[Upbeat music]
>> Meg Mediana: Today I'm 
talking with Elizabeth Acevedo,
who wrote this book and
this book and this book.
Hi, Liz.
I'm so glad you're here today.
It's a pleasure to have you
here at the library.
Thanks for coming.
>> Elizabeth Acevedo:
Thank you for having me. I'm so
excited to talk with you.
>> Meg Mediana:
So one thing I've asked
everybody is to bring a book
they love and to talk to me
about it for about a minute.
So what did you bring me?
>> Elizabeth Acevedo:
So I brought you
"Juliet Takes a
Breath" by Gabby Rivera.
This is the story of Juliet
Palante, and she is this amazing
Puerto Rican young woman being
raised in the Bronx who is queer
and trying to figure out her
place in the world and in her
family, and decides that she
has to go to Portland, Oregon,
to do so. And she meets an
amazing librarian, and she's an
intern for an author, and she's
kind of, like, transplanted
herself across the country
thinking that will provide
clarity. And it really only
provides more questions.
And I love the way this
character moves through the
world. I love the way it's
written and that there's like a
tenderness and empathy for that
stage in life when you're like,
I just want to find my people
and my place and feel at home in
my body. And I think Gabby
Rivera does an incredible job
of helping Juliet ask
those questions.
>> Meg Mediana:
Oh my gosh, I do love that book.
Was there a scene, one that you
remember in that book that
really stood out to you, that
made you want to pick
that book for today?
>> Elizabeth Acevedo:
There's a scene where Julia is
meeting Harlow, who's the author
that she's interning for, and
she meets one of Harlow's
friends who this incredible
Black feminist woman, like this
hipsy hipster.
And I love the interactions
around race and gender and
sexuality that happen in that
moment that nothing is
cookie cutter. None of the
characters are easy.
And it this moment where we let
a teen character have to just
grapple with the adults I'm
interacting with are giving me a
lot of information, and I'm the
only one who can determine what
I want to do with it.
And it felt so honest and like
it really let young people...
it trusted their ability to
discern
who they needed in their life.
>> Meg Mediana: Yeah.
What were you like as a teen?
I've always been so curious.
Like, were you a reader?
Well, like, what was...
where did
you grow up and what were you
like as a reader and as a
young person?
>> Elizabeth Acevedo: I was born
and raised in New York City.
Right. A neighborhood
adjacent to Harlem called
Morningside Heights
and I was a reader.
Yes, I was a reader.
I would everyone would be
kicking in and I'm like,
"I'm going to the library, bye" 
like, I love the library.
I loved my books.
There was an escape
even as a young person that I
think I needed.
And books kind of
let me just dive in for
hours and be in a world
that offered so much.
>> Meg Mediana:
So your work is you write in
prose and poetry, but I want to
talk to you a little bit about
poetry, because that's how you
first came in to writing spoken
word and so on.
So how did you discover the
power of spoken word and
poetry as a young person?
>> Elizabeth Acevedo:
It started with song and then
rap and then poetry, and
eventually just realizing that
I had navigated through a lot of
ways of encapsulating language
and that maybe I
could stretch in and out of
all these different modes. Yeah.
>> Meg Mediana:
How have you managed
to write
something so specific
and that is at the same time,
so completely universal?
>> Elizabeth Acevedo:
So much of reading
is about wonder, right?
And it's about what the reader
brings.
I don't know if this happens to
you. There have been books I've
started. I'm like, this book is
wack.
I don't like this book. I'm not
into it.
Right? And then two years
later, I'm like, everybody loves
this thing. I'm gonna try it
again. And I try it again.
I'm like, what was I thinking?
The book hasn't changed, right?
It was me and it was what I was
bringing.
And so I think that oftentimes
readers are coming with this
hunger to understand their
families or certain members or
dynamics or dysfunction, and
then they see this lens that is
so close to the heart because
it often is verse.
Most of my books have been in
verse and it's about the
interior, and I think they find
that what they're bringing
almost like illuminates the
text.
Right. And so it's partly
me, but I think it's partly that
my readers want to be
vulnerable.
They want to be open, and they
want to find
pathways towards
understanding family.
>> Meg Mediana:
Liz, tell me something you think
is true about growing up.
>> Elizabeth Acevedo:
I think it is true that it can
be hard to figure out what your
place is especially when
you're in the stage where you
are still maybe treated as a
child in certain instances, but
also expected to be able to
have young adulthood or adult
like tendencies in other
instances.
Right. You're a young woman,
you don't behave like that.
But then also, you're a kid.
You're not allowed to like that
crux of what am I,
how do I move through the
world with my own thoughts and
opinions and ideas and speak
those out and also accept
that maybe I don't know
everything or that this person
has more experience, or they're
telling me they have more
experience and I have to contend
with that. Do I believe them
right, that they know
better? And that I
think causes a lot of tension.
And I don't know if it's
because for me, my memory of
being 13, 14, 12 was so hard or
because I taught that age.
And so I got to see, oh, this
is someone who is in the middle
of a transition of like, I was
little a year ago, I was a sixth
grader, I was smaller or fifth
grader, and now I'm a teen and
I'm expected to do certain
things.
And so that in-betweenness
the difficulty of that
in-betweenness and of that age,
I think it's just true.
It is a hard age hormonally,
right, mentally,
psychologically, physically.
And so all of
those things in
turmoil at once.
I think it is true that it
could just be really confusing.
>> Meg Mediana:
Liz, it has been such a joy
to have you here.
This archive wouldn't have been
complete without your voice, and
I'm so grateful that you came.
Thanks for sitting with me and
chatting.
>> Elizabeth Acevedo: Thank you. 
It means so much to me, Meg.
It was a pleasure.