"...the reader's mind is filling in the blanks in between those panels and as a lip reader, that's what I do. I fill in the blanks. I'm trying to piece together what that person says. So, comics really make sense to me.” - Cece Bell I first came to know Cece Bell through her groundbreaking semi-autobiographical graphic memoir novel, “El Deafo.” It …

"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 wo…

"I spend a lot of time trying to hope that I'll remember little things and how a certain simple thing felt. … Writing is one way of trying to capture that feeling, even if I'm fictionalizing it still.” - Nina LaCour If Nina LaCour were a drink, she would be a cozy cup of tea. You’re not rushing to finish a conversation with Nina. Rather, you are sp…

"There's something very lovely about feeling like, well, it's not my name, and it's not me, it's just the books.” - LeUyen Pham To listen to LeUyen Pham is to feel inspired. She is full of hope and ideas and sees potential everywhere and in everyone. In LeUyen’s ideal world, diverse representation is a natural outgrowth of art that truly reflects o…

"Love is risky. Love always ends. Should you do it anyway?” - Nicola Yoon Love is a feeling that never exists solely on its own, and those likely companions to love (anxiety, grief) often bring questions such as, is this worth it? It’s this question and others like it that Nicola Yoon explores in each of her novels. Nicola is a hopeless romantic. T…

"I'm putting every single ounce of who I am into every single book that I write, so y'all know to expect the blackest books you have ever read from yours truly.” - Derrick Barnes Derrick Barnes’ introduction to vulnerable storytelling was through the jazz and R&B records he found in his family’s collection. For young Derrick, reading the liner note…

"I'm a bad liar. So I'm just like, I'm really good at telling the truth.” - Brandy Colbert Going down internet rabbit holes and discovering everything there is to know about random subjects is a relaxing way to spend an evening, according to Brandy Colbert. This passion for research is part of the secret sauce that helps her build such deep and bel…

"Books can be the perfect prescriptions to let us know that we're going to be okay.” - John Schu John Schu’s entire life has been shaped by books. As a kid, he fell in love with Shel Silverstein; Emily Dickinson comforted him as he was battling an eating disorder, and “The One and Only Ivan,” well, that book changed his life. In fact, it nearly put…

On Today's Show "It's practice. Vulnerability is practice. It is learning that you can do things and say things that seem scary, but ultimately know that you're safe.” - Mark Oshiro Mark Oshiro was taught to fear the world. To be someone they were not and to repress someone they were. But books were an escape. Books taught them that freedom was pos…

With the 2023 year coming to a close (our first full year in production!), we wanted to celebrate. And what better way to do that than high school yearbook superlative style? Welcome to a special edition of The Reading Culture podcast – "The Reading Culture: Yearbook." In this episode, we're rolling out the red carpet to unveil "The Readies," an aw…

"It's not like I haven't experienced pain or tragedy or grief in my life, and it's not like I want to deny that. I don't think that that's the entirety of my song. When I want to look back on my life, I want to look at all the amazing things and experiences I had because that's what makes the time we have in this world so incredibly special, is tha…

"There's these universal truths [...] specific details, but universal feelings and universal experiences that people hopefully can relate to. And that's what I go for in all of my books. Common humanity.” - Hena Khan Hena Khan didn’t believe her perspective mattered. As a Pakistani-American Muslim, she grew up not seeing her or her family reflected…

"Don't follow your dreams if that's the only thing you're doing. Ask yourself, what will make you most useful? What will make you most, in terms of a purpose, help you do meaningful work?” - Daniel Nayeri You want Daniel Nayeri at your dinner party. Always with a story or an insightful question, it turns out he is also the person you want on your p…

We revisit our Halloween special episode with Lamar Giles. ****** On Today's Show "The fear is like the ramp on the roller coaster. It's that build-up of adrenaline intention that you're having in that moment when that roller coaster is cranking. It's not the same fear of you walking through a dark alley at night and you sense someone's behind you …

On Today's Show "It (TV) was my junk food, but also it was my in with the kids to be able to talk about pop culture, to know all the little nuances and jokes about the cultural zeitgeist things.” - Dan Santat Media and stories around us around us are more than just entertainment. They provide a common space, a piece of the world around us that conn…

On Today's Show "I think that has a lot to do with why I was so interested in writing for children. It's like, I was trying to heal. I was trying to heal my childhood experiences through writing, through these characters.” - Kacen Callender Just as books provide readers with a space to learn, see themselves, reflect, and cope with their inner thoug…

On Today's Show "I'm just being real. I'm telling my story. I think Nikki Giovanni calls it dancing naked on the floor. I am unafraid and I'm doing my dance… I don't feel like I can go wrong if I'm just being me.” - Kwame Alexander Exciting reluctant middle school kids about reading (or really, anything) can be a battle. Getting them to think readi…

On Today's Show "I think it comes down to caring about the characters. When you care about the characters, you care about the world that they live in.” - Neal Shusterman When Neal Shusterman was in college, he was told to stop building worlds and start building characters. He listened. And from then on, his worlds became more magical and deep than …

On Today's Show "That's still my trick too, never tell them how they're feeling. Never begin to even show how they're feeling. They'll get it anyway. You're describing negative space and the negative space you can't even get at.” - Jon Klassen Where there is empty space, our brains will fill in the blanks, and often, the way in which we personally …

Grace Lin (The Year of the Dog, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon) shares her thoughts on the value art provides to those who experience it and those who create it, and how it contributes to getting us in touch with our own humanity. **** On Today's Show "Maybe if they haven't been in that situation, they know someone who has, or they have friends …

We revisit our episode with Renée Watson. **** On Today's Show "There's just something about literally raising your voice and letting these words come out of you. That's powerful." - Renée Watson Maya Angelou was mute for six years. After a traumatizing childhood experience, the famous poet and activist retreated inward and lost her voice. In Renée…

Exciting news! We are hosting a big summer reading giveaway in which you can choose any three titles by any three authors who have been on our podcast. Three books each for three winners. The magic number really is three, y’all! We will select our three winners on August 11, so make sure that you have done a few things to get maximum entries! Follo…

On Today's Show "For me, in the fiction, it is so much about keeping that continuum going, that someone's going to come along after me and tell a story that's connected to the story that I've told. I'm telling the story that's connected to the writers and the relatives who came before me.” - Jacqueline Woodson Jacqueline Woodson was born a watcher.…

On Today's Show "Kids are growing up in an interesting time and they're led to believe that if we don't feel happy, we're doing something wrong. I think what I respond to is a deeper truth, which is, happiness is incredible and we should strive for it, but we should also acknowledge that half of our life is challenging or melancholy." - Matt de la …

On Today's Show "This is happening in our world and at the very least you can bear witness to it. That's literally the absolute least you can do. - Sabaa Tahir Sabaa Tahir’s (“All My Rage,” “An Ember in the Ashes” quartet) upbringing in the Mojave desert, isolated nearly 100 miles from the nearest city, exposed her to an unforgiving landscape and a…

On Today's Show "I think there's recognition that publishing is better the more voices are heard, and the more diverse those rooms can be as well –that it's not just a matter of changing the skin tone of a character, it's that culture is all these things that are seen and unseen, and it's in your world building." - Angeline Boulley Angeline Boulley…

In This Episode "It is through these books and through this work that I'm doing that I hope that I can be a worthy companion of [children's] journeys, because they have a lot of journeys to go through, and there is nothing more difficult than going through those journeys alone." - Yuyi Morales Growing up in Mexico in the 60s and 70s, Yuyi Morales w…

On Today's Show “If you write about the world as it is, there's too much of a danger of it just feeding into our assumption that everything that we live with is right and normal. Whereas if you start to say, well wait, let's project this into the future, or let's see where this comes from in the past, suddenly it opens up a whole new vista about wh…

Creators & Guests Jordan Lloyd Bookey - Host Shadra Strickland - Guest On Today's Show “I remember everything was so shiny. Like the way that Pat illustrated that book, everything glistened, and main characters were Black and that was really cool for me. It was so colorful. I just wanted to live in that world.” - Shadra Strickland on “Clouds” by Pa…

On Today's Show "I think there's so much you can do. It's so rich because you have words, you have pictures. Sometimes they say the same things, sometimes they say opposite things. There's such an interplay between the two that I feel like there's so many possibilities." - Victoria Jamieson Victoria Jamieson was always an introverted child, but a m…

On Today's Show "A lot of my books have characters who are lonely, who are trying to figure out their way, who don't feel seen in the world, who don't know how to use their voice. I want to write books for those kids because I want a safe way for them to navigate all that stuff." - Erin Entrada Kelly As an introvert battling depression and bullying…

On Today's Show "I go to the locations in the books when I can, and I go there and I scout them the same way I scouted them when I was shooting documentaries. I'll just kind of walk around the same way I did for years producing television to really figure out the best way to take advantage of a location." - James Ponti As a child, James Ponti was n…

On Today's Show The author of the “Prophecy” trilogy and “Spirit Hunters” series and the founder of We Need Diverse Books, Ellen Oh is equal parts no-nonsense and hilarious truth-teller. "We all know the importance of representation in books and how life-affirming it can be for those who are historically underrepresented. Books are powerful. There'…

On Today's Show " When I sat down and I decided I wanted to start writing, what I started writing was something that bothered me." - Nic Stone After Nic Stone graduated college, she went on a trip to Bethlehem in Israel to connect with the story behind her faith. But instead of a religious experience, she found herself moved by the stories of the p…

On Today's Show " Creating something is not just for people to view, but it's for the creator. It's that idea that when you create, it puts you more in touch with your humanity and that being in touch with your humanity is what you are giving through your artwork. " - Grace Lin For Grace Lin, the value in literature comes from its ability to allow …

On Today's Show "The world is so complex, right? No theory that anyone has can be accurate because the only accurate model of the world is the world. There are too many complexities. ... And so what literature does is it catalogues the unique and particular truths of the world and a really great writer, a Jane Austin, Chekhov, Kate DiCamillo, will …

On Today's Show "I feel like writers, especially who are wordsmiths, who can name things, tricky things in clear ways ... should be where we put our efforts. Really creating an offensive, an offense in this campaign to win the hearts back." - Meg Medina Meg Medina's passion for telling stories goes back as far as she can remember. Crafting words in…

On Today's Show "If I've done my job right and put my heart and my fears and my questions on the page, if I've told a story right and well, the reader can be aware of me asking those questions, worrying those worries, putting my heart there, and then it's a place for both of us to be together. And it makes you feel less alone as a kid." - Kate DiCa…

On Today's Show "There's just something about literally raising your voice and letting these words come out of you. That's powerful." - Renée Watson Maya Angelou was mute for six years. After a traumatizing childhood experience, the famous poet and activist retreated inward and lost her voice. In Renée Watson's kid-friendly but unflinching retellin…

On Today's Show "When you're a kid, and if you love to read, you love stories, you aren't always aware of the fact that you're being erased from those stories, or you don't yet have the expectation that you should be in those books." - Zetta Elliott Scholar and author Zetta Elliott knows the long-term damage of not having representative, relatable …

On Today's Show "The fear is like the ramp on the roller coaster. It's that build-up of adrenaline intention that you're having in that moment when that roller coaster is cranking. It's not the same fear of you walking through a dark alley at night and you sense someone's behind you in real life. That's a different type of fear that I don't know th…

On Today's Show "I think it's really important that readers see the people behind the book: the authors, the illustrators, the librarians, the teachers, the folks in publicity and marketing. Obviously, a young reader won't see all of that, it's just important to know that the people behind the book are people of color or look like you. That's just …

On Today's Show "Maybe if they haven't been in that situation, they know someone who has, or they have friends who have really struggled with losing loved ones. That all helps build empathy." - Karina Yan Glaser Karina Yan Glaser is always emotionally honest in her stories. Pulling largely from her own experiences, she lets her feelings seep onto t…

On Today's Show "I feel like writers, especially who are wordsmiths, who can name things, tricky things in clear ways ... should be where we put our efforts. Really creating an offensive, an offense in this campaign to win the hearts back." - Meg Medina Meg Medina's passion for telling stories goes back as far as she can remember. Crafting words in…

In our new podcast, The Reading Culture, host Jordan Lloyd Bookey will bring you along as we connect with diverse authors about their own journeys as readers and storytellers, as well as what experiences along the way motivated them to read more. Authors will share their perspectives on the cultural climate in children’s and young adult literature.…