An article summary from this week's Marshall Memo on a notable author

Jason Reynolds on Stories, Creativity, and Book Bans

????????????Here are a few excerpts from a live Instagram interview in?School Library Journal?with author Jason Reynolds (When I Was the Greatest, The Boy in the Black Suit, All American Boys?(with Brendan Kiely), Long Way Down):

“I believe that every bit of our lives, every person that we see, every moment, every animal and insect, to me everything has a narrative, everything has a narrative attached to it, whether we think about it or not, whether we consider it or not. I just think about stories being everywhere, stories sort of being these things that are swirling all around us all the time in the ether. And we just have to figure out how to reach up and snatch one down, or take this one and this one and put them together to make a new one. That’s the thing about stories, I think they already exist everywhere around us. We just can’t see them because we’re not looking for them. And I am looking for them. I’m wide open. My receptors, my antennae, are up.”?

“I think that as much stock as we put in our machines, and our algorithms, and this that and the third, they cannot replace human connection. I think that we think they can, but they can’t. And I think the time when we realized that they really cannot was in 2020 during the pandemic. We were all locked in the house and all we had were our machines, and the only thing we wanted to do was be around people. So I believe that no matter what, the human spirit will always be the thing that draws us toward art.”

“You know, you spin straw into gold, right? And I’m always interested in taking the straw of my life and spinning it into gold, so that some young person understands the straw of their lives can be gold as well. You feel me?”

????????????“The first thing I tell students is to always be interested in and question why people are afraid of things. Like, usually the things that everybody’s afraid of are things that we probably need the most, you know, when it comes to information, when it comes to books being banned, censored, and challenged. Don’t let the fear and insecurity of adults get in the way of your edification.”

“On the flip side, though, I just want to say, we focus so much on the few people who hate the things that we make or are banning or are afraid of the thing that we make. And I think we should be focusing on the librarians and these teachers who are pressing forward regardless, all of the people on the front lines who have shown love and who sacrifice and put their jobs on the line every single day to make sure that our young people get a fair swing at open and honest, not just information, but art.”?

“Young people, be kind to your parents and the adults in your lives, they’re doing their best. Old people, be kind to the young people in your lives, they’re doing their best. If we can remember that, we’ll all do a little better.”?

“Jason Reynolds Is Just Getting Started” : An Instagram interview with?School Library Journal, June 2023 (Vol. 69, #6, pp. 24-27), summarized in Marshall Memo 991