Be not afraid of discomfort. If you can't put yourself in a situation where you are uncomfortable, then you will never grow. You will never change. You'll never learn.
Jason Reynolds
Having a superpower has nothing to do with the ability to fly or jump, or superhuman strength. The truest superpowers are the ones we all possess: willpower, integrity, and most importantly, courage.
The idea of the mask in any scenario has always fascinated me. Not only does it protect identity, it also allows one to hide.
It's hard to be what you can't see.
Gratitude is one of the greatest gifts we can give. And it's not a gift we often give to children. We expect it of them, but we don't necessarily give it back.
All I want kids to know is that I see them for who they are and not who everyone thinks they are.
I believe that every character is a setting, a world with moving parts, and on the other hand, every setting is, in fact, a character - a living breathing thing with personality and backstory. The way stories come to life, at least for me, is when these elements commune in relationship to one another.
The literary world has to compete with YouTube, Instagram, PlayStation, Xbox, Hulu.
I know the feeling of confusion and betrayal. I know the feeling of fearing for my life.
I'm writing all the books I wish I had when I was a kid.
Writing is like any other sort of sport. In order for you to get better at it, you have to exercise the muscle.
The truths are universal: Every kid knows fear. Every kid knows family and friendship. Loss, love, laughter. Everything else is just detail.
Rap music was and is, for me, everything.
The truth is, my life was made infinitely more difficult because I didn't read any books. But I didn't read any books. That's my story. That's my truth.
The people who know me do not ask me about the next book or how it's going. They ask, 'Jason, are you sleeping?' because they know my brain will not shut down.
I have a chip on my shoulder I pet every morning, a constant feeling like I have something to prove. Hearing that the canon can't be diversified, there's no room for more brown faces - that fueled my fire.
'To Kill a Mockingbird' wasn't about me.
Hip-hop saved me. It gave me permission to use language in a certain way. It validated my community and my friends. It gave our slang a certain elegance.
Poetry has the ability to create entire moments with just a few choice words. The spacing and line breaks create rhythm, a helpful musicality, a natural flow. The separate stanzas aid in perpetuating a kind of incremental reading, one small chunk at a time.
When Black Lives Matter started, it was polarizing.
I was eight years old when I got the talk about what to do if a police officer stops me. I was 15 when I was face-down on the curb for the first time.
I try to create characters people want to sit with, even if nothing is happening.
I read 'The Young Landlords' and felt almost a chemical change. What I realized while reading that book was that I could write in my voice, use my tongue, my language, my style, and write a story.
There are so many things I want to do, so many things I have to say.
I wanted to be Langston Hughes.
I just want young people to read my books and feel cared for, feel safe, feel like there's someone else in the world who understands - or at least acknowledges - your existence.
I would go to the store, I would buy cassette tapes, and I would read the liner notes and sort of subconsciously creating the connections between the rappers that I was reading and the poets that they were teaching us in school.
I've been told what I can't do my whole life.
Queen Latifah was writing poetry. Maybe Latifah's 'Ladies First' and Angelou's 'Phenomenal Woman' are the same thing, a generation apart.
The feeling of self-discovery, for me, is perennial.
It wasn't that the teachers were bad. From what I can remember, they were pretty good. It was about the selection of books. It was about not seeing my young life reflected back to me: my family dynamics, the noise and complexities of my neighborhood, the things I loved, like ice cream trucks and Kool-Aid.
We've always been told to pretend as if we're not afraid.
People always say time heals. Time doesn't necessarily heal anything. It allows you to manage things. There are occasions where you feel the pain as if it just happened, but you know that it's a fleeting moment.
I write every single day.
The stories of kids who grew up in communities like mine weren't being written about in many books for kids.
I grew up around a whole bunch of girls, and one thing I realized is what they had on their plate was very different than what I had on mine. The things girls are made to be responsible for is a heavy burden - take care of your younger siblings, do good in school, have some extracurriculars. The pressure is intense.
Boston is pretty infamous for race relations.
One thing I wish I'd been told in school is that my language is valid.
If a kid is reading a book about someone who looks like them but doesn't talk like them, we stunt their growth by dissing them.
When I was a kid, I couldn't see life outside ramen noodles and Kool-Aid.
Grief is like mending a knee. You can mend the knee and make it function, but the knee never actually heals.
Rappers are the white authors of our generation. They know me, my language, my codes, my family, my block.
Rap music was a savior to me.
It's naive of adults to believe that young people aren't aware of what is going on in the world. The best thing we can do is confront that to help them navigate it. We can help them say, 'These things are happening. What does that mean for your life?'
I am a consummate metaphor addict.
I try to be an active griever. I feel like we lean on time because of the trope 'Time heals all wounds.' And there is truth to that, but I don't think that it's absolute. I think that to grieve and to deal and cope, you have to be actively processing the information. Have your moments, be broken, and allow yourself to fully express pain.
Rappers were my storytellers.
All the academy will tell you that the language that is familiar to you is not appropriate. and that's not to say that there shouldn't be a standard, but when I come to school with my friends' language, my grandmother's language, the language in my mouth - you're going to tell me that's improper?
I love, loved, loved 'We Real Cool' by Gwendolyn Brooks.
My relationship to comics isn't nearly as strong as some people's. Ha! I mean, I grew up with a comic book fanatic. My older brother was, and still is, obsessed. And I was obsessed with the fact that he was obsessed, because I was obsessed with him. But not necessarily with comics themselves.
