I probably hear from hundreds of kids every single month. And a lot of their feedback is, “I thought it was funny when this thing happened,” or “Did you really have a snake get into your car? That sounds terrible.”
But mostly what I hear is, “I see me. I see my sister. I see my brother. I see my friends, and it’s given me the confidence to be myself, or to stand up to people that are bullying me, or just to know that like braces are not forever.” They might be painful right now, but when kids read my story they go, “Well, she definitely had it worse than I did.” So I don’t know. I’ve heard from the loveliest kids.
A lot of times it’s struggling readers, and they are so excited that they finished a book, and it was over 200 pages long, and it’s chunky, you know, and they can hold it in their hands, and it’s just such a tactile experience. I think that’s one of the things we’ve all loved about books. It’s something that connects a lot of people from a lot of generations, and so we all know that satisfaction of like holding a big book. So when they feel that satisfaction too, they’re so proud of themselves
But, you know, kids re-read graphic novels. They go back again and again, and I think every single time they’re discovering something different. They’re learning more about the interplay of the dialogue and the pictures. They’re seeing things in the backgrounds they didn’t notice before. And then they’re like, “Oh, I saw that you hid yourself and your sister in the background of this scene.” And I’m just like, they’re observing. They’re being so keen, and it is really, really, cool to know that all of that hard work pays off when that kid has such a personal experience with the story.
And I wish I could hang out with every single kid who reads my books, but I’ll just keep writing more books and then they get to keep hanging out with my character.