The Reading Culture

"I don’t want to be whatever version of masculinity y’all keep telling me I have to be. Why are all the benchmarks violent and aggressive? I don’t wanna do it. I’m not interested” — Jason Reynolds

We all inherit scripts about who we’re supposed to be. For boys, they often center on toughness, aggression, and hiding their emotions. Jason Reynolds has spent his life questioning those scripts, carving out space for tendern...

“When you're a kid, you have so little control over things. To be the big entity controlling the smaller entity, whether it's dolls or [toy] soldiers or whatever it is, they do what you tell them to do. They become the story you are making.” — Brian Selznick

We all want to feel in control, mold our lives and experiences, and shape the world into something we can hold. But control is slippery; one moment, it can steady u...

”Why are some people treated differently? Why are some people chosen ones for no particular reason? And why do some people get to have that extra shine?” — Victoria Aveyard

Unfairness is a pervasive theme in a lot of fantasy fiction. With battles between good and evil dominating title after title, these tales appear to have a tight grasp on fairness and justice. But for Victoria Aveyard, the world of fantasy frequently ...

“Whenever I think of people who have gone through something, I'm always like, but they were human before this. Before they were monsters, they were human. Before they were zombies, they were human.” — Tiffany D. Jackson

Some of the most unsettling monsters don’t come from nightmares or ghost stories. They walk among us in daylight, smiling widely and blending in. They can be shaped by our environments, our circumstances...

“There were kind of always like two simultaneous stories happening with my coming out. One was the realization and breaking through some of that denial and repression, seeing kind of what was right there in front of me, and I gave that story to Imogen.” – Becky Albertalli

What if there were two stories running through your life: the one you’re telling the world, and the one you haven’t even admitted to yourself? That’s ...

This week, we revisit our episode with Kwame Alexander while we take a quick summer break!

Kwame Alexander recently interviewed the esteemed and now former Librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden, for the American Library Association’s Annual Conference in Philadelphia. They talked about the power of poetry, the role of libraries in creating access and imagination, how Dr. Hayden remains hopeful and positive in this moment,...

"We all need to have radical hope. I have my really hopeless days too, but… it’s such a privilege to get to live and to survive. Our job is to live, and I think that’s a really amazing thing.” - Jasmine Warga

We all want to make the most of our time here. Not just survive, but dream big and live fully. For Jasmine Warga, that means carrying forward the strength of those before her while creating space for joy, curiosity...

“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...