The Reading Culture

“Those moments of connection when you can have them with people who seem so different from you on the outside, I really do think that it braids a level of connectiveness and empathy, and it is much harder to harden your heart.” — Gayle Forman

What does it mean to rise to the occasion, not once, but over and over again? Sometimes it means reckoning with grief. Other times it means stumbling forward, messing up, and tryin...

“As my own mother is aging, she's telling me … before I take this to my grave, here is something you should know. So the secrets are coming out. And as more and more secrets are revealed, I'm learning more about myself.” - Ibi Zoboi 

Ibi Zoboi writes to remember—her own story, her family’s legacy, and the long history of migration, myth, and memory that shaped them both. For Ibi, storytelling is a form of resistance and...

“I tell kids that books are not there to torment you. The author has to get you in the first ten pages. If they do not, they fail, because a book is like a lawnmower—you pull it, and either it starts or it doesn't start.” –Soman Chainai

Soman Chainani wants reading to feel irresistible. The bestselling author of "The School for Good and Evil," series and the recently released graphic novel, "Coven," shares how his own r...

"I think all of us had the experience after reading the book of looking in maybe our grandparents' wardrobe, our parents' wardrobe, and like knocking on the back of the wardrobe and being like, maybe this is my time. Maybe they're gonna call me in here."

— Mychal Threets

For this week’s episode, we are testing out a slightly different format, something we have named a “Mixtape” episode. Rather than making the reading cha...

“And I think that’s what reading is… It’s a personal interpretation of the story, and it may not be the same as somebody else's. That’s the whole idea of a good teacher. There should be different interpretations, and sometimes a student will come up with something that I never thought of.” —Sharon M. Draper  

Give a story to twenty kids, and you might get twenty different takeaways. Some will catch the details you didn’...

"It's very rare for a person to just be one thing. Most issues, most things that matter, are not so black and white." – Debbie Levy

We all want to believe in heroes and villains, right and wrong, and clear-cut answers. But history and life are rarely that simple. Debbie Levy has spent her career exploring the gray areas, challenging readers to see multiple perspectives and embrace complexity. 

A former lawyer, journalist...

“I lean on my community. I lean on the power of the pen. I lean on remembering who my ancestors are and what they endured, the colonization that they survived in the Americas, I think, ‘we've been here before, and the lineage from which I come is one that is powerful and resistant.’ I would be dishonoring that legacy and that lineage if I didn't step up in this moment.” — Aida Salazar

Aida Salazar believes deeply in the...

“Their white classmates can read Harry Potter and relate to going to Hogwarts and flying on brooms. But a Black kid can't aspire to go to Paris, which can actually happen.” – Jerry Craft

Growing up, Jerry Craft did not enjoy reading. He says he simply never encountered a children's book that intrigued him enough or felt right. But Jerry loves defying expectations, and so naturally, the boy who rarely set foot in a libra...

“For every child that thinks something is wrong with them, my books are saying, ‘be you, even if others can’t see you. The people who don’t see your beauty, see your glory–they have a problem. Something is wrong with their eyes, their soul.’” – Jewell Parker Rhodes

Raised mainly by her grandmother on a steady diet of porch stories (and lots of bread), Jewell Parker Rhodes spent decades writing for adults, perfecting her...

“Every time I read “Big” at a school, obviously I’m there to speak to kids about the story, and I hope they’re all connecting with it, but at every single reading there is always an adult woman that comes to me and says, this is my story, I needed this when I was young. And I just wish we all knew that we were all going through the same thing.” -Vashti Harrison

Vashti Harrison burst onto the children’s book scene with h...

“Life is a wheel and humanity has been through countless cycles of ups and downs. The things that seem so dire now won't be this dire forever. Eventually, there is an upswing. I always needed that reminder, and it made me think that my young readers need that reminder as well.” - Yamile Saied Mendez

With a storytelling style that radiates warmth and resilience, Yamile Saed Méndez’s work reflects the cycles of life’s cha...

It’s official. Two years in a row makes it a tradition. 

The Reading Culture Yearbook is here. 

It’s the year-end celebratory episode where we look back and highlight some of our favorite moments in the form of awarding superlatives. Or, as we dubbed them last year and seemingly forgot, “The Readies.”

This year’s edition features awards such as “Best [Not] Meet Cute,” the “Owning It Award,” the “Merriam-Webster Aw...

“I am saying: reader, we're going on a journey. You are going to come with me and then I'm pulling them gently into the narrative. And then again, if I'm doing my job, I'm holding them like a hug.” - Andrea Davis Pinkney

Andrea Davis Pinkney stands tall at just 4’11”, but she is still somehow larger than life. In her writing, she has what she refers to as “the page one pact,” a commitment to getting her readers’ attenti...

We revisit our episode with Gregory Maguire.
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"That's really all we are obliged to do for those we call our enemies. We are obliged to see them as humans, and then we behave the way we will. We are obliged not to consider them as less than human because that way, all hell breaks loose. - Gregory Maguire

Gregory Maguire expresses himself with extreme precision. While many of us may grasp for words to communicate a sp...

“I think kids are actually generally a better audience for literary fiction, for art, for ambitious storytelling that asks the reader to do work. And a lot of that is just based on how their brains work and their place in the world.” - Mac Barnett

Growing up, Mac Barnett’s mom never took their picture books off their shelves. They remained a part of his reading world, even as he grew up and could read more mature books. May...

“I think it caused me to get over some of the sort of narcissistic impulses in my writing and not make it about me and impressing, but instead about having the best reading experience I could imagine.” - Eliot Schrefer

At a young age, Eliot Schrefer acknowledged that he was hiding himself. Growing up queer when he did meant concealing a key part of his identity for the sake of self-preservation. It was through books tha...

“The two most important things you can do as a writer are to make people wonder what will happen next and to understand why it matters. - Katherine Marsh

Every moment of every day, our attention is the subject of a battle. As adults, we struggle to focus on the 'right' things—so how can we expect our kids to? With this in mind, capturing and holding young readers’ attention is a key focus for Katherine Marsh in her book...

“Why am I fighting this? Like, why am I fighting the thing that I want to write? For who? For like a teacher that I haven't seen in five years or ten years? For a critic who I don't know?” - Zoraida Córdova

Zoraida Córdova doesn’t care about what a book should be. When she writes, she’s interested in.. well… what she’s interested in. That means Zoraida doesn't prioritize following rules or meeting pre-set expectations. ...