SLJ Catches Up with Walter Dean Myers

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Debra Lau Whelan -- School Library Journal, 11/29/2006

Award-winning author Walter Dean Myers just released two new titles: the picture book Jazz (Holiday House) and Street Love (Amistad), a modern-day Romeo and Juliet.

With over 85 books to his name, Myers is probably one of the most prolific African-American writers in the nation—and he's already working on his next project, a book of love stories and a basketball novel that was influenced by Othello.

SLJ caught up with the inexhaustible writer to talk about his inspiration and what it's like working with his son Christopher, an illustrator.

Street Love was clearly inspired by Romeo and Juliet, but what made you decide to write it with a rap beat and rhyme?

Literature forms bridges—the bridge between the words and the reality they describe, the bridge between the inner world of soul and mind and the outer world of concrete and headlines, and often, as in my work, the bridge between the life of urban minorities and the several worlds they will eventually encounter. Street Love references Romeo and Juliet, but brings that world into the inner city. In using rhyme and free verse forms, I hope to span the familiar street language with classical forms.

How do you think the subject of forbidden love applies to kids today?

Love is timeless and universal. It's only the approach that differs from situation to situation. Today's young people can't build the dream house with the picket fence that would have been available to them just a few decades ago, but they still find strength and joy in the bonds they do achieve.

Tell us about Jazz. What's it like working with your son Christopher?

I love writing and I love working with Christopher. We both felt that Blues Journey (Holiday House, 2003) represented an interesting dip into American history. Jazz was even better because I allowed myself more freedom with the written forms, and his visual riffs matched them perfectly. He's created pictures for my stories since he was four. I didn't realize then he would actually become a professional artist but I respected his drawings. I still do.

You're incredibly prolific. How do you keep coming up with ideas?

We live in a vital, energetic world that is changing at an ever faster pace. My ideas come from the tensions created by those changes and the writing from my love of the creative process.

What are the main differences between kids today and kids when you first started writing children's books?

The major difference I have seen in kids is the disparity between reading levels from school to school. I don't feel that I'm competing against other media—if your work builds a useful bridge to a world that interests the child, they will gladly cross it. The challenge for me is to be inclusive no matter what the reading level.

The subjects you write about really hit close to home for a lot of kids. What are some of the comments from your readers that really touched your heart?

The most touching letters for me are the ones in which kids think I know something about them personally. Once, during a school visit, a young girl said that she had felt the same way my character did in a book. She asked me how I knew about that feeling.

If a child with a similar background to yours wanted to become a writer, what advice would you give him?

I tell all would-be writers that they must first be readers. I advise them to read the best books they can find and to enjoy them as readers, to give into the book. Beyond that it's all about loving the process of putting words on paper (or screen).