Art Against the Machine: Aida Salazar on Writing for the Resistance

Episode Transcript
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Aida Salazar (00:02):
Some days I am bowled over by the catastrophe
of it all. I lean on mycommunity. I lean on the power
of the pen. I lean onremembering who my ancestors are
and what they endured. Thecolonization that they survived

(00:22):
in The Americas, I would bedishonoring that legacy and that
lineage if I didn't step up inthis moment.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey (00:33):
What do we owe to our ancestors? What does
it mean to be writers andreaders at this moment in the
world? And what does stepping uplook like? Those questions are
what motivate Aida Salazar.

As Toni Morrison says, this is not the time to
despair. This is the time thatartists get to work.

Aida's goal is to wield the power of words
to change the world, which iswhy so many of her works for
young readers deal with issuesof social justice, politics, or
questions of identity. She isknown for books like In the
Spirit of a Dream, 13 Stories ofImmigrants of Color, as well as
middle grade novels, includingThe Moon Within, Land of the

(01:21):
Cranes, and more recently,Ultraviolet. Ida is an activist,
a poet, a novelist, a MexicanAmerican immigrant, and a mother
who has found a way to turn thechallenges of her life into
empowering work for youngaudiences. In this episode, she
shares how the act of writingitself has helped her heal and

(01:43):
survive difficult chapters ofher life, including an early
confrontation with death, plushow a fart poem, a Parker pen,
and a punk rock inspired zineall played a role in shaping her
journey as a writer. My name isJordan Lloyd Bookey, and this is
The Reading Culture, a showwhere we speak with authors and
illustrators about ways to builda stronger culture of reading in

(02:06):
our communities.
We dive into their personalexperiences, their inspirations,
and why their stories and ideasmotivate kids to read more. Make
sure to check us out onInstagram for giveaways at the
reading culture pod andsubscribe to our newsletter at
Alright. Onto the show. Hey,listeners.

(02:30):
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(03:16):
bit about, you know, your earlychildhood, where you grew up,
and what your household waslike.

Well, I was born in Mexico in a place called
Zacatecas in a pueblo. And myparents brought me and my three
older siblings with them when Iwas about nine months old to The
United States. And we came on avisitor's visa really with the
intention to stay. My parentswanted to build a better life

(03:43):
than the opportunities that theyhad in Mexico. But the idea was
also to return, to just makeenough money and return.
And, of course, we came as afamily, and very soon the visa
expired and we wereundocumented. And my sister,
younger sister, three yearsyounger than me was born. And

(04:03):
the moment she was born, at thetime there was an amnesty, and
we applied for residency. And sothe whole family applied for
residency, and that process tookthirteen years. And so in that
time, I, of course, I grew and Ispent my entire childhood
undocumented, surrounded by acommunity of many mixed status

(04:26):
families, half documented, halfundocumented like mine.
And living in this kind ofshadow and really come with this
consciousness of of being wrongand being illegal and being an
alien. Those were all thedifferent words that were used
back then. And fearing thesweeps that sometimes came into

(04:49):
our communities, knowing that wecouldn't go back to see family.
Until closer to the moment whenwe actually gained residency, we
got these provisionalpermissions to go across to
visit family. And thoseexperiences traveling back to
Mexico were really, reallyfundamental and nourishing for
me because I understood that Iwas bigger than this otherness.

(05:14):
I was connected to people andand a culture and a language
that was loved and celebrated inanother part of the world where
I came from, which was not inThe United States. Although, I
did grow up in a verypredominantly Mexican community.
I'd say 90% of it was Mexican,but first and second generation

(05:35):
only. And so very immigrant,still very much rooted in in
culture, but also trying toassimilate. There was varying
degrees of it.
So seven children.

Oh, wow. Okay. So it sounds like it was a
busy house.

I was fourth. So three above and three below.
Mhmm. And it was a beautifultime despite the fact that we
were undocumented. I mean, wedidn't cloud our every single
day because my parents worked sohard and, you know, we didn't
have a lot of toys.
We didn't have a lot of books.And, certainly, reading was not
a practice that we had in ourhome. Nobody read to us. It

(06:08):
wasn't something that my parentshad the time nor the wherewithal
to do because my mom had a thirdgrade education. My father had a
high school education, and he hewould read Reader's Digest, and
that's about the extent of it.
And I think at one point, theybought us an encyclopedia
because somebody came to thefront door to sell us things.
Those were

very effective salespeople. Yeah.

Yes. They were. But reading was not something
that we really did too much.

Was there a, like, storytelling if not
reading? Or was it not as mucheither?

Yeah. There was a lot of a lot of storytelling
because I think one of theprimordial functions of story is
to remember, right, and toeducate and to nourish in
different ways. And in order tokind of maintain our culture, of
course, we had to hear ourstories, the stories from the

(07:00):
aunts and the uncles and thegrandmothers and grandparents.
And many times they were funny,and many times they came in
song. Right?
So we listened to lots of songs,and we would recite funny poetry
about farting or whatever. Youknow? It was just Do you

remember any of them that you've Yeah.

Or do

you have any that you have, like, passed
on to your kids that you couldshare a little piece of?

In Spanish? Sure. The one about farting? Oh, I
feel embarrassed to share it,but, like, okay. I'll share it.
Share it. It's in Spanish, sohere it goes.

Okay.

Okay. It's just what I mean is just it's, like,
so ridiculous. It's just likethe fart. It's told in this very
contemplative way, and itrhymes. Okay?
But so the fart Yeah. It's avery light air that comes from a

(07:53):
hole announcing the next poop.That's all that's all it is, but
it rhymes. And it's just superso, yeah, I mean, it was all
playful. Right?
There's something called Mexicanalbur, which is which totally is
a play on language. Right? Like,which means you hear the the

(08:19):
language. Right? And theinternal rhyme, the assonance,
and that but it is like a doubleentendre.
Yeah. My dad was actually verygifted in that, and he would
tell us lots of stuff like that.So there is lots of that and and
a lot of really romantic and andsongs and these, you know, Latin
American songwriters are havethis very flowery, poetic way

(08:43):
about them. So that really kindof influenced, I think, a lot of
my language. And I to this day,you know, like, I I feel like
that play with language, thatplay with rhyme and and
alliteration Right.
And poetry and lyricism.

That tradition carries on in your
work. Mhmm. Coming from her homelife, rich in spoken language,
wordplay, and storytelling,Aida's actual love for the
written word took some time todevelop, and she credits her
love of reading, as many of usdo, to one pivotal teacher.

It really wasn't until I was in fifth grade that
I read a novel for the firsttime. My my teacher, mister
Clark, he gave me a book to readand I fell in love with reading.
And he read gave me another andanother and another. And then by
the time the fifth grade ended,I had read all of his books in
his classroom library, and I wasworking on the school library.
Wow.
And when fifth grade ended, hegave me a book called Where the

(09:42):
Sidewalk Ends by ShelSilverstein. And he gave me a
Parker pen. And back then, theParker pens were, like, high
technology. It's, like, fortyyears ago.

What's a Parker pen? Why don't I know
what a Parker pen tell you,what's a Parker pen?

Oh, they were a Parker pen is like a beautiful
pen. Like, it cost about ahundred, a hundred 50 dollars
now. What? Yeah. Yeah.
They're like these reallyspecial pens that are made out
of silver or some metal. Andthen, you know, you could change
the cartridges. It came in a abox

Oh, yeah.

With Parker on it. It was just, like, so fancy. And
I felt so special, you knowYeah. Because he gave me these
two things. And I really believemister Clark was trying to tell
me something by giving me abook, a book of poems, which I
still have.
Actually, it's right here. I I Ibrought it up.

The exact one?

The exact one. And I'm like and look. It's like
falling apart.

Wow.

And then you can see Yeah. You can see this book
belongs to Aida Salazar. This ismy 10 old penmanship.

Is that the one that has Sarah Cynthia
Sylvia Stout? Is that this book?Is that where the

silence Yes. Exactly.

I used to have that one fully memorized.

I know. Makes sense.

That must have been so his poems are so,
like, timeless. You know, theyjust still they work. You know?

Mhmm. They totally do. The one I always read and
the one I rememorized was sick,which is, I cannot go to school
today, said little Peggy AnnMcKay. I have the measles and
the hogs. That one.

Gasherash and purple bumps.

Gasherash and purple bumps. Okay. Purple
bumps. Yeah.

So he gave you this book. Go ahead.

Yes. Mister Clark gave me this book. And I
listened. I started to writepoems at that time, 10 years
old, 11 years old, going intomiddle school, trying to imitate
Shel Silverstein because Ithought it was so funny, and so
I rhyme and, you know, I was Iwas practicing. Right?
And Right. Writing and doing allmy homework with my Parker pen,

(11:42):
and it's gone now, but I used tohave a callus on my middle
finger from writing with my pen.And, it wasn't until I was 13
years old when my older sister,the eldest in the family, died
by suicide Mhmm. That Iunderstood that poetry or

(12:04):
writing could be a thing that Icould really use to uplift
myself or to process some ofthis grief that I was not wholly
understanding. And it became theway that I unraveled feeling and
questions, and it became alifeline in many ways.

(12:26):
And the poems were bad, ofcourse. You know? I remember
writing, I don't know what to dotoday. My sister died on New
Year's Day as a poem. Right?
It was, again, very much in thiskind of rhyme, you know, 12, 13
year old girl's perspective, but

I wrote. Aida's sister's death was an
appending of the life she'dknown, and it entirely changed
her family. They'd lost theireldest child, who Aida describes
as brilliant, a straight astudent, class body president
who had struggled withdepression for some time.

When she passed, I immediately wanted to follow in
her footsteps. Mhmm. In my 13year old brain, I wanted

She felt like you had to step in that
space that she had left sort offor your family.

Absolutely. I had to do that. I had to try and
fulfill it because I saw mymother and father in so much
grief. And because my sister hadaccomplished so much, and I
wasn't a genius. I was smart,but not a genius in the way that
she was a genius.
Like, she was exceptionallygifted. And so I did apply to

(13:35):
college, and I became studentbody president. I got straight
a's as well. And I applied tocollege, and I became the first
one to go to away to college.And I was just tried to be as
good a daughter because we knewwhat it it was for her to grieve
her daughter so much.
And I looked like my oldersister. And at one point, my

(13:55):
mother came into the room, andmy mother was just crying, and
she was balled up on the bed.And and I came up, and I, like,
stroked her hair. And and shelooked up at me, and she said,
Meehaw, can you please go intothe other room? You look too
much like your sister.
Oh, my. And it just broke myheart. Like, I didn't mean to,
but but and I don't think shemeant it either, but the the

(14:18):
pain was so so severe. But yetand still, I decided instead of
kind of, like, succumbing tothat grief, I wanted to try and
erase it. You know?
Like, it was like I was tryingvery desperately. To

heal. You were like the healer. Yeah.

Yeah. Exact I was trying. I think all of us were
in different ways, all of mysiblings. And Mhmm. I mean, the
younger ones don't remember asmuch, but my brother and my
older sister, they diddefinitely.

For Aida, writing had become a necessity,
a way to let the grief in and toallow herself to express the
pain and the pressure she felt.But at that time, it was still
just a therapeutic tool, and theidea of writing becoming a
potential vocation was far fromher mind. An early experience in
college changed that.

Something happened. I walked into a Latino
literature course, and I readLatino literature for the very
first time. And that changed mylife because at that point, I
went, wait a minute. All thethings that I've been writing
with my Parker pen and myjournals and those all those
poems could actually be in abook, like, for me. Nice.

(15:30):
Because what I hadn't realizedwas that I had not seen my
community, this community, veryvibrant, multilingual, mixed up
community represented in inbooks until that moment. And
that pretty much is when theidea to become a writer was
born. And and, really, I alsounderstood at that point that,

(15:54):
like, oh, I made the connectionthat because I used writing so
early on to to heal Yeah. Thatit became a a spiritual
practice. And that is what I'vekind of cultivated.
Across the street, the freewayblind worm wrapping the valley

(16:16):
up from Los Altos toSalcipueles, I watched it from
my porch unwinding every day atdusk as grandma watered
geraniums. The shadow of thefreeway lengthened. We were a
woman family, grandma, ourinnocent queen, mama, the swift
knight, fearless warrior. Mamawanted to be princess instead. I

(16:38):
know that.
Even now, she dreams of taffetaand foot high tiaras. Myself, I
could never decide, so I turnedto books, those staunch, upright
men. I became scribe, translatorof foreign mail, interpreting
letters from the government,notices of dissolved marriages
and welfare stipulations. I paidthe bills, did light man work,

(17:03):
fixed faucets, ensuredeverything against all leaks.
Before rain, I noticed seagulls.
They walk in flocks, cautiousacross lawns, splayed toes,
indecisive breaks. Grandma says,seagulls mean storm. In
California in the summer,mockingbirds sing all night.
Grandma says they are singingfor the nesting wives. They

(17:26):
don't leave their families'borachando.
She likes the ways of birds andrespects how they show
themselves for toast and awhistle. She believes in myths
and birds. She trusts only whatshe builds with her own hands.
You're too soft. Always were.
You'll get nothing but baby.Don't count on nobody. A

(17:49):
mother's wisdom. Soft. I haven'tchanged.
Maybe grown more silent, cynicalon the outside. Oh, mama, with
what's inside of me, I couldwash that all away. I could.
But, mama, if you're good tothem, they'll be good to you
back. Back.
The freeway is across thestreet. It's summer now. Every

(18:13):
night, I sleep with a gentle manto the hymn of mockingbirds, and
in time, I plant geraniums. Itie up my hair into loose braids
and trust only what I have builtwith my own hands.

That's a poem by Lorna de Cervantes
called Beneath the Shadow of theFreeway, read from a collection
called Emplumada, published in1981. There was actually more to
the poem in the middle that wecouldn't fit here for the sake
of time, but we will definitelypost Aida's uncut reading on
Instagram, so keep an eye outfor it. Aida first discovered
the poem at 18 years old andimmediately gravitated toward

(18:54):
the speaker, resonating deeplywith the role of family
translator. Being burdened withadult responsibilities at a
young age is a common challengefor many immigrant children. And
in Aida's case, this burden waseven more pronounced as she also
tried to fulfill the role of anolder sister.
This poem to her representedthat feeling of finding a place,

(19:17):
finding personal balance amidstthe chaos and unfairness of the
world.

What hit me was the language. Right? On the
level of the line that wasreally, surprising, the way that
she uses words and how shestrings them together that on a
craft level was really excitingand revelatory for me. But in
terms of content, you know,she's speaking about these these

(19:44):
contradictions and these woundsin our families. Right?
Like, in this poem, she'stalking about the men who
mistreat her mothers and hergrandmothers, the ways that they
fight back, and the way that shefights back and what she chooses
to do now, right, to build withher own hands and to trust what
she's built. So those kinds of,ideas of of being a translator

(20:07):
for her family, trying to dothis adult work, which is very
similar to my experience. And soall of these similarities of
navigating both of theseexperience. And so all of these
similarities of navigating boththe being a child and being a
grown up because you understandthe language that your parents
don't or trying to negotiate thedangers even within our own

(20:28):
families is, you know, it wasjust very resonant for me. And
all of her work is that way.
You know, she talks about thisvery Chicana experience, this
mix of Mexican and American thatwith the consciousness of seeing
industry and capitalism andracism and sexism all kind of

(20:50):
coming to play in our lives. Andso, yeah, her her work is very,
very powerful for me in thatway.

By her early college years, Aida had
come to two importantrealizations about writing.
First, she discovered thatwriting could serve as a
powerful, healing, and spiritualpractice for herself. Second,
she recognized that pursuing acareer as a writer was indeed
possible. And while she wasdiscovering the former, she was
simultaneously coming to a thirdrealization. Art is a tool that

(21:21):
has the power to change theworld.
And she felt that power runninglike electricity through her own
lineage of Mexican artists.

So we were surrounded by art. Mhmm. And
then to kind of understand whatthese muralists were doing and
that it went back to a movementin Mexico, the Mexican
muralists. And and I discoveredFrida Kahlo and Diego Rivera and
Siqueiros and Orozco and all ofthese incredible painters who
were very political anduplifting the indigenous people

(21:52):
and and the original peoples ofMexico and fighting against the
exploitation of the worker. Thisidea of communality.
Right? That comes from this ideaof being in community and
benefiting the community and notjust a few. So these ideas all
kind of came up, and I startedto study other social movements

(22:12):
throughout history and studyingwhat other artists had done
while I was quietly cultivatingmy writing. I wasn't ready to
call myself a writer yet, but Istarted a zine called Tortilla
Machinations of the Mind.Because, you know, in a
tortilla, you can put anythingin there.

Yeah. It's perfect. I'm also thinking,
like, I think that community,like, that rooting in a lot of
your work. It's funny becausethe page I had marked when I was
reading Land of the Cranes,which is also interesting
because birds played veryheavily into the, poem that you
just read. But the little stanzathat I took here is I hug mommy

(22:51):
and smush my head on the top ofthe nest feeling so selfish and
wrong for forgetting what aflock does for one another.
That really feels like a a themein your life being part of a
flock and a part of a immediatecommunity, but then also like
this long history of heritageand even ancestors and so forth
and that idea.

Mhmm. Yeah. And I think it was because I grew up
in such a I mean, we grew up ina two bedroom house, seven
children. So, there was two setsof bunk beds and a single bed in
one bedroom. My brother sleptlike, all of us girls slept in
one room, but there was no senseof privacy,

you know, like No. Like knock before you
enter. Right?

Maybe just not like none of this go to your
room. Like, it was, you know,you help your sister. You help
your brother. And to this day,we're pretty close, you know,
and and that sense of communityexpanded, right, as we had
children. And then and so it'snot a foreign idea to watch out
for one another and to see thewounds of our communities and

(23:53):
feel compelled to try and healthem.

That deep sense of community, of looking
out for one another, didn't justshape Aida's childhood. She
carried it into her adult life,influencing the work that she
chose to do. So you you leftcollege. You were in nonprofit
work for a lot of years. Is thatright?

Yeah. Yeah. I was a nonprofit.

How many years were you doing that for?
And were you writing all thetime during that time just on
the side?

Yeah. I graduated in 1994. And at that year, the
Zapatista Army of NationalLiberation came to the world's
consciousness. They they uprosein Mexico, and it was a
revolution. Def like, it was thefirst activist group that used
the Internet, and they gained somuch so much support.

(24:43):
And and because we were Mexicanin Los Angeles, there was a
group of artists that I kind ofbanded together with, and we
became an artist collective. Andthere was a band at the time
called Rage Against the Machine.And the lead singer of Rage
Against the Machine was, Zach DeLa Rocha, a Chicano, who had
this art space that he funded.And a bunch of us would go

(25:07):
there, and we started organizingfundraisers. And they were all
these mixed media shows, so wewould collaborate with visual
artists or musicians, and wewould just create we had a radio
station, and we had, like, allsorts of different projects that
we did.
That time period was sofoundational for me and so

(25:27):
formative because theZapatistas, one of their many
writings, they said that weneeded to create a culture of
resistance and that we neededthe artists. We needed the
creatives in the world to helpus build this culture of
resistance, and I took that toheart.

That commitment to a political
struggle carried Aida through anearly career as a nonprofit
organizer and then as an MFA incritical studies at Cal Arts.
But sadly, it was aheartbreaking personal struggle
that marked the next period ofher life, even as it eventually
led to her first efforts as awriter for children. Did you

(26:07):
always know that you wanted towrite for kids, or is that like
a real station that you came tothrough having your own
children?

Yeah. Absolutely. So I left the nonprofit world
because I met a man who I workedwith initially, and then it took
us a couple years. But we helived here in the San Francisco
Bay Area. My husband is amusician, and I moved to the Bay
Area.
And very soon after I came tothe Bay Area, I got pregnant.

(26:35):
And our first child was bornwith a lot of complications at
birth, and she died after amonth. Oh my god. And that
totally was another revolutionin my life. Mhmm.
There was this, you know,devastating experience. There's
nothing like losing a child.There really is no comparison.

(26:59):
It it's it's a cavernous wound.I'm sorry.
And so that that made me want tobecome a mother after having
given birth to her and lost her.That's all I wanted to do, and I
focused pretty much on that. Andwe were lucky to have a daughter
a year and eleven days after theloss of the first and then a son

(27:20):
who was born with a congenitalheart defect two and a half
years later. So we have twochildren. They're both fine now.
And when they were young, that'sall I wanted to do was mother.
And, of course, because Icouldn't be too far away from a
library, I would take them tolibrary and story times. And and
in that work of trying to exposethem to literature and reading
to them, then they both werejust so into literature and the

(27:45):
library was their happy place.But, of course, the children's
literature market at that time,twenty years ago, was very
spare. We didn't have a lot ofbooks where they were reflected.
And so I started to write littlestories for them, and it became
a thing that I could do is towrite stories for them. And
that's how I decided to get intochildren's literature.

Are there any of those stories stories
that have found their way now?Are they, like, some of the
stories, like, the board booksyou just did? Or are they
stories, like, completelyfictional?

Yeah. They were you know, I was practicing. So,
yeah, some of them werefictional. Some were they were
like stories about a polka dotprincess because my daughter was
so into princesses. But, and I'mlike, oh my god.
The monarchy. Why? I can

know Disney. Here, let me give you
the

Well, I actually did that. At one point, I did
that. I was like, no. No. No.
And and one of my activistfriends is like, you know what?
You should just indulge itbecause she's gonna outgrow it
so fast. And I was like, okay.And so we did. We went full
blown Disney, and then she was,like, dropped.
And then she just

It's definitely a parenting pro tip.
It's like, give in. Opposite.They won't yes. I know.
It's, like, very hard to do, butit is very effective to just
True. Yes.

Yes. Those board books are books that I wrote
that I wish I had had for mychildren when they were that
little. The Moon Within wasinspired by my daughter, and she
was the actual opposite of mydaughter.

Really?

My daughter was so open with me. Yes. But there's a
shell of my family in there. Myhusband's a musician, the little
brother, the the daughter youknow, a house with colorful
walls. So there's lots ofsimilarities.
And so, yeah, I wrote that storyfor her, and Ultraviolet is a
story I wrote for my son. And sothey they continue to inspire

(29:38):
me.

That is a book that I wish that I had,
like, I because I just read thatand I was thinking I just, my
son is 15 now. So he's sort oflike anyways, he's

Just on the other side. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. But it was actually so helpful,
you know, both of those is haveand my daughter's 13, so I think
it's just so important for themto have those experiences
because even if the kid'sbackground or whatever is, like,
you know, those are, like, veryuniversal experiences of tweens
and teens.

So art for me is a tool for social change. Clearly,
that's how I view it. And Iwant, again, for other children,
the same thing I wanted for myown children, which is for them
to find their spirituality,their agency, their power
through any form of art, whetherthey commit to it as a career or

(30:34):
not. And so I love to be able touse that to teach them that art
can be not only a tool forsocial change, but a tool for
social, personal transformation.I want them to see that that
personal transformation can comethrough dancing, through playing
piano, or singing or acting,painting, drawing, picture

(30:57):
poems.
Right? These are all thedifferent modalities that I have
kind of, like, integrated intothe stories and all across my
upper, you know, middle grade.But what do you call it?

I don't know. You're you're, like, body
of work.

Yeah. I know. Body of work. Exactly. It's it's hard
to kind of even think about itthat way, you know, because I'm
just kind of, like, writingstories and not not really
thinking about it as a body ofwork.
But these are the things thatI'm trying to kind of integrate
into my body of work Yeah. Forall all children. And and there
are so many art forms, andthere's so many ways of

(31:32):
expressing and so many ways ofhealing and resisting through
the art.

Aida connects deeply with both prose
and poetry, but her approach towriting is guided by three
principles, ideas that shape howshe creates and engages with
poetry. These principles comefrom three powerful quotes.

Billy Collins being a former poet laureate of
The United States, he said thatpoetry is the history of the
human heart. I love this quotefor all of the ways that it's
able to kind of explain. Yes.Poetry is this very emotional,
very internal expression. Right?

(32:16):
Poetry has this capacity to goinside the internal landscape of
the feelings and and memoriesand give voice to it. So I love
that. Poetry is a history of thehuman heart. And then the second
quote that I really adore thatcomes from June Jordan. She
said, the first function ofpoetry is to tell the truth.

(32:39):
And I love this because when Ithink about my activism and
think about how I have committedmy craft to expressing identity
and social justice. That isessential. It's essential to not
hide or lie. And through that,seek and and attain a certain
amount of liberation. So, yeah,that one is really powerful.

Do you think that poetry has, like, a
unique power or place in thatrealm?

Well, there's a lot of things about that. Right?
So poetry gives us this abilityto get really close, really
close inside human expression.Like, for instance, the way that
a metaphor can open meaning isvery different than just saying,
well, this happened. You know?

(33:27):
For instance, in the passagethat you read about Betita in
Land of the Cranes, and shesays, you know, I forget what a
flock can do for one another.That's all metaphorical
language. Right?

That's right.

She could have said, I forgot what a community
does for one another. But theflock implies flying, implies
birds, implies freedom, and soit expands the meaning. So it
allows me to enter a kind ofarena, a kind of landscape that
we don't necessarily have accessto when we're just seeing things

(34:01):
for just this it's superficial,utilitarian way. You know? The
third quote that I love and Iuse quite a bit and it is is
centered in my practice is everychild is born a poet.
And that was said by PeteyThomas. Petey Thomas was a
Puerto Rican writer who learnedhow to write in jail. And he

(34:23):
came out and did lots ofcommunity work and went back
into the jails and worked withyouth as a way to teach them how
to become free in their minds inthe very least. And so when he
says every child is born a poet,for me that is absolutely at the
center of why I write forchildren. Mhmm.

(34:44):
And so my task as a writer forchildren in particular is to
help them remember that they arethese natural born poets and
that that we can always see theworld through wondrous eyes.

At this point, I'm sure you're not
surprised to learn that Aida haschosen a wonderfully political
theme for her reading challenge,Banned Together. You're going to
want to add these to your TBR.

The theme that I decided to select was banned
middle grade books. I think thatwe've seen a lot of picture
books that have been banned, andwe see a lot of teen books that
have been banned. But middlegrade books, we don't see them
as much, and I wanted to kind ofhighlight those. So some of the
books, of course, includeMelissa by Alex Gino, which is

(35:32):
one of the most banned books.There's nonfiction, which is
really interesting.
It's Perfectly Normal, ChangingBodies Growing Up, Sex and
Sexual Health by Robbie Harris,Jewel Parker Rhodes, Ghost Boys,
Esperanza Rising by Pam MunozRyan or Before We Were Free by
Julia Alvarez. And then likemine, The Moon Within, that book

(35:53):
has been banned in, I think,five or more states, and and
it's because all of these bookseither have queer or kids of
color or talk about bodies. It'sreally impressive to me that
especially middle grade studentswho have access to their phones,
in two or three clicks, theycould see things that are so

(36:17):
much more egregious and so muchmore hurtful, and here we are.
And so it's really critical thatwe continue to support middle
grade books and also continue towrite them.

You can find Aida's reading challenge
and all past reading challengesat the readingculturepod.com. In
this episode's Beanstackfeatured librarian is Amy
McMichael, the media specialistat Dutchman Creek Middle School
in Rock Hill, South Carolina,and the lead librarian for all

(36:53):
secondary schools within RockHill Schools. The woman does it
all, and now she tells us abouther strategy to lure in
reluctant readers with anunconventional library setup.

Amy McMichael (37:05):
My library is not necessarily a traditional come
in and be quiet all the timekind of a library. For instance,
I have an old school arcade. Ihave an air hockey table. I have
pop a shot basketball. Myphilosophy is always you have to
get them in the door before youcan put books in their hands.
But at one point in themornings, it used to just be

(37:25):
free time. It got to the pointwhere I was a little too
popular, I guess, So I decidedto make different morning
events. So we were going to havea different focus each morning.
You know, this group of boys, Ihad three seventh grade boys one
year. They keep coming in, andthey didn't want to do the book
stuff, but they didn't wanna goto the other places.

(37:47):
And they kept coming in when Iwas doing Project Lit book clubs
once a week. You would get afree copy of the book to keep in
exchange for showing up once aweek and for reading some on
your own. And I kept trying topass the book to them, and they
kept being like, oh, no. No.We're good.
And sometimes they they wouldread it while we're here, but

(38:10):
they never take it with them. Sothey they did this for several
months. But towards the end ofthe year, the one boy came up to
me and he's like, hey. Do youhave that one book that you guys
were doing? You know, coupleweeks later, he comes back.
He's asking for another book. SoI hooked him just by being in
the space, by having basketballand air hockey and arcade and,

(38:32):
you know, the things that youwanted access to. But like I
said, you have to get them inthe doors first. You have to
build relationships first. Butthat student ended up being my
top reader for the entire eighthgrade the next year.

This has been The Reading Culture, and
you've been listening to myconversation with Aida Salazar.
Again, I'm your host, JordanLloyd Bookey. And currently, I'm
reading Never Let Me Go by KazuoIshiguro and A The The Original
Fight Over Science in Schools byDebbie Levy. If you've enjoyed

(39:12):
today's episode, please give usthat five star review. It will
just take you a few seconds, andit really helps the show.
This episode was produced by MelWebb, Pippa Johnstone, Jackie
Lamport, and Lower Street Media,and script edited by Josiah
Lamberto Egan. To learn moreabout how you can help grow your
community's reading culture,please check out all of our

(39:34):
resources at beanstack.com, andremember to sign up for our
newsletter at thereadingculturepod.com forward
slash newsletter for specialoffers and bonus content. Thanks
for listening, and keep reading.

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