>> From the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
>> Ellen Oh: Welcome to the first Walter D. Meyers Award Ceremony
for Outstanding Children's Literature.
My name is Ellen Oh, and I am honored to be the President and CEO
of We Need Diverse Books.
[ Cheering ]
[ Applause ]
Although the We Need Diverse Books organization is less
than two years old, the idea behind it is not a new one.
There have been many advocates championing the need
for diverse books in children's literature for decades.
We walk in the footsteps of giants.
All that we do builds upon the life work of authors, teachers,
librarians, editors, advocates,
many of whom are sitting right here in this room.
But it was Mr. Myers last [inaudible] piece
in the New York Times where other people of color in children's books
that became the catalyst for the We Need Diverse Books campaign.
A rallying cry that brought together advocates from all over the country.
And the world responded with a loud and collective roar
that could not be ignored.
I am so honored to be here today to celebrate Mr. Myers legacy
by recognizing a new generation of outstanding authors and their books.
And I am proud and grateful to have Mrs. Myers
and Christopher Myers here to be a part of this momentous event.
Thank you so much.
[ Applause ]
Also with us today are some of the important people
in Water Dean Myers life, like Miriam Altshuler,
his long time agent and his editors FBA, Medina Griffin [phonetic],
Andrea Davis Pigmey [phonetic], and Rosemary Brosman [phonetic],
and Barbara Marcus [phonetic],
who most recently published his Random House books
and was his marketer over his scholastic books, too.
So, thank you for coming to Washington,
D.C. also to celebrate with us.
And, of course, I have to say that we wouldn't be
in this beautiful room if it wasn't for our friends here at the Library
of Congress, all the wonderful staff at the Young Reader's Center
and the Center for the Book, most particularly, John Cole,
Karen Jaffey [phonetic], and Kaheem Mohammad [phonetic].
Now, I have the great pleasure of introducing you
to the acting Librarian of Congress, David Mao.
David Mao oversees the entire library
and its various service units to ensure that the library service
to Congress and the American people are provided effectively.
He previously served as deputy Librarian of Congress
and the 23rd law Librarian of Congress, too.
So, please welcome David Mao.
>> David Mao: Thank you so much, Ellen,
and good morning to all of you.
Welcome to the Library of Congress.
I'm very happy to be able to be here
for this very special occasion today.
Our nation's diversity, of course,
is one of the greatest strengths that we have here.
And so I think that diversity should be reflected in all
of the books that our children read.
Now, the Library of Congress we're, as you probably know,
the world's largest library and we have what we
like to call our Universal Collection.
And it's universal in that we not only have books,
but we have a variety of other materials, including films,
photographs, manuscripts, sound recordings, just to name a few.
In our children's collection, alone,
we have more than 500,000 children's books and other related items.
Now, these books are on every subject imaginable.
And we welcome visitors to our Young Reader's Center
so that they can touch, read, and really enjoy these materials.
And so I'm really delighted today that the Young Reader's Center,
which is administered by the Library Congress Center
for the Book is a sponsor for this event.
And you heard of our very wonderful, Dr. John Cole,
who has led the Library Congress Center for the Book
for very many, many years.
And so thank you, John, for making arrangements for this.
Now, since 2008 the Librarian of Congress has also appointed
and offered to serve as the Library's national ambassador
for young people's literature.
And this person, he or she,
travels around the country promoting literacy and raising awareness
of its impact on the education and the development and betterment
of the lives of young people.
So, we are very, very fortunate to have Walter Dean Myers serve
as that ambassador from 2012 to 2013.
His platform was, Reading Is Not Optional.
And so this newly established Walter Award highlights the importance
of publishing books in which children
of all backgrounds can see themselves
and honor Walter's commitment to literacy.
And we're also very delighted
that we can have our very first ambassador with us, Jon Scleszka,
who is sitting here in the front row to be here
to celebrate this important award.
I want to thank We Need Diverse Books for its work
in promoting the best in children's literature
and for recognizing Walter Dean Myers for his devotion
to writing books that enrich the lives of young people
and for his outreach to a population at risk.
And it's now my pleasure to introduce Dhonielle Clayton,
Chief Operating Officer of We Need Diverse Books.
She's the co-chair of the Walter Award judge's panel.
Dhonielle, who is an author herself, is also co-founder of Cake Literary,
a boutique book development company.
So, please join me in welcoming Dhonielle Clayton.
[ Applause ]
>> Dhonielle Clayton: I'm absolutely thrilled to be here today
with my co-chair, Kathy Weinberg [phonetic] representing the
inaugural Walter Award judging committee.
The 11 member committee had the pleasure
of reading young adult novels that followed characters
through perilous worlds, their first heartbreaks,
and the search for their true selves.
But three submissions stood out.
It's hard to get 11 people to agree on anything,
but these three special books kind of rose to the top
and were unmistakable in their emotional resonance.
As the committee discussed these books, I also test them
out in my own library with my students.
I gave them copies, especially to my most spirited ones,
the ones that say, "Oh, I hate to read."
And then something magical happened, they started to get in trouble
in class because they wouldn't stop reading
and transition to class work.
They had fallen into these three books
and I think that's the most important quality.
And the judges got it right.
And when I saw them reading those books, I knew that
and I knew our committee was on the right path.
And someone who knows kids really well that I want
to introduce is Jon Scleszka.
He's the first ever national ambassador
for young people's literature by the Librarian of Congress
and the Children's Book Council.
As the ambassador, Scleszka toured the country to raise awareness
about the importance of children's literature
and his books were also stolen in droves from my library.
So, I think he's the most important person to come
up here and talk about it.
Thanks.
[ Applause ]
>> Jon Scleszka: Wow!
I don't think I've ever had
that compliment before, but I'll take that.
[ Laughter ]
Walter told me when I first met him,
maybe it wasn't the first time I met him, but it's this thing
that just hit me like a lightning bolt when I met Walter,
and he said what became the end of his essay in the times.
It is, "We need to do work."
And that thing just felt like it got chiseled
in my soul when he told it to me.
It was a moment that I think has got us where we are right now,
which is the most exciting thing.
'Cause Walter was a guy who was not that much of a talker.
I mean, he could do the talk, but I loved him for being the doer.
He was the guy who actually did things.
He's the guy who changed my life when we talked
about being the ambassador, going places.
And we did the usual places like to be on T.V. with Martha Stewart,
maybe not such a great thing.
A little entertaining, but Walter said,
"You know where we're supposed to be?
In schools, they never see an author.
We're supposed to be in the prisons."
And he would go to those places.
He got me into those places.
And it just shook me.
It was like, these are both like the most inspirational places
and the most heartbreaking all rolled into one.
And it's the work we're doing right now, which is so exciting
because we're making a difference.
And this is the difference we need to make.
I kind of love that this is Walter still living.
This is him right now, right here.
How great is the [inaudible]?
Just name him Walter.
When I heard that I said, "Oh, man, give me some of that."
[ Laughter ]
And I know that he influenced the lives of these guys.
I know when Jason and Brendan had been around,
they did the same thing.
They've been into prisons here.
They've been into the schools that never see us.
And we're that possibility just by walking in.
And I think that's what Diverse Books is going to be all
about in the best way, despite what we're reading
in the newspapers everyday about some people's hand size.
Please, dear God, let's not -- I'm sorry I even mentioned that.
Let's not think about that ever.
Too late, I just planted that.
[ Laughter ]
That's bad.
But we got to go better.
We gotta go positive.
It's up to us to change things.
We are the leaders now.
We'll show people how it's done.
We'll all follow what Walter told us to do.
So, I just want to leave you with that.
Let's hear from the winners here.
Congratulations you guys.
[ Applause ]
This is so exciting.
And I'll just leave you with that.
We need to do work.
Let's do that.
All right, who gets to talk next?
Let's send somebody else over here.
John Cole, do we need to hear from you?
Chris. How about some from Chris?
[ Cheering ]
>> Christopher Myers: How are you guys doing?
So, what does it mean then to do the work?
I'll try to get off here soon because I want
to see the [inaudible] concept.
[ Laughter ]
What does it mean to do the work?
You know, you're in this place, this institution, it's so beautiful,
it's so peaceful, as so many libraries are.
These like places of peacefulness.
And I've spent years trying to think, "Well,
why are libraries so calm in that way?"
And I realized that it's because on all the shelves, in every book,
is a fight, that there's an argument being had.
And really it's got to be peaceful in here
because we are surrounded by arguments.
We are surrounded by fights.
And those fights are a gift to us.
These are the fights that our nation was built on.
This kind of -- have you ever read the Federalist papers?
You see these intense arguments as to how we should know the nation.
Our nation is built on fights.
So, don't, for a moment, see yourself in this beautiful,
beautiful, peaceful institution, but imagine yourself on fight night.
[ Laughter ]
Imagine yourself in a room full of fans
and blood thirsty savage wanters, people who want to see blood.
Because this is who we are amongst, we are fighters.
Everybody here in this room is a fighter of some sort.
Imagine the weigh-in, imagine the crowd,
imagine my father who loved a good fight.
When we fight, we're asking questions.
We're asking important questions.
And this is not a straw dog fight of imagined enemies.
No, we have real questions and real respected opponents that we want
to have discussions with, that we want to engage with.
We want to try to change minds and hearts.
That's what a real fight is about.
And that's what every one of these authors,
every one of these librarians, every one of these teachers,
every one of these publishers, this is what we do, we fight.
We fight for things we believe in.
We ask questions.
We ask, "What does it mean to be behind barbed wire at Manzanar?"
"What does it mean to perform at a Yiddish theatre
in the lower east side and listen to jazz records at night?"
We ask, "What does it mean to protest in Ferguson?"
That's what the work that John was mentioning.
That's what it looks like.
It looks like these fights.
What does it mean to be in a tiny boat as it comes up on the shore
on the beginning of the new life in the United States?
What does it mean to hear the first bricks being thrown a stonewall
and hear your name in the crash of the glass?
We are fighters here.
And this is where the fights happen in our exchange of ideas,
in the discussions that we have.
And so whether you're fighting an acquisitions committee to say,
"This book needs to be published."
Whether you're fighting to get books into the hands
of children and you're a librarian.
Whether you're WNDB fighting to have more fights in the world
to have access to the arena of fighting.
Whether you're an author of fighting a stack of words
to get in the right order.
I know a little bit about fights.
I watched dad fight.
I fight. And I'm so excited to be part of this fight, this discussion.
And I'm excited to honor the fighters
that have fought a good fight in these books.
[ Laughter ]
So, yeah, so let's get that going.
The first person we would like to honor is Margarita Engle.
You talk about a fight.
You talk about wings.
You talk about a fight of two cultures.
Cultures fighting inside us and how much that gives us, that fight,
that battle inside us, which is, in the end, the most important fight.
You have Cuba.
You have the United States.
You have the -- what could be imagined as a fight,
but it's really a liberation because all of these discussions
in the end yield liberation for us all.
And so, Margarita Engle, for "Enchanted Air: Two Cultures,
Two Wings, a Memoir", thank you.
[ Applause ]
>> Margarita Engle: Thank you.
Gracias. Gracias por Dios.
I am so incredibly grateful to We Need Diverse Books.
Sorry. I'm not -- I'm down here.
I forgot. I forgot I was here in the race of giants.
[ Laughter ]
The fight of giants.
Yes. I'm so incredibly grateful.
The Walter Award Committee, my editor, Rayka Simonson [phonetic],
Justin Chanda, Candice Green, McManus
and the whole [inaudible] Simon and Schuster publishing team, thank you,
and to the Library of Congress for hosting us.
In his how to book, "Just Write",
Walter Dean Myers instructed, "Be brave."
Writing a memoir does require courage
because childhood memories can be excruciating.
And bringing them back to life is terrifying.
Showing them to strangers is especially intimidating.
Showing them to family members is even scarier.
That is precisely why this honor means so much
because being misunderstood is a writer's worse nightmare.
And being understood is the greatest joy.
I wrote "Enchanted Air" at a time when there was no public glimmer
of hope for renewed relations between my parents' homelands.
During the same week when advanced review copies arrived
on my doorstep, President Obama announced the fall
in cold war hostility.
I promised I wouldn't cry.
I take it back.
[ Laughter ]
My childhood memories written as a plea for peace
and reconciliation were suddenly transformed
into a song of gratitude.
And I'll tell you why I wrote them as a plea for peace
because I thought no U.S. President would ever have the courage
to make peace with Cuba.
And I wrote it for children because I thought, "Well,
maybe one of these little people will grow up
and be courageous enough."
I hope it is a book that will not just speak to Latinos
with their wide variety of reasons for being able to visit,
Abuelita y los primos, but also to readers from other backgrounds
who might feel like a bridge or a storm for any reason.
But instead of the poem about how I felt a bridge of the storm,
or a storm, I've decided to read, "Refuge" on page 54
because we're in this amazing library.
And this poem tells how I came to be a writer.
We first took time right after my family was interrogated by the FBI
for receiving phone calls and mail from my grandmother in Cuba.
The ugliness of war photos and the uncertainty
of TV news joined the memory of FBI questions to make me feel
like climbing into my own secret world, books are enchanted.
Books help me travel.
Books help me breathe.
When I climb a tree, I take a book with me.
When I walk home from school, I carry my own poems inside my mind
where no one else can reach the words
that are entirely, completely forever mine.
I hope Enchanted AIR might help to inspire some young people to write
about their own lives and their own feelings, and to find refuge.
When I was a teenager it was easier for a U.S. citizen to walk
on the moon than to visit relatives in Cuba.
Today it's not front page news because peace is rarely celebrated
by the 21st century media, but yesterday direct mail service
between Cuba and the U.S. resumed after more than half a century.
And on Monday President Obama will go to Havana [inaudible]
around a U.S. president was courageous.
[ Applause ]
And I'm especially happy that he's going to do ordinary things
in Havana, like attend the baseball game
and treat a neighboring country as a friend.
Thank you, Gracias, y Gracias a Dios.
Thank you for this amazing honor and for its perfect timing.
[ Applause ]
>> The next honoree is --
>> It's you.
[ Laughter ]
Here are [inaudible].
[ Laughter ]
>> [inaudible].
[ Applause ]
>> This is the first Walter Award, so we haven't worked everything out.
[ Laughter ]
The next honorees, they talk about a fight that so many of us have grown
up knowing about, but give us new perspectives.
There's the fight within someone, you know, and for me growing up,
Malcolm was that paragon of somebody who was brave enough
to fight with themselves.
There's one part towards the end of the book where they give a list
of names, and this moment of saying, "I need to choose my own name."
That is the biggest fight.
That is one of the fights that we're excited to participate in.
And so we're very, very honored to honor Kekla Magoon
and Ilyasah Shabazz for "X".
[ Applause ]
>> Kekla Magoon: Well, first to Walter Dean Myers family.
God bless you.
He continues to inspire me personally,
and I would imagine Ilyasah, but she can speak for herself.
To We Need Diverse Books, God bless you for even recognizing these books
and the importance of acknowledging the diversity in our country.
I mean, this is the melting pot of all nations.
To Candlewick, what a phenomenal group of people to work with.
It's such an honor to be in this place.
To be fellow, I don't know if you're fellow, I mean, to the winners.
[ Laughter ]
Congratulations.
You know, a long time ago, I was in [inaudible]
with a lot of young girls.
And I said, "Hey, where do you want to go?"
They wanted to go to Barnes & Noble, when Barnes & Noble was big.
And so I said, "Okay.
Yeah." So we go to Barnes & Noble and I said,
"Pick out whatever book you want."
And they brought these books to me and I looked at them,
and I had young girls of color, and it was very difficult for me
to buy a book for them because I wanted them to open up the book
and see themselves in it, and have a nice reflection of themselves.
And so I set out to write a children's book.
And then my father's young journey,
his adolescent journey was so misunderstood.
He came from a family of activists.
They instilled specific values in him that he could grow up
and become this, you know, great humanitarian
that would circle the globe, just in his 30's, a very young man.
Circle the globe in his 60's searing for solutions to the unit condition
that would want to afflict any kind of trauma, psychological pain,
challenge to expel our brother just because of this color in their skin.
So, you know, I thought that his life was such an inspiration,
not only to myself and my family, but to so many young men
in adolescence in that they could read a book
and find themselves in it.
And that it would celebrate their leadership,
their purpose, their lives.
And so I was so fortunate and I searched high and low
for so many different co-writers.
And I came across this amazing woman, this amazing sister,
and we were able to do, you know,
I think a pretty good job, and well, obviously.
Right.
[ Laughter ]
With "X" the novel, I think it's just, you know,
so important that our young people recognize the power
that -- their individual power.
That they recognize their leadership.
That they recognize all of the things
that will help our country be the best that it can possibly be.
So, I personally am so happy and honored, and I thank you
so much for this [inaudible].
[ Applause ]
>> Ilyasah Shabazz: Hello.
I guess the first thing is, thank you for choosing me
to work with you all on this.
It was so exciting to have this opportunity,
and a little bit daunting to have the opportunity to try to think
from the perspective of someone like Malcolm X who has helped us
as a leader and a humanitarian, and he's celebrated
and remembered 50 years after his death.
And so that, you know, that task is a little bit daunting, you know,
and quite an honor to be a part of.
One of the things we ran up against in pitching the book
and selling the book was the question of,
"Why do you need this story", right.
We all know Malcolm X's story,
but we don't all know Malcolm X's story, which is another story.
But we know what happens, right?
We know how it turns out.
We know who he becomes, you know, why do we need something
that looks inside his head when he was a young man.
And, you know, where is the suspense, right?
Where is the pretension, right, in that story, because we know it
so well as a society in theory.
But one of the things we talked a lot
about as we were working was it's easy
to tell the story from hindsight, right.
It's easy to look back and say, "Oh,
you know Malcolm X was this great humanitarian.
He was perhaps destined to be that, and we don't know."
But when he was 14 he had no idea, right, who he was going to become.
He had no idea what was next for him.
And he was making choices based on the fact
that everything felt really screwed up, everything was scary.
His family was being destroyed by all sorts of things,
including institutional racism.
And he was up against things he didn't understand and he had
to make choices in that moment and in
that space not knowing what was going to happen
for him and his life later.
And that, I think, is a message that we really wanted
to be included in this book.
That every young person when you're 14, and everything is screwed up,
like that doesn't mean that that's going to be the rest of your life.
You can make choices.
You have power.
You have the ability to decide, "Okay.
This is what it is today and this is what's tomorrow is going to be."
And so to be able to look at a story about Malcolm for every young man
to look at, the choices that he was making at that time,
but they're not the best choices all the time, right.
And to say,"Okay.
Look at how he turned out, right.
What if I can do something?
What if I can decide tomorrow I'm going to step up and be a person
who makes change in the world?"
That is something that, you know, kids don't always hear, right,
that you have power, that you can make choices,
that you can change your world.
And so, that was, you know,
what we hope readers will take from the book.
And, you know, I hope that, you know, people will continue
to read it and celebrate it and learn more about him.
I hope it's a gateway for people to learn about his life and work
and messages that he, you know, spoke 50 years ago
that are extremely relevant to our world today, unfortunately.
We definitely had an amazing team working with us [inaudible].
Our editor, Andrea Compa [phonetic] is brilliant as a reader,
and an editor ,and as a colleague, and friend.
And our publicist Jamie Tan [phonetic] has been amazing
at getting us exposure for the book and getting us out into the world
to talk about it and share it.
And we love the cover of the book.
And so we want to give a little shout out to Matt Roscher [phonetic]
who designed our book cover.
We get a lot of compliments on it.
It's pretty exciting.
But everyone at Candlewick worked together to bring this book
to life and make it what it is.
And so we're really grateful to be a part of that and to be here.
And thank you especially, of course, to We Need Diverse Books
for honoring the book, for creating this award, for allowing people
to have an opportunity to come together to demand what we need
for readers, and to be a voice for change because, you know,
it's not always one person.
It has to be a community that comes together.
We look at the heroes.
We look at the Malcolm X's and the Martin Luther King's,
the people who sit at the podium,
and that's not what's interesting about what they did.
What's interesting about what they did is how they inspired many,
many people to stand up.
And so we have that, our work and the work
of We Need Diverse Books can keep doing that for our children
and for readers everywhere.
Thank you so much.
[ Applause ]
>> You know I just want to say, sometimes when our young people are
in pain, right, they don't make the best decisions.
And that's what happened to my father.
He was in pain.
His father was gone, his mother was gone.
His teacher told him that he was an "N" word and there was no one
to say, "No, no, no, you're okay.
You're great."
We need the adults around us, right.
When we're in pain, we don't say,
"I'm going to go get the best education."
Usually when we're in pain, sometimes we say,
"I'm going to go have a drink.
I'm going to go smoke a cigarette.
I'm going to go do something that's self-destructive."
So, I cannot say how important it is that we need all of the adults,
all of us forward thinkers, smart, beautiful adults
to really invest in all of our children.
I cannot say that enough.
So thank you.
[ Applause ]
>> What Ilyasah says is so correct.
You know, with so many kids in pain and there's this thing of like,
they have these fights inside them.
They have these arguments going on about who they can be,
who they will be, who they want to be.
And history has this way of giving --
making the fights that go on inside us happen outside of us.
These last few years, of course, in the rise of Black Lives Matter,
we see a fight that is essential
to American identity happening all across the country.
And I'm really excited and proud to announce the winning Jason Reynolds
and Brendan Kiely for "All American Boys" of the first Walter
that articulates that fight in a very open way
on both sides of the equation.
This is a place full of fights.
This is a place full of conversations and they have it
in a book, and gave that book to the world, and we're very, very excited.
Congratulations.
[ Applause ]
>> All right.
[ Applause ]
>> Brendan Kiely: So, one thing I've learned in our process together
that I didn't know before is that I am Type A, and I have --
I have written down some words from my journey.
[ Laughter ]
But so, I just want to -- I want to say a few thanks and I want
to say a couple of words, especially given the idea that I love this idea
that these books are fights.
And I really appreciate the idea that we need to model
that fight for young people.
And I just really admire that.
And this is a tremendous honor to be here with everyone.
And for "All American Boys" to be recognized in the company
of these two powerful books,
to be part of the We Need Diverse Books movement
that I admire very much.
For the book to garner an award whose very name
and family fill this room with a legacy of artistic
and socially conscious vision and integrity.
This is truly humbling.
And a word like gratitude just falls short of how I feel.
I want to thank the award committee,
the executive team, and everyone at WNDB.
I almost said that.
But for the recognition of this book.
Wow! I'm going to do it again, too.
And for the magnitude of the work you all do everyday.
I also want to thank everyone at SNS for the hard work it took
to put this book together and get it out on shelves in record time.
And for all the work that is still going
on to remind folks why this book is important.
I especially want to thank Justin Chandiff [phonetic]
for his eagerness to make this book a reality
and Caitlyn Dewey [phonetic], the third writer of this book
who saw the sculpture in the stone and knew how
to guide our hands to get it there.
And most importantly, I want to thank Jason for trusting me
and a friendship for which I will forever be grateful
because as we always say, "If the friendship is a bust,
then the whole book and everything we fought for
and cared for is also a bust."
And "All American Boys" is not a bust.
It is the single most important thing I have been a part
of in my career, just
as your friendship is the single most important friendship
in my career.
I say career because my final thank you is to my wife,
Jessie Chafee [phonetic] whose friendship
and love are the most important in my life.
[ Laughter ]
But I'll just say this, that in "All American Boys", at first Quinn,
the white boy, runs away from the violence
or the injustice that he witnesses.
He runs away because as he begins to process any of it,
he may have to make significant changes in his life.
The system of law enforcement is unjust, but how can those of us
who have the privilege to ignore this ugly reality expect a system
that is unjust to change if we don't make the leap
to make the necessary changes we must make in ourselves?
This is one of the most dangerously powerful aspects of privilege,
the privilege to look away, to choose not to engage.
There's dangerous power in choosing to not tell a story.
The reason we must say Black Lives Matter,
and the reason we must say it everyday,
is because there are already too many missing people,
Tamir Rice [phonetic], Sandra Bland, Michael Brown.
And we cannot let their stories go missing, too.
We cannot.
And Quinn, a person of privilege,
must tell another part of the story, too.
We cannot have an institution that's systemically disenfranchises people
without also empowering others
to systematically benefit from that injustice.
Or put another way, an institution that historically
and systematically excludes some voices, necessarily empowers others
to be systematically included, or put more bluntly, published.
So, I say this with love because I want to --
I want love to beat and hone in my old, weathered, warn heart,
it's like an old Celtic skin drum.
That's my Irish background.
[ Laughter ]
And so I say this with a spirit of trying
to call us in, not call us out.
Just as the statistics clearly expose the injustice in the world
of law enforcement, the numbers are starkly apparent
in book publishing, too.
We need more diverse -- a more diverse workforce.
A more diverse array of book reviews and books reviewed.
And a much larger pool of diverse authors getting published regularly.
WNDB and others are calling for this institutional change
and we should all support them.
Institutions are made up of individuals, many of whom are
like Quinn, like me, people with privilege.
And I look to them to partner with WNDB
and change their institutions from within.
We cannot run away or turn our heads,
or hope that someone else will handle it.
It's on us, too.
White folk like me, straight folk like me, able-bodied folks like me,
[inaudible] gendered folks like me.
This is how we join a powerful movement WNDB is leading
in the industry.
We listen.
We partner and listen.
We listen some more and then we get out there
and help make the change we know in our hearts must come.
So, I thank everybody at WNDB for this award, for the recognition
and support of all American boys, and I thank them and cheer them
for their bravery, their leadership, and their vision.
Thank you for pushing the world of publishing to become its best self.
Thank you.
[ Applause ]
>> Jason Reynolds: So, it's interesting.
I've been thinking a lot about, sort of, obviously,
about diversity leading up to this award.
And usually when we talk about diversity, we talk about sort
of what we see in the landscape.
When we look out into the world, what do we see.
When we look onto our bookshelves
in this particular context, what do we see?
But I feel like there's another part of diversity
or even whenever we're thinking about anything outside or ourselves,
I think it's always necessary to take a moment to think
about [inaudible] ourselves.
And so I've been thinking a lot about who I am lately,
perhaps this quarter life.
Some sort of quarter life crisis thing happening.
But I've been really trying to hash out, like who it is that I am.
What it is that I stand for and what makes up me.
And I -- everyday I'm realizing more and more that I am an amalgam
of the people that I've met.
That I'm an amalgam of the experiences that I've had.
That I am, you know, pieces of my mother, who is here.
And everybody who knows me knows, you all know she's in the room
[ Applause ]
You know, pieces of my mother.
I mean, my mother, you know, she gave me sort of the sense of pride,
both kinds of pride, you know, the kind that sometimes
to a fault keeps me from asking for help.
And the kind that allows me to put my chest out a little bit
and hold my head up and walk the earth like I'm God's child, right.
Walk the earth like I'm Isabel's child.
And my father, who I don't talk about much, you know,
I have pieces of him, you know, his fearlessness.
A man in the 60's and 70's who was covered
in tattoos, which was unheard of.
A man who has always taken his life by the reigns
and done whatever he wants to do, whenever he wants to do it.
My best friend in the world is here and I would be remiss
if I didn't say something to him and he would let me know.
[ Laughter ]
My dear friend Ann Anisia [phonetic] I've known for 30 years.
And I think about him and how I'm amalgam.
And he's part of that amalgam, you know.
A friendship for my entire life.
We are so different.
Two totally different people who have forged a friendship based
on respect and love even as we've grown into our individual selves,
not always seeing eye-to-eye,
but always connecting heart-to-heart no matter what, forever and ever.
To my first husband --
[ Laughter ]
-- Brendan here.
I'm sorry, Jessie --
[ Laughter ]
to have to share him.
You know, but I tell people all the time that, you know,
I come from a family, especially my mother.
I come from a family, my mother is from the south,
our household was rooted and steep in our culture.
I'm very proud of that.
But it's an incredible experience to work and stand next to a person
who is outside of that cultural community and look at him and know
for a fact that he is the best of what humanity has to offer.
It's a good thing.
Even my mother who in finding out that I was writing this book
with him, and I'm going to put your business out there.
[ Laughter ]
But he already knows.
The first thing she said was, "Who is this guy?
What's going on?"
[ Laughter ]
The scars of the south heavy on her.
And then she started reading the book and she called me and said,
"Now, let me get this straight, did you write all of Rashad
and he wrote Quinn or did he write some of Rashad?"
And I said, "No, I wrote all of Rashad."
And she said, "Oh, okay, I was getting ready to say,
ain't no way that he could have known --
[ Laughter ]
And I was like, "Yeah, you know."
And then at the end of the book she calls me and she says, "You know,
Jason, I'm just so proud of Brendan."
Which is funny.
Which is funny in that she didn't say she was proud of me.
[ Laughter ]
But it's powerful -
[ Laughter ]
-- in the sense that she came full circle, right.
Brendan was into the circle of trust now.
I'm an amalgam of the people that I've met
and the places that I've been.
I'm an amalgam of all these young people that --
the young people that are locked away in juvenile detention centers
that none of you ever have to think about.
The ones who are doing 18, 19 year sentences at 15 years old.
The ones who come to me when I'm there and ask me, "Mr. Jason,
they all keep telling me I have to change.
They all keep telling me I have
to make different decisions with my life.
But every decision I've ever made,
I've made because I thought it was the right decision."
For the little girl in Philly.
When Brendan and I were in Philadelphia, who came to me
and said, "Mr. Jason, has there ever been a moment
where you just wish you could change the color or your skin?"
She's there.
For the young lady in Germany who I met two days ago who said,
"Mr. Jason, do you know what it's like to know
that every single person in the world when they think
of Germany they only think of Hitler?"
And for me to in that moment wish that that little girl
in Philly could know that little girl in Germany
because they're the same.
They're experiencing the same thing.
I'm an amalgam of the people that I've met.
You know, Chris Myers, my --
people know we have a very tight relationship
and I'm grateful for him.
He's fueled my curiosity in a way that not any human being has ever.
I've learned so much about refugee boats and African billionaires,
and Vietnamese embroidery artists.
[ Laughter ]
I mean he knows everything.
[ Laughter ]
Everything.
To the young people that I met in Tucson.
To Michael Brown and his family.
I'm an amalgam of all of these things.
And what I've learned after thinking about all of this,
is I realized that the diversity that we have to be discussing
as we discuss the diversity that is existing on the outside,
is that there's also the fact that we need to have as many stories
as possible to appeal to the diversity on the inside of us,
each and every one of us individually.
I am not [inaudible].
There isn't one kind of me.
I am all of the people, an amalgam of the people that I've met
and the experiences that I've had.
My hope, and I know WNDB's hope, is that I can write as many books
as I can, not for any solo book to serve as some sort of mantle
for some young person, but so that a collection of books can serve
as a metaphor for who they are sliver by sliver, right.
That you can like all the things and do all the things.
That you can like french fries and really fancy restaurants.
That you can like to wear a suit and Jordans, right.
That you can like the south and the city.
And that that's okay.
So that someday when they're my age they can look at their libraries,
they can look at their collections, they've had a lifetime
with literacy, and they can say,
"All of these books are the representation of me.
All of them."
No matter how different they may seem.
Each and every one of them has a portion of me.
That's my new purpose as of last night thinking about these things.
My new goal --
[ Laughter ]
-- is to shift it a little bit.
So with that, I'd like to say thank you to WNDB
for all of your hard work.
You guys have shown me an insurmountable amount of love.
To the Library of Congress, thanks for having us.
This is awesome.
And to the Committee, thank you all very much.
To Caitlyn and Elena, these are --
Caitlyn is my editor and Elena is my agent.
They're the ones who get to see me the way
that only my family gets to see me.
The ones who know that most of the time I'm extremely anxious.
I have terrible insecurities around this work.
And they're the ones who get to guide my hand
and believe in me regardless.
And to everyone else, I just say thank you.
My mother needs to know that as I move around the world,
there are people who got me, people who love me.
So, thank you.
[ Applause ]
>> Dhonielle Clayton.
[ Applause ]
>> Dhonielle Clayton: I took a picture with Margarita.
We're going to have to reenact.
[ Laughter ]
We're getting better.
>> Margarita Engle: It's pretty embarrassing
that I didn't know there were [inaudible].
[ Laughter ]
[ Applause ]
>> Christopher Myers: Um --
[ Laughter ]
I'm brought back to a day maybe about four years ago when --
four or five years ago, Pop and I would meet in the city
of [inaudible] most Saturday's and go
to the flea market and go through things.
And I had been wanting him to meet Jason for a long time
because Jason was my boy and we talked a lot about publishing
and wanting to see this -- to make a space, to have these fights
that we had together in the world.
And at that point, Jason had a job, a [inaudible] job.
[ Laughter ]
And I brought my Pop into the store and my Pop in his kind of stiff,
but loving way said, "Well, you know,
you're willing to do the work?"
You know, that kind of thing.
[ Laughter ]
And, you know, I flash forward to today, to this thing,
which I know he would have laughed at.
He would be like, "What you gonna call it, the Walter?"
[ Laughter ]
That didn't roll off the tongue.
I don't know if I need to be --
and I'm happy to see that we're all here doing the work.
I'm happy to see how much Jason is doing the work,
and Brendan is doing the work, and Kekla, and Rita,
and Ilyasah, WNDB, the publishers.
We are doing the work.
We are having these fights.
We're having them respectfully and lovingly and it's exciting
to be here doing the work with you all.
And lastly, I'd like to introduce John Cole,
someone who has been doing the work for quite some time.
I remember I met you with Pop about a 107 years ago.
[ Laughter ]
No, I'm 107.
You must be, I don't know.
[ Laughter ]
So, John Cole, the director of the Library of Congress,
Center for the Book, and chair of the Library
of Congress Literacy Awards Program, and great advocate
of American letters and literature, goodness in so many ways.
So, again, we thank you.
We thank you all for doing the work, for having the fights,
for having them in a real way
so we can have these discussions more and more.
I know that the next time I have breakfast with Jason he's going
to say, "Man, you know I killed that speech, right?"
[ Laughter ]
I'm going to be like, "Yeah, you did.
You did." But I'm going to find something to fight with him about.
[ Laughter ]
John Cole.
Thank you.
[ Applause ]
>> John Cole: Well, thank you, Chris.
I have been at the Library of Congress a long time.
[ Laughter ]
Not quite 109 years, but I've also written about the library
and I'm always looking for wonderful new descriptions,
and now I have a new one,
the Library of Congress is a prizefighting ring.
[ Laughter ]
A place for these fights to take place that we're talking about.
We're very honored to be able to be part of this.
And I have thank you's for all of you for the work you're doing.
And I'm very pleased that through the work of the Library of Congress,
particularly the Center for the Book, and the Young Reader's Center,
which is part of the Center for the Book, which was created in 2009.
It took us a long time.
It took us 100 years to figure out, actually, that the Library
of Congress needed its own place for young readers,
for dealing with people under the age of 16.
One bit of history, when this building opened in 1897,
this wonderful inspirational building, it's wonderful
to have an inspirational program in this wonderful building.
The first Librarian of Congress had the idea
for a juvenile library when this place opened.
He died after a year and a half.
He had nothing to do with this idea.
[ Laughter ]
But in the meantime, this was 1897 the building opened,
John Russell Young died in 1899.
In the meantime, the District of Colombia public library opened
and it's a wonderful place, but it gave the next librarian an excuse
for not having a juvenile library.
And he said, "That's all taken care of by the DC public library.
So long. I'm doing my wonderful thing."
And it took 100 years, until 2009, with the support
of Daniel Borsin [phonetic] -- James Billington [phonetic],
who is the Librarian of Congress to create a special place for people 16
and under as long as they had an adult with them,
which actually is a great advantage
because it makes us a family literacy center
in this beautiful set of three rooms, which I hope you've all seen,
in this beautiful building.
And that is a way that we have been able
to use the Young Reader's Center as a way to get into the fight,
to bring the Library of Congress and the three sources that is prestige,
into the world of young people's literature
in an absolutely direct way.
And what you've done, and what we've done together with this award,
and with getting it launched at the Library of Congress,
is helping the Library of Congress in its fight.
Its fight to show that that young people's literature is the world
that we should be involved in directly and it makes sense,
and it would even make sense to Thomas Jefferson, who had the idea
of opening the Library of Congress, not just to Congress,
but to the nation so it was available to everybody.
But the secret is, which doesn't go in my history books,
it's the wrong side of the statement, is we weren't open
to everyone, you had to be over 16.
And that started back when we were in the Capitol.
So, we are together, part of a history not only
for this wonderful world of diversity that's coming
through publishing and writers, but also for the Library
of Congress being a partner with us is helping the broader cause
and really helping American culture and literature
and its recognition be part of this wonderful institution.
It is inspirational.
We now go to another inspirational part of the Library
of Congress for our reception.
And I just want to mention that as you walk down the hall,
our members room, we're going to be in a very special room,
which is the one facing the Capitol,
and that's where the members of Congress could come.
And it's really kind of a kick because this side of the building --
first of all, the building is so magnificent because it was built
between 1886 and 1897 when we were flexing our cultural muscle,
and we wanted American writers to be recognized.
We wanted to out Europe Europe in the building, and we did,
but we also wanted to honor American writers.
And so as you walk out into the great hall, we're going to walk
down this hallway filled with muses.
So, the fancy, the gold is here on the side facing Congress.
That's the way it was in 1897 when we opened.
We're going to go down the hall of the [inaudible].
Each hall has a different them and field of knowledge.
And so the nine muses are painted and there's poetry
by Alexander Pope in the hall.
Then we go through the great reading -- the great main hall,
the great hall, and that's where if you look up,
you'll see names of writers.
On the top, it's all European and world writers,
you come down a level, you get Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
you get American historian, George Bancroft.
And then the final stop before we move into the Member's Room,
which is the most fancy room because that was the members of Congress
and we're part of the legislative branch, is the hall of poetry,
and there we really got the tough part of the fight
that was probably going on that we don't know about.
And instead of just an occasional American, we split it
and half the poets in the ceiling are European
and half of them are Americans.
And that's the only way I think that Walt Whitman and Edgar Allan Poe got
into that ceiling because they were not popular authors among the people
who built the Library of Congress, and in that part of our culture.
Then we'll be in the Member's Room and it's an inspirational room
for an inspirational day.
I congratulate the winners.
I'm so proud of the Library, the Center for the Book,
for bringing this and combining with you for this wonderful day.
And please let's enjoy ourselves pretending like for a half a --
a couple -- an hour we're members of Congress.
Thanks so much.
It's been a wonderful day.
[ Applause ]
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