Gene sits down with writer Patrick Ness — author of the award-winning middle grade book, A Monster Calls, the popular YA science fiction trilogy Chaos Walking, and the YA book The Rest of Us Just Live Here, a story about finding the extraordinary in your ordinary self. Ness says that “all writers are noticers” and that stories should reflect the diversity of the world around us. He advises kids to “reach up” and read books that are difficult or filled with ideas that may be beyond your understanding, because storytelling helps us make sense of the world.
Find out why Richard Scarry’s Storybook Dictionary, The Westing Game, and The Color Purple made such a deep impression on Ness as a young reader, how writing a book is different from collaborating on a book-to-movie, and much more. Listen in!
About the Author
Gene Luen Yang began drawing comic books in the fifth grade. In 2006, his graphic novel, American Born Chinese — a memoir about growing up as an Asian American — became the first graphic novel to win the American Library Association’s Printz Award. He is the author of the Secret Coders series and has written for the hit comics Avatar: The Last Airbender and Superman. In 2016, Yang was named the 5th National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature and selected as a MacArthur Fellow .
Publication Date
November 10, 2016