When my book Smoky Night, which was about the riots in Los Angeles, came out, there was quite a lot of controversy about that book. It was a theme that a lot of even librarians, teachers and parents didn’t think should be talked about to kids – riots. And it’s not a pleasant subject, but on the other hand, it’s a reality. It’s a truth. It’s what happened, and, God forbid, but could happen again.
So, the letters I get from the kids on that show me that they know what I was trying to do and what I was trying to say, because that was a book that on one level was about the riots; but on another level it was saying, “Reach out to somebody who’s not like you, and you may find that you don’t hate them, that you really can be friends.” And kids get that. Kids write to me and tell me they get that, and they even say, “I think you wrote two stories here. You told about the riots, and you told about being friends.” So, I think that it’s good to do that. I feel it’s good to do it, and I don’t want to feel any restrictions on me to do that.
