Gregory Maguire expresses himself with extreme precision. While many of us may grasp for words to communicate a specific emotion or to describe a series of events, Gregory seemingly has words and turns of phrase on command. What a delight it is to listen to Gregory talk about his journey, his writing, and his thoughts on a wide variety of topics.
Close to Gregory’s heart is the belief that everyone has a backstory, a context—even our enemies. And no matter how difficult the task may seem, he believes it is our duty to understand that story and find it within ourselves to empathize with them—not to excuse them but to simply see them as humans.
Gregory has built his career around telling the stories of antiheroes, most notably through the reimaginings of classic fairytales in novels such as "Wicked," "Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister," and "Mirror Mirror." That ability to find empathy and a curiosity to understand even the most seemingly undeserving characters emerges in his other children's and young adult books and is deeply rooted in experiences from Gregory’s early life.
In this episode, Gregory shares those early life experiences (which can honestly be described as “Dickensian”) and how his relationships with his father and siblings have impacted his writing and life choices. He tells us about his love of the “arresting strangeness” of literary worlds and how this sensation inspired him to become a writer. He also shares why he believes in the children's stories he writes, not always getting a “happily ever after.”
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Connect with Jordan and The Reading Culture @thereadingculturepod and subscribe to our newsletter at thereadingculturepod.com/newsletter.
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In his reading challenge, Arresting Strangeness (a term coined by J.R.R. Tolkien), Gregory has compiled a list of his favorite books that envelop you completely and force you to look at the world around you anew. You can find his list and all past reading challenges at thereadingculturepod.com/gregory-maguire
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This episode's Beanstack Featured Librarian is Lauren Mobley, a middle school librarian in Atlanta, Georgia. She tells us about a fun reading program she set up in her school inspired by a hit reality TV show.
Contents
Chapter 1 - Travel of the Mind
Chapter 2 - Home, the Orphanage, and back again
Chapter 3 - The Children of Green Knowe
Chapter 4 - Harriet the Recorder
Chapter 5 - Origins of Empathy
Chapter 6 - The Absence of a Happily Ever After
Chapter 7 - Arresting Strangeness
Chapter 8 - Beanstack Featured Librarian
Links
Host: Jordan Lloyd Bookey
Producer: Jackie Lamport and Lower Street Media
Script Editors: Josia Lamberto-Egan, Jackie Lamport, Jordan Lloyd Bookey
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 spending time exploring the details. And that is exactly what we did in this episode.
The world moves fast. Usually faster than we’d like it to. But writing can gift us the ability to slow a moment down, to digest and analyze at a more intentional pace. For Nina LaCour, writing starts with observing the world around you, getting ready to break it down into words and unravel the meaning on a page.
As a new writer, Nina found it best to share those observations through young adult literature after falling in love with it in college. She has since written a picture book, “Mama, Mommy and Me in the Middle,” and returned to an adult novel she shelved early in her career (“Yerba Buena”). More recently, she released "The Apartment House on Poppy Hill," the sweetest chapter book.
Nina’s work is notably thoughtful and gentle. Her complex topics have resonated deeply with young readers and adults alike (including our own recent guest, Mark Oshiro). She’s best known for her novels such as “Hold Still,” "Everything Leads to You," and "We Are Okay," which received the Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature.
In this episode, she shares her journey to falling in love with young adult literature and how Virginia Woolf helped her find the love of her life. She also explores writing's capacity to uncover the depth within every moment and discusses the importance of queer family representation in literature.
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Connect with Jordan and The Reading Culture @thereadingculturepod and subscribe to our newsletter at thereadingculturepod.com/newsletter.
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In her reading challenge, At the Intersection, Nina has curated a list of books at the intersection of queerness and family.
You can find her list and all past reading challenges at thereadingculturepod.com/nina-lacour
This episode's Beanstack Featured Librarian is Faith Rice Mills, librarian at Nelda Sullivan Middle School in Pasadena, Texas. She tells us a heartwarming story to remind librarians of the importance of their work, even when that impact isn't obvious.
Contents
Chapter 1 - The Outsider…
Chapter 2 - …Becomes the Observer
Chapter 3 - Mrs. Dalloway
Chapter 4 - On Being Gentle
Chapter 5 - Bang Bang
Chapter 6 - At the Intersection
Chapter 7 - Beanstack Featured Librarian
Links
Host: Jordan Lloyd Bookey
Producer: Jackie Lamport and Lower Street Media
Script Editors: Josia Lamberto-Egan, Jackie Lamport, Jordan Lloyd Bookey
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 our world. Her career as an artist and writer has been her contribution to making that a reality. Her career as an artist and writer has been her contribution to making that a reality. If you have ever read a book that LeUyen illustrated, you already know this to be true. The diversity we see in LeUyen’s pages is at once realistic and aspirational.
Her illustration credits include over 130 books, such as “Bear Came Along,” recognized with a Caldecott Honor, the popular “The Princess in Black” series, “Lunar New Year Love Story,” and my kids’ favorite when they were younger, “Grace for President.” She has also illustrated and written a few of her own, including the award-winning “Outside, Inside” and “Big Sister Little Sister.”
In this episode, LeUyen tells us why she prefers to be an “art chameleon” (and how that led to challenges early in her career). She talks about how support from her teachers showed her that a career as an artist was even a possibility and how an accusation of cheating (well, not really) put her on the right path.
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Connect with Jordan and The Reading Culture @thereadingculturepod and subscribe to our newsletter at thereadingculturepod.com/newsletter.
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In her reading challenge, Chasing Home, LeUyen gets personal and invites us to explore the concept of what home means, especially from her perspective as a refugee.
You can find her list and all past reading challenges at thereadingculturepod.com/leuyen-pham
This episode’s Beanstack Featured Librarian is Marva Coney, a librarian at Jackson Intermediate in the Pasadena Independent School District. She shares a story about just how important books can be as kids start to grow and experience newer and harder parts of life for the first time.
Contents
Chapter 1 - Temple City and Bill Peet (2:06)
Chapter 2 - From Wynne to LeUyen (8:16)
Chapter 3 - The Witch of Blackbird Pond (10:01)
Chapter 4 - Art Chameleon (18:51)
Chapter 5 - Incidental Diversity (24:55)
Chapter 6 - The Artist Shows Herself (31:05)
Chapter 7 - Chasing Home (36:52)
Chapter 8 - Beanstack Featured Librarian (38:18)
Links
Host: Jordan Lloyd Bookey
Producer: Jackie Lamport and Lower Street Media
Script Editors: Josia Lamberto-Egan, Jackie Lamport, Jordan Lloyd Bookey
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. The affliction began in childhood after the discovery of her aunt’s harlequin romance collection. From then on, Nicola’s love of love would only grow stronger. But while her passion for romance was a love at first sight, her passion for writing was more of a slow burn.
Today, Nicola Yoon boasts an impressive resume as a two-time New York Times bestselling author, a finalist for the National Book Award, a recipient of the Michael L. Printz Honor Book, and a winner of the Coretta Scott King New Talent Award. Notably, her first two novels have been successfully adapted for the big screen.
In this episode, she’ll tell us why she fell in love with the romance genre, and how she found her way to writing as a career after 15 years in finance. She also shares her own ridiculously cute, out-of-a-movie love story about how she ended up with her husband and fellow writer, David Yoon.
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Connect with Jordan and The Reading Culture @thereadingculturepod and subscribe to our newsletter at thereadingculturepod.com/newsletter.
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Inspired by her own novel, "Instructions for Dancing,” in her reading challenge, Good Grief, Nicola invites us to explore the intersection of love and grief with a list of some of her favorite books.
You can find her list and all past reading challenges at thereadingculturepod.com.
Today's Beanstack Featured Librarian is Nikki Hayter, a library manager with the Des Moines Public Library system. As summer inches closer, she tells us about a unique program her library started a couple of years ago with graphic novels.
Contents
Chapter 1 - Harlequin Romance (1:37)
Chapter 2 - An Unrequited Love (6:36)
Chapter 3 - The Great Gatsby (11:24)
Chapter 4 - A Requited Love (16:26)
Chapter 5 - The Airport Scene (19:02)
Chapter 6 - Questions About Love (22:53)
Chapter 7 - Not a Case of Love at First Sight (25:43)
Chapter 8 - Expectations of Love (27:34)
Chapter 9 - Don’t read this book! (applies to children) (31:21)
Chapter 10 - Joy Revolution (33:40)
Chapter 11 - Good Grief (36:45)
Chapter 12 - Beanstack Featured Librarian (38:22)
Links
Host: Jordan Lloyd Bookey
Producer: Jackie Lamport and Lower Street Media
Script Editors: Josia Lamberto-Egan, Jackie Lamport, Jordan Lloyd Bookey
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 notes in albums was just as important as any other kind of reading. Eventually, artists like Prince, Rakim, and John Coltrane taught him about the power in simply and truly being yourself. Inspired, young Derrick began writing his own poetry and short stories, which served as the beginning of a long and fruitful writing career. A career that includes being the first black creative copywriter for Hallmark cards.
In his work as an author, Derrick embodies the authenticity of his idols, being uncompromising in his goal to tell an array of black stories, for black kids. Although already an established writer, Derrick’s breakthrough picture book, "Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut" brought him national attention and accolades such as the Ezra Jack Keats Book Award, a Newbery Honor, and the Coretta Scott King Award. More recently he earned a National Book Award honor for the graphic novel “Victory Stand! Raising My Fist for Justice.”
In this episode, Derrick tells the story of how music inspired him to write, how his idols taught him to never compromise his voice as a black man, and why he considers himself a freedom fighter.
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Connect with Jordan and The Reading Culture @thereadingculturepod and subscribe to our newsletter at thereadingculturepod.com/newsletter.
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In Derrick’s reading challenge, "Resistance and Resilience" he invited us to read powerful stories of resilience from America’s black history.
You can find her list and all past reading challenges at thereadingculturepod.com.
Today's Beanstack Featured Librarian is Connie Sharp, a Librarian Training and Development Specialist at Metro Nashville Public Schools. She told us about how her district utilizes Beanstack with community partnerships to encourage students to read.
Contents
Chapter 1 - Jazz, Hip Hop, R&B (1:59)
Chapter 2 - Literacy and Lyrics (6:31)
Chapter 3 - A Hallmark Story (9:11)
Chapter 4 - The Fresh Cut (12:52)
Chapter 5 - Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (19:22)
Chapter 6 - Freedom Fighter (25:00)
Chapter 7 - The Blackest Books (28:56)
Chapter 8 - The Legacy of Derrick Barnes (31:29)
Chapter 9 - Resistance and Resilience (35:31)
Chapter 10 - Beanstack Featured Librarian (37:29)
Links
Host: Jordan Lloyd Bookey
Producer: Jackie Lamport and Lower Street Media
Script Editors: Josia Lamberto-Egan, Jackie Lamport, Jordan Lloyd Bookey