My first two books, 'Letters to a Young Brother' and 'Letters to a Young Sister,' were... distributed pretty widely. Judges in juvenile justice facilities started citing the book as required reading.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
When I was growing up, a lot of books affected me, but I never wrote letters to the author or anything like that. I'm always mindful that there are probably a whole bunch of people reading my books like that, too.
With my first book, 'A Letter to a Young Brother,' I figured it would be my only book I was ever going to write. What happened with that is a lot of young men would reach out to me.
I've known since I was 12 that I wanted to write. My father was a teacher, and there were so many books around, it seemed natural to pick them up.
I was an early reader, reading even before kindergarten, and since we did not have books in my home, my older brother, Alexander, was responsible for our trip every week to the public library to exchange books already read for new ones to be read.
I receive about 10,000 letters a year from readers, and in the first year after a book is published, perhaps 5,000 letters will deal specifically with that piece of work.
I have a brother younger than me. My mother was a librarian, so from her, I got the taste to read.
I was an early reader, and my grandmother, who as a child had been forbidden to read by a father who believed books to be frivolous time-wasters, delighted in putting her favorite volumes into her grandchildren's hands.
To see what books were available for my older students, I made many trips to the library. If a book looked interesting, I checked it out. I once went home with 30 books! It was then that I realized that kids' novels had the shape of real books, and I began to get ideas for young adult novels and juvenile books.
I've always been drawn to writing for young readers. The books that I read growing up remain in my mind very strongly.
My first four books were not published because nobody wanted them. They were adult books, not kids' books.