The Reading Culture

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 wasn’t familiar with children’s books. Instead, she was surrounded by a family of vibrant storytellers, and a mother whose creative side was brought out through her passion to make anything and everything needed around the house. As an adult, Yuyi found herself living in America and learning English, through which she discovered and fell in love with children’s books. A Caldecott Honor recipient and Pura Belpré Award winner, today, Yuyi merges her youth and experience in America to create magical, colorful, and entirely original picture books. 

***

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 what the present is doing." - M.T. Anderson
  
  

M.T. Anderson's home in small-town Vermont is rumored to be haunted and he relishes the ghost stories told about it. Despite his analog lifestyle and lack of belief in the paranormal, he spends a lot of his time dreaming up sci-fi and fantasy adventures. Aside from just being fun, he considers the genre to hold a unique power in removing our own preconceived ideas and giving us fresh eyes to rethink our values and society.  

M.T. has demonstrated that ability in books like Feed, Landscape with Invisible Hand, and even his historical fiction duology Octavian Nothing. But to realize the power of the genres, he had to overcome the stigma that sci-fi and fantasy were inferior to traditional realism, or as he calls it, “New York realism.”

In this episode, M.T. takes us on his own journey to embracing these genres as a writer, he talks about the growing relevance of their ability to offer societal critiques and representation in the increasingly hostile censorship movements, and he tells us about his new story where he uses a new perspective to learn about the world (his dog’s).

Creators & Guests

• Jordan Lloyd Bookey - Host
• Shadra Strickland - Guest

• “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 Pat Cummings

One of Shadra Strickland’s earliest memories is drawing underneath her grandma’s table. From a young age, she had a visual, creative mind. As the daughter of an English teacher, she was an avid reader, and words were important, but it was picture book illustrations that opened her up to a whole new side of storytelling. With a love for drawing from a young age, Shadra soaked up every color and every shape in those books. As an adult, she has pursued a career in illustrating children’s literature and has earned many accolades.

But throughout her experiences illustrating other authors’ stories, a storyteller within her began to emerge, and in 2023 she made the leap to author-illustrator with “Jump In!”. 

In this episode, Shadra takes us through the important artistic influences and moments in her life that led her to this debut solo picture book. She shares the elements of art that stand out to her and how she applies them to her work, and we also discuss the rise and ethics of AI art.

This episode's Beanstack featured librarian is Jen Siderius, the media specialist at New Market Elementary School in Maryland. She shares a heartwarming story about the value of making different book formats available to students and families.

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 move across states in middle school pushed her further inward and made her grasp for familiarity. She quickly found comfort in the local library after her mother became the regular host of their summer reading program. While Victoria was an avid reader, burning through Ramona Quimby stories, she also found herself deeply interested in the Sunday comics in newspapers, and eventually comics such as Calvin and Hobbes. 

This lifelong interest in artwork and storytelling would inspire her own career as an author-illustrator. But as Victoria discovered an additional gap in the comic industry for middle-grade literature, she was influenced to take a shot at writing her own graphic novel.

Today, Victoria talks to us about why she loves illustrations in literature, authors that inspired her, and how a dream job rejection inspired her first book.

This episode's Beanstack featured librarian is John Henry Evans, a school librarian at Walter T. Helms Middle School at West Contra Costa Unified School District in California. Today, John Henry shares a moving story about a student, a book, and an unexpected post-it note.

As with all episodes, our author guest creates a unique reading challenge that is available on Beanstack and also at thereadingculturepod.com. Listen to the episode to learn more about Victoria’s challenge of looking through some new “little windows”.

Contents

Chapter 1 - Owner of the library (2:04)

Chapter 2 - Ramona and Beezus (6:57)

Chapter 3 - From Ramona to Rollergirl (11:01)

Chapter 4 - Astrid, The Likeable (15:07)

Chapter 5 - The allure of Lego manuals (18:06)

Chapter 6 - Omar’s Story (24:40)

Chapter 7 - Warm Welcomes (32:27)

Chapter 8 - Little Windows (36:33)

Chapter 9 - Beanstack Featured Librarian (37:45)

Links

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, it was easy for Erin Entrada Kelly to feel overlooked by those around her, but she found her place in reading and finding uniquely relatable characters. Not those she shared outward similarities with, but those she was able to empathize with on an emotional level.

Inspired, Erin also began to write her own stories, –something that allowed her to build her own world, her own identity, and provide her with that outlet and sense of control she never felt she had. 

Erin’s admiration for these complex characters and an unrelenting dream of being a writer pushed her into the world of youth literature. Her ability to understand and convey the perspective of vulnerable, unseen children in her writing has found her a closely-bonded, communal audience. 

Erin talks to us today about her favorite books growing up, her path to youth literature, and why she believes kids are not ‘incomplete vessels.’ 

This episode's Beanstack featured librarian is Erin Bechdal, a middle and high school librarian at Beaver Area School District in Pennsylvania. She’ll tell us about her go-to author recommendation for students.