Jason Reynolds @ the 2018 National Book Festival

Jason Reynolds was recently named the Ambassador for Young People’s Literature (see the CBS interview here: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jason-reynolds-library-of-congress-national-ambassador-for-young-peoples-literature/) , and he is using this platform to empower young people around the country to “GRAB THE MIC: Tell Your Story”. So, we went looking around the internet for encouraging and interesting videos where Jason Reynolds takes the mic and tells his story. We found this from the 2018 National Book Festival.

Jason expresses that when he writes a book, he keeps in mind that it is important to tell the stories of real people so that kids who read his books will see themselves. He talks about connecting to other people’s experiences through literature, and how he makes his characters real. His stories feature characters who go through emotional times, yet still handle these things with humor and humility.

“My mother always says, ‘Don’t ever trust nobody who is all cry and no laugh.’ Right? I think that like, if we were being honest about humanity, there’s no way that we could talk about the bad things without talking about the joy.” – Jason Reynolds

It is also especially powerful when the audience members ask him really thoughtful, interesting questions, and he devotes his full attention to them. It’s worth watching until the very very end.

If you want to see which Jason Reynold’s books we have in our OverDrive account, click here: http://librarymedia.blog.monroe.edu/2020/01/23/jason-reynolds-resources/

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