When I go into schools, one question I get a lot is what message are you trying to give to children who read your books or maybe it’s a question about a specific book. My answer is always the same. If I could write a message, I would put it on a billboard or a bumper sticker. I wrote a story because what I have to say is much more complicated than a message. I don’t think fiction provides messages for the children who read the books.
I think fiction allows for a complicated exploration of something. So, I would encourage teachers and students and librarians to think about fiction as multilayered and as having a multiplicity of possible meanings, that if you are essentializing it as a single message, you are missing what is beautiful and amazing about fiction. So allow for contradictory interpretations, allow for conversations and different points of view, unpack the possible meanings of something and allow them to coexist.
