'll look at me annoyed if I don't have the answer [laughter]. So, thank you. >> Renee Watson: Thank you. >> Monica Valentine: I think we have time for this -- >> Renee Watson: One last question and then we'll end. >> Thank you. I wanted to know how much of these characters were based on yourselves as teenagers, the girls you work with, or more of like an idealized version of who you wished you were and who you wanted to become? >> Ellen Hagan: I think, yes, sometimes Chelsea was a little like me. A little over the top, a little too much in your face. Yes, that was true for me and still and maybe now. But I also, I think there's two students in particular who I teach, who I have a close relationship with and see them navigating the world of high school in ways that are both big and then they're vulnerable and they're in your face and they're, you know, I wanted those two things to exist for Chelsea to be. She's complicated, she is figuring it out. She thinks she knows it all and then she gets taken down. So, both things. A little bit based on me and a little bit based on the young people I -- and I can see it my younger daughter too. My older is a little more reserved but the younger one is. I'm nervous [laughter]. >> Renee Watson: I think both, mostly the young people I've worked with. Especially, we really focus a lot on the boys in the book, too. I want to shout out Isaac who I think is a good example for our young people of what masculinity can be. What healthy dating can look like and all of that. So, we thought a lot about those characters, too. And I wanted boys to see themselves in this book who are maybe more quiet and who are the artists, not the basketball player but still can be, you know, a popular kid. And so, yeah, we thought a lot about the kids we work with and then the real-life people that I know. Yeah, for sure. >> Monica Valentine: Thank you so much. >> Ellen Hagen: Thank you all. >> Monica Valentine: For being with us this morning [applause]. >> Renee Watson: Thank you. >> Monica Valentine: Enjoy the festival.