AI Summary
5 min readBooks can teach you to love yourself. If you let them.
National Book Award–winning author Jason Reynolds didn't set out to write for young people. When his first book deal at age 21 was categorized as young adult, he felt insulted. "I thought they were trying to belittle the thing that I had made," he says. That changed during his first library visit, when he talked with kids about his work and realized: "This makes me feel way more useful and more purposeful than anything else I'd ever done before." Now, two decades later, Reynolds has built a career on writing for the age group he calls "half-baked"—kids between 9 and 13 who still have one foot in little-kid land and one foot in big-kid land. "They're willing to still give you a hug but can ask really complicated questions," he says. "They don't have the self-consciousness that stops them from asking those questions, but they have the self-awareness that pushes those questions forward."
The bridge between generations
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:00) **Opening: Fiction as a Mirror for Human Potential** - Host Brittany Loose introduces the episode with a powerful claim: that fiction shows us our capacity for change.
- 2 (01:04) **Introducing Jason Reynolds** - Reynolds is introduced as a MacArthur Genius Grant recipient and National Book Award-winning author of beloved YA books.
- 3 (01:20) **Trusting the Captain: On Casting and Collaboration** - Reynolds discusses the new Black Panther casting, using it as a metaphor for creative trust.
- 4 (02:38) **How Reynolds Fell Into Writing for Young People** - He reveals he didn't intend to write for young adults; his first book was categorized that way when he was 21.
- 5 (04:10) **The Magic of the "Half-Baked" Age (9-13)** - Reynolds explains why he writes for the 9-to-13 age group, describing them as perfectly poised between childhood and adolescence.
- 6 (06:29) **Building Bridges Between Generations** - Reynolds offers a practical framework for connecting with young people: remember how you built bridges as a child.
- 7 (09:31) **The Power of Being a Fan** - A story about meeting actor Omar Epps illustrates the importance of embracing fandom without shame.
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Show Notes
You could ask author Jason Reynolds for a start. The acclaimed author of young adult novels, Look Both Ways, Long Way Down, and Ghost joins host Brittany Luse to discuss the lessons in empathy, friendship and hope that novels can inspire in all readers. He says, “In one book, everybody can change. In 300 pages, every character that you've met has become a new character by the end, and so what might you do in thirty days, let alone thirty years? ”
What's the last book that changed you?
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