Jason Reynolds

Jason Reynolds: I don't wanna be whatever version of masculinity y'all keep telling me I have to be. Why is the only version of masculinity? Why are all the benchmarks violent, aggressive? I don't wanna do it. I'm not interested.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: To tell another man you love him, to center friendships and tenderness pushes against the scripts boys inherit about how they're supposed to act and it leads today's guest to an even harder admission.

Jason Reynolds: I don't think I actually know what masculinity is.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Jason Reynolds is a national treasure, a Newbery Medal winner, a National Book Award finalist, a MacArthur Genius Grant recipient, and a two time national ambassador for young people's literature. And somehow, he's only 41. From Ghost and the track series to Long Way Down and Look Both Ways, his books illuminate and elucidate the feelings of boys and men in all their gentleness, vulnerability, and warmth. In this episode, Jason shares his thoughts on masculinity, the good, the bad, and the beautiful. He explains why everyone needs to have a tuning fork friend, describes how Saturn flipped his life around at age 30, and pays an incredible tribute to the tattooed biker badass who was his loving father.

My name is Jordan Lloyd Bookie and this is the reading culture, a show where we speak with diverse authors about ways to build a stronger culture of reading in our communities. We dive deep into their personal experiences and inspirations. Our show is made possible by Beanstack, the leading solution for motivating people to read more. Learn more at beanstack.com, and make sure to check us out on Instagram at the reading culture pod and subscribe to our newsletter for bonus content at the readingculturepod.com forward slash newsletter alright on to the show Hey, listeners. Are you looking for a fun, way to track your reading and earn cool rewards?

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And if you are an educator searching for a fresh alternative to accelerated reader, Beanstack is the perfect tool to cultivate a thriving reading culture. Ready to turn the page? Visit beanstack.com to learn more. I wanted to talk about maybe if you could bring us back to, like, one of your first close relationships as a younger person, like, one of your close friendships and just kinda speak to that.

Jason Reynolds: That's an easy one for me. My first close relationship was with Aaron. You know, Aaron is gosh. I mean, he's I have siblings, and I'm very close to my siblings, and he's closer to me than they are. He's been in my life since I was four.

We met in kindergarten. I was talking to him literally before I got on here Mhmm. About, like, he's taking care of my car. He got to run my car to the shop. He takes care of my mom when I'm out of town.

We're in our forties now, we're still as tight as we were as children. You know, it's one of these things. And so as a four year old, five year old coming into a new kindergarten class, shy and introverted, there was this one kid who was the opposite. And he could tell that I needed a little help. He could tell that I needed somebody to stand next to.

Right? That I needed somebody to take a step forward so that I could be comfortable taking a step back, you know? And our lives, from that point on, our lives have always been that way. Even when we were growing up, he was more of a tough kid. He had a lot more aggression for lots of reasons, but it it made me always feel safe.

I never had to pretend like I was anything other than who I was around him, even back then. You know, we came from different family backgrounds, different economic situations, and we never judged each other for anything. And so I was taught what friendship was really, really, really young. And I was taught what boyhood could be within, like we gated each other in so that we could run around freely within this border. Right?

It's like as long as we create our own border around each other, as long as we create a force field, then I get to be any version of myself safely, and he got to be any version of himself safely. So then I got to know what it felt like to be free Mhmm. As a little boy. And all the way up through middle school, high school, college, and even today in our forties.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: How do you think, looking back on it, that you created that force field? Like, what were the elements of it?

Jason Reynolds: You know, it's weird because I look back, and I don't even know why it all felt so instinctual. Right? Like, no one ever told us that this is how you treat your friends. I think we both understood that we both needed each other in particular ways, and we've been each other's tuning fork throughout our lives. Right?

It's like whenever we feel like maybe we're a little out of sync or a little unaligned, the other one is there to say, like, you know, that's not you.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: It's so interesting to hear you talk because okay. I'm one of three sisters. And, like, women, we grew up saying I love you in public all the time. Like, not just to my sisters or to my friends or my girlfriends, but also to, like, the football team moms. The other day, one said to me, like, see you later.

Love you. And nothing strange about that. Right? Like, I think girls are just taught early the tenderness is okay, and then it feels natural. And meanwhile, boys, they are getting the opposite message a lot of the time.

And I've even heard when I hear my son say, I love you to a friend or recently he said this to his very age old friend, you know, it still jumps out to me. Like, it's still uncommon. You know?

Jason Reynolds: Yeah. I say I love you to all my friends. Everybody. And to be very clear, I I wanna be clear about the way that we say I love you because I also make it a point. There's no hedging or couching.

Right? Because what happens is middle we will find a way to take whatever sting we feel is in it out of it. Right? Some of my friends just say love, love, man, but they got the phone. Love, bro.

Hang up the phone.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yes.

Jason Reynolds: Right? And it's like, nah. I want it to be clear and direct. I love you

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah.

Jason Reynolds: Aaron. Right? And then let's just sit in it for a second. Mhmm. Right?

And that's how it is. Right? It's like, love you, man. I I love you. And he's like, I love you, man.

I love you too. Yeah. That's it. All the time. Every time I see him or talk to him.

That's all my guys though. Right? It's like, yo, love you. Love you too. Talk to you later.

Yeah. Because I do. This is the thing I've yet to sort of figure out. Right? The greatest doozy ever pulled on men has to be homophobia.

Yeah. It's like I don't want anyone to assume that when I say I love this man that I'm saying I'm attracted to this man. And the wild part is is that you are attracted to him because attraction is not about just a physical thing. All of my friends, I have been magnetized to. They're in my life because there is something attractive

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah.

Jason Reynolds: About who they are, about their personalities, their spirits, their constitutions, the way that they lead their lives, the way that they hold me down, the way that they care for their parents and their wives and children. Like, no. No. No. I am attracted to these people.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: That's right.

Jason Reynolds: Right?

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Attraction. Right. Exactly.

Jason Reynolds: Exactly. Right? It's that but we sexualize everything

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah.

Jason Reynolds: Which is simply a sign of immaturity. It's teenage boyhood.

Sasa Aakil: Yeah. I think Zane wanted in Look Both Ways, right? Like, that's one of the

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: stories in there is that two boys are just like he just gives them a peck on the cheek or something, then everybody

Jason Reynolds: Yeah. And, like, it becomes a whole thing. And it's like, not only do I find it all to be very foolish and very silly, I don't think we know, or I think perhaps we do know, the kind of hindrance that it creates. Right? It's like there's a stunting that happens.

There's a ceiling there. Right? We've created a smaller space for us to be free and loose in. I can't play or do my dance because you're so scared that if I tell you how I feel about you, brother, that somehow I'll cross some sort of sexual line, which has less to do with me and more to do with you. And I think, for me, it's very important that the men in my life know that I do love them, that I am grateful for them.

Right? That there is something about them that has magnetized me. Right? Which is why they are still in my light, which is why I continue to be a part of theirs. Right?

And I don't know why that is so difficult.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Jason's friendships gave him the freedom to be tender, a rare gift in boyhood. From a young age, we're often told what strength should look like, what softness should be hidden, and what it means to be a man.

Jason Reynolds: Like, we should be able to be like, I'm okay with the football players. I'm okay with the like, I was an athlete. I grew up an athlete. I'm okay with the jocks and the brutes and this idea that, like, there's a certain kind of aggression that I get to take out in this particular sport. I'm also okay with that same person stepping off the field and going to their daughter's recital and crying like a baby.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Right.

Jason Reynolds: Not because of any sort of definition of what a man should be, but because of every definition of what a human is.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: When you were younger, were there any, like, movies or anything else? Did you feel like you had other, like, medium or shows or anything that you could watch and be like, yep, I see that that tenderness reflected or did you feel like you were Yeah. And what were those things?

Jason Reynolds: I grew up watching The Cosby Show. Yeah. You know? And of course, we know that it's complicated. The name is is triggering.

Right?

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: I know. Yeah.

Jason Reynolds: But that show was nothing short of a masterpiece. To see a man love his children in that way at that time, right, where he ruled with a certain level of communication. It was more communication than an iron fist.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: That's right.

Jason Reynolds: Like James Evans, I also value because he was also a very normal figure in our community. A hardworking blue collar man doing everything he could to keep his children and family safe in the middle of Chicago. Right?

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah.

Jason Reynolds: And that sometimes would then disallow him the opportunity of sensitivity. It would take some of I don't have enough capacity for sensitivity because the stakes are so high. That's also very real. And then you get Bill Cosby where the stakes are lower because they have all the money. Yeah.

Right? They have all the success. And so now all I have to do is love you. All I have to do is talk to you and figure you out. Right?

And I have time and energy to do so. And I think both of them were important in their own ways, but I think when it comes to just seeing a father figure, I can't even say that. I would argue both of them were very important because James Evans had a tenderness. It just looked differently. If you knew it, you knew it.

Right? You know what I mean?

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah. But it wasn't as, I guess, like, coded or whatever, like, Cosby Show, you'd see that and be like, oh, this is like picture book tender and picture book sensitivity.

Jason Reynolds: Exactly. Right. It wasn't just go to your room. It was go to your room, and I'm gonna come, and we're gonna have a whole conversation so that I can honor who you are as a person and try to figure out how to best guide you.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Where did your dad fit in this spectrum? I've heard he was a fly guy.

Jason Reynolds: My dad was a little bit of both. My father was like you know, it's funny because most of my career has been about my mom, but my father was so special. Me and my siblings and my mom and my stepmom, we all laugh about it. If you saw him, you would assume he was menacing. He was a big, broad chest, broad shoulder covered in tattoos.

He's got gold chains on. He's got all this hair on his head and his beard. He looked like somebody who knew somebody who could get you killed. You know what I mean? Like, he's or he could get you killed.

Right? It's like Yes. My mom always said I fell in love with the bad boy. Mhmm. Like, he was the bad boy.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: That was his persona.

Jason Reynolds: That was his persona. But and I'm talking all the way down to the motorcycles, the calendars of naked women.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah. All of it.

Jason Reynolds: All of the things. Right? He was the bad boy, But also, we wake his kids up every day, feed them breakfast, take them to school, kiss them goodbye, tell them that he loves us. He was so sensitive and so tender. You know, he was way more affectionate than my mother.

I always tell people I never thought that there was anything wrong with being gay because my dad kissed his boys. And so because he kissed his sons, it didn't seem strange for me to see boys kissing. It was kinda like, yeah, like a boy kissing a boy is like, well, my dad kissed me all the time. He kissed me on my forehead, all over my cheeks, all over my face. Like, my father was an affectionate man, and he was a fun time.

He was crazy. He could you know, he'd run around in the house in his drawers doing somersaults and, like, just a wild like, my house was, like, crazy. Right? But at the same time, also would say, hey. One, you're respect your mother.

Two, on Saturday, we're get up. We're gonna do these chores. And he was very hard on us about our work and making sure that we took pride in our work. That was his thing. Take pride.

Take pride. This is your house. This will give you a real clue of who he was. I remember one day when I got to middle school, everything went crazy. My parents split up, and life just turned upside down.

And I started to fail school, and I remember I got my first d or something. And my father, I remember him coming over, and he's like, alright. So you have a d in math or whatever it is. And I'm like, yeah. And he's like, did you get this d because this is the d you earned?

Like, this was the best that you could have done, or did you get this d because you weren't trying?

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: And

Jason Reynolds: I said, I got this d because I wasn't really trying. He said, okay. So because you got this d because you weren't trying, we're gonna have to figure out some course of discipline. Right? Had you got this d because you were trying, then I would have tried to figure out a way to help you try a little harder, but I wouldn't have had to discipline you.

And then he said, now the next report card, I'm gonna ask you these same questions, and I'm trusting your integrity and that you will always tell me the truth. Don't lie to yourself. Right? Tell me the truth. And every semester going forward and I did not do better, but I would tell him the truth.

Sometimes it was like, dad, I tried really hard. I'm just not good at science. And he would say, okay. He just wanted us to try.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah. He wants to have that ethic. Yeah.

Jason Reynolds: Yeah. And and I would always be honest, and he would say, okay. Now we have to figure out some sort of disciplinary action. Right? And we would go through.

Right? We'd be like, look. Let me maybe I have to, you know, clean up this, this, and this for the month. And he'd like, that's not enough. We need to figure out you have to understand that there are consequences.

Right? But he never had that's what I'm saying, very huxtable. Like, he never had to scream at us. He never it was like, yo, I wanna understand who you are in this moment, but you got to be honest with me. And my father was a psychologist, I should say.

So it's important to note that

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: So he had the tools to help to be like, okay, this is

Jason Reynolds: what we're do. And I I will all my mom, on the other hand, was like, hey, get away from me.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: This is what's happening.

Jason Reynolds: You stay away from me until I calm down, you know.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Looking back on your life, do you see like this moment when you feel like, okay, I came of age, like this was my moment when I went. Was it 10? Was it that 10 year old time? That was your shift. Then as a man, do you feel like you're having that now too?

Like, you're having this next moment? It kinda sounds like it. Like, other coming of age, whatever this, like, the next act is. Mhmm. And how do you, like, kind of look and compare those Yeah.

Jason Reynolds: Yeah. I feel I would say my life was expedited. My sort of maturation process was expedited. I got to high school at 12.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: It's wild.

Jason Reynolds: It's wild.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: I think they would allow that today. I don't even think that's permitted.

Jason Reynolds: They probably shouldn't, obviously. I'm 12 years old. There are 18 year olds in the school. I got to college at 16. So you figure, I don't hit puberty or I really really kind of step into puberty until I'm in high school.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah.

Jason Reynolds: Like, I'm 14 as like I'm I'm going into my junior year.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah.

Jason Reynolds: Right? And so You

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: had those first two years being young, small, whatever, like, Tiny.

Jason Reynolds: And then I come back junior year and I'm six feet tall.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Damn.

Jason Reynolds: Right? And everyone's like, who is the new guy? Right? It was the wildest experience dealing with the growth and hair and voice dropping, sexuality. You're finding your boundaries in your lines, you feel uncomfortable in your skin.

Right? So you have physical discomfort, and then you have emotional discomfort. I'm also posturing because I don't want anyone to know I'm young, and so I'm sort of performing a kind of teenage ness. Right? A kind of adolescence to what I think I'm supposed to act like at 16, 17, 18, which of course is getting me in trouble.

Yes. And so sex is happening, and this is that. Right? Because I'm because I'm just trying to make sure I'm keeping up.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah.

Jason Reynolds: I'm taking my mom's car and stealing mom's car, driving to school, and like you know what I mean? Just doing all the things that sometimes we do. Now, at 30 I remember me turning 30, my mother says because my mom is very woo woo. Right? So at 30, my mom is like, Jason, 30 years old.

Between 27 and 30, this is when all the planets in the sky are exactly the way they were the year at which you were born.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Okay.

Jason Reynolds: Right? In all of the astrology, they call it Saturn return. So this is like Okay. So everything has reset itself. So basically, this is the amount of time it would take for everything to kind of be right where it was when you were born.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: It's like your celestial coming of age, sort of.

Jason Reynolds: Yeah. Okay. So like between 27 and 30, as they say. Right? Now if I were to think about that and then map out what happens which then means you're starting over.

Right? So, like, now life begins. So if I were to take that as the beginning, 30, and map out my life the same way I did when I started my life, my biological life at one, then that would mean where I am right now is puberty again.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Mhmm.

Jason Reynolds: Like, that I would be stepping into it would be the same. Interesting. You see what I'm saying?

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: I get it. Yeah.

Jason Reynolds: And that's exactly what it feels like. Right? Like, I'm trying to figure out who I am. I have all kinds of things changing in my body differently now. I'm testing my boundaries again.

I'm trying to figure out who am I in the world, who are my friends, am I still performing? Yeah. Right? And how can I fight against that? All these things, it's happening again, and it feels really uncomfortable.

I'm uncomfortable a lot of the times in my body for physical reasons and emotional reasons. Right? All of a sudden, my hips don't work the same. My knees don't work the same. Right?

My physical body is uncomfortable again, and I'm trying to figure out how to address this. Right?

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: I know.

Jason Reynolds: And my emotional

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: It's like funny, but it's not funny.

Jason Reynolds: But it's not funny. Right?

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: I'm so interested in this because, I mean, everybody calls it like midlife crisis.

Jason Reynolds: But I don't think it's a crisis.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: But it's really like I think your mom's right. Yeah. It has so many of those same hallmarks of going through puberty, yeah, of having that coming of age moment.

Jason Reynolds: Exactly. And honestly, it doesn't feel like a crisis.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Mm-mm. How does it feel to you?

Jason Reynolds: It feels like an introduction to the new version of me. Right? Whatever the next version of me is, I'm just trying to understand who I'm becoming because I can feel myself changing emotionally, physically, mentally, spiritually, intellectually. I can feel myself changing. I'm trying to give myself enough grace and be patient enough and to not panic and just go along for the ride, but it feels very messy like it does when I was 13, 14.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah. Can you give, like, an example of that or not?

Jason Reynolds: Let me say this. I don't think I actually know what masculinity is.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Oh, okay. But what did you think it was before, and what are you, like, questioning now?

Jason Reynolds: I think I thought it was strength and protective qualities and a certain kind of integrity and, like, a certain kind of, like, stalwartness. Right? Like, a kind of

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah.

Jason Reynolds: Like, the rock. Yeah. And my more evolved version of it was, like, also some sensitivity Yes. And some compassion. Now I'm thinking to myself, my mama raised me for half of my childhood, and my mother was strong and protective.

My dad was the affectionate one. He would have been the feminine one technically based on these definitions, and it just makes me wonder what any of it actually means. And I've heard people say, well, there's a kind of energy. And I'm like, well, that isn't you can't codify that. That isn't an actual that's not science.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah.

Jason Reynolds: Right? Like, what is it? Right? Because I understand maleness. My maleness, I cannot escape.

I can't escape the fact that biologically, I am a humongous person.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: My daughter today, I was like, I'm interviewing Jason Reynolds, she was like, man, that man's big.

Jason Reynolds: Yeah. Like, it's a big person. Right?

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: She's like, he's really tall. He makes dad look not that tall. I'm like, I know. Anyway, but yes, you can't escape that. That's your body.

That's your physical body.

Jason Reynolds: I can't do nothing about that, but that's my maleness. Yeah. But I don't know if I can associate the rest I don't associate my maleness to masculinity.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Are those just things that we've learned or you've learned to think of as that? Yeah.

Jason Reynolds: And I'm really sitting here wondering, what if I could grow up and just be me? Like, what if I had the freedom to be me before I was told that I had to act like a boy? Wash the white clothes on Monday and put them on the stone heap. Wash the colored clothes on Tuesday and put them on the clothesline to dry. Don't walk barehead in the hot sun.

Cook pumpkin fritters in very hot sweet oil. Soak your little clothes right after you take them off. When buying cotton to make yourself a nice blouse, be sure that it doesn't have gum on it because that way it won't hold up well after a wash. Soak salt fish overnight before you cook it. Is it true that you sing bena in Sunday school?

Always eat your food in such a way that it won't turn someone else's stomach. On Sundays, try to walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming. Don't sing bena in Sunday school. You mustn't speak to wharf rap boys not even to give directions. Don't eat fruits.

On the street, flies will follow you, but I don't sing bena on Sundays at all and never in Sunday school. This is how to sew on a button. This is how you sweep a corner. This is how you sweep a whole house. This is how you sweep a yard.

This is how you smile to someone you don't like too much. This is how you smile to someone you don't like at all. This is how you smile to someone you like completely. This is how you sit at a table for tea. This is how you set a table for dinner.

This is how you set a table for dinner with an important guest. This is how you set a table for lunch. This is how you set a table for breakfast. This is how to behave in the presence of men who don't know you very well. In this way, they won't recognize immediately the slut I have warned you against becoming.

Be sure to wash every day even if it is with your own spit. Don't squat down to play marbles. You are not a boy. This is how a man bullies you. This is how to love a man.

And if this doesn't work, there are other ways. And if they don't work, don't feel too bad about giving up. This is how to spit up in the air if you feel like it and this is how to move quick so that it doesn't fall on you. This is how to make ends meet, always squeeze bread to make sure it's fresh. But what if the baker won't let me feel the bread?

You mean to say that after all, you are really going to be the kind of woman who the baker won't let me the bread.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: That was an excerpt from Jamaica Kincaid's short story Girl. It's a litany of commands and commandments. We included this condensed version of Jason's reading for the sake of time, but you can check out in our show notes or on Instagram to see his full, very beautiful reading. This story is essentially a daughter's life scripted before she can even write it herself. And the rules of masculinity are prescribed just as tightly, something Jason has felt in his own life.

Jason Reynolds: So that's girl. Wow.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah. When did you read that?

Jason Reynolds: Probably when I was 22, 21, something like Yeah. I mean, this is that thing that we're talking about. Right? Expectation. Right?

This is how you be everybody but you. Let me give you the rules. Every rule, every step has to be in lockstep with a stereotype, with the expectation and the convention of what a girl is supposed to be. And to me, why can't we see problems in this? This is still the way it goes for men and women.

Yeah. This is how you carry yourself, young man. This is what you do. This is what you

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: That's Jamaican Kincaid who wrote that. It's not like some recent piece that know what

Jason Reynolds: It's like this is how you punch a man in the face. You don't cry ever. And if you do, you never let nobody see you cry, especially you know a woman. Because if a woman see you cry, either she gonna take advantage of you or she not gonna feel safe around you because she gonna feel like you can't protect it. Right?

This is the same sort of things that we've been given.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: You can make your inverse for that.

Jason Reynolds: Of course. I think, to me, I understand these rules at a particular time. When I think about safety and I think about racism, even in today's culture when I think about sexual violence. Right? So it's not that I don't understand the rules.

It's just that I am conscious enough to know that they make me sad. That's all of them. For us, for the boys, for the girls.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: And also that, like, in some ways, we internalize them. It's like we we address it before it's ever happened. I mean, yes, sometimes you have to from a very early age, like, put on your armor.

Jason Reynolds: Yes.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: But also there are a lot of cases in which people are like telling you here's your armor, here's this, here's that. From an age when like you were saying you you had that little force field with Aaron and you could just be you, that was you know, what joy and we don't get that.

Jason Reynolds: Yeah. Armor should just be armor. It should not be skin. Right? It should not be skin.

And what is happening is that armor is becoming skin. We can't tell the difference anymore. And that scares me. I don't wanna be whatever version of masculinity y'all keep telling me I have to be. Why is the only version of masculinity?

Why are all the benchmarks violent? Aggressive? I don't wanna do it. I'm not interested.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: It's so hard because the reality of, like you said, violence, it's all real. It is real. Yes. And as a woman walking in the world, like, I'm like, I do walk around being now I'm like, oh, I'm kinda old. I don't know if I'm gonna get raped.

I'm like, maybe that fear is gone now. But, you know, like, I just remember, like, when I was in DC way long time ago and teaching and stuff, and I would come home late at night and, you know, I would just be like, okay. We're gonna park my car. I need to make sure it's under a light. Make sure so I I am, like, thinking of those things.

Jason Reynolds: Which is fair.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: It's fair because that's

Jason Reynolds: real. Absolutely.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: At the same time, it's like that can't also be the way that I view myself in relationship to all men. That That can't be the way that I teach my son and my daughter to think about men, to think about themselves. It's not easy as a parent to go out and wrestle with an entire culture of sexist expectations for the good of your child. And yet, that is exactly what Jason's parents did. The link between their guidance and Jason's work as a writer and a thinker is clear to him.

And even as Jason's father passed on in 02/2014, he left his son with one final beautiful lesson.

Jason Reynolds: My father's death was one of the greatest phenomenons of my life. And I know that that's different than most people's story, but it wasn't catastrophic. It wasn't it just wasn't that way. It it was epiphantic, if anything. I learned a lot about my life.

I I mean, I was raised in a household where death wasn't a scary thing. When I was growing up, my dad didn't believe in anything, and my mom believed in everything.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Like metaphysics and all that. Right?

Jason Reynolds: Everything. All the eastern faiths and religions, but then go to the Catholic church every Sunday. Yeah. But was raised in the Baptist church, you know. And so, like, all this, like, as a hodgepodge of stuff and information and ideas.

Right? It was sort of an ideas household. Right? And so my mom was able to socialize death in a way that felt safe when I was young. So it never had to be a scary thing.

And because of that, when my father died, it was more like, well, there's peace here. And, you know, he told me, if you're looking for me, you'll find me in the mirror. I look just like him. I sound like him. Everything.

I walk like him. It's the strangest thing. And I tell people all the time that when he died, the day he died, I felt ten feet tall. It was the strength. Like, I stepped into something else.

It was as if and so I miss him dearly. He was my friend. We kind of beefed for fifteen years, and then at 25, we kind of put it back together. So from 25 to 36, I had him, and he was like my buddy. He was my guy.

He's a confidant, and I need him I think that's what I'm going through. My life right now is really kind of messy and naughty and stressful, and I could use him now, right, to just sit with and smoke a cigar and listen to him tell me some stories about him getting through some of the tougher moments of his time here. I also just feel fortunate to have had him because I grew up with the cool parents. And most people who grew up with the cool parents are scarred by their coolness. Right?

Because their coolness typically results in a kind of irresponsibility. That's not what happened for me. They wanted their children not to necessarily be their friends as children, but they wanted their children to trust them and to feel open. And then as we got older, we then could become friends, and we did my mom tells everybody, this is my best friend. He's my best friend.

My dad, before he died, he said, You're my best friend. I'll always cherish knowing what that feels like. Right? Knowing what it's like to have a person make you and then sort of cleave to you as more than the thing they made, but understanding who you became and that being the thing they cherish. And the humility that that requires for a parent to look at the child and say, you really inspire me.

You've changed me. I've learned from you. I want you around me. That what? What a gift.

And I want that for you, by the way. I hope you have that as your babies continue to grow. I hope that happens for you. It's a special thing.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: I feel like not just for them, for kids, for parents, for moms who don't have a dad in the life or whatever, like, you have, like, stood in this gap. And there are other authors.

Jason Reynolds: Yeah. Yeah. Of course.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yes. Of course. But you are definitely, like, one of the most important authors, I would say, that is standing in this gap and helping I think adults view this as, helping boys, young men, girls understand young men. Sure. And, like, forming these different ways that kids can be in the world.

Jason Reynolds: I hope so.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yes. You are. But for you to, like, go through that personally, I don't know. Do you feel like a burden, I guess, of that now you're, like, re exploring these things? Like, do you feel like, okay.

I need no. I'm gonna go back and let me let me, like, come back and, like, go to the next level with my what's, like, like, what else? What are, like, other things? You explore so many different kinds of, yeah, what it is to be a young man in so many different bodies and situations. You know?

Jason Reynolds: Yeah. If anything, I just feel like this is sort of what I'm here to do. It feels like vocational. It's just like this is my task. This is my cross to bear.

And also, all my books are about the same thing, right, which is how can we ask ourselves, like, how can we complicate what it is to be a boy? Right? How can we complicate it, explore it, expose it, challenge it, right, create space for it, free it, laugh at it, cry about it. You know, that's it. I wanna make sure that every version of boyhood is honored and has been given a kind of megaphone.

Like, you get to say your own name and you get to say it your way, and that's it. So if you are a little gay black boy, you get to be that. And you get to be that proudly, and you get to be that strongly, and you get to go through the range of emotions that every human being has, not because you are gay or black or a boy, but because you are a person. Right? My job is to humanize all of us.

Like, that's all I'm trying to do.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Jason's reading challenge is a collection of books that push back against the narrow definitions of boyhood and girlhood that many of us have come to live by.

Jason Reynolds: I'm gonna go with Love That Dog. I'm gonna go by by Sharon Creech, Salvage the Bones by Jasmine Ward, Monster by Walter Dean Myers, This Thing of Ours by Fred t Joseph, Honey I Love by Heloise Greenfield, Megan Kincaid's Girl. I think what they all have in common is that they're challenging the convention of gender. Like Salvage the Bones, Esh is dealing with girlhood on a knife's edge. Right?

Or if you think about Love That Dog, we're talking about a little boy who's learning to write poetry.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yes.

Jason Reynolds: Or if we're dealing with Monster, that's an mean, you're talking about incarceration, things of that nature. But what happens? Absolutely. Honey I Love, the tenderness of Honey I Love. I mean, the one where he's like, you know what love is?

Love is daddy telling you to stay home and take care of your mama and you do it. Right? Like, you know what

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: I mean? Yeah. This

Jason Reynolds: idea that love isn't a squeezing thing. Like, there's a difference between an embrace and a vice. Love doesn't have you in a vice. Right? It isn't squeezing you.

It's embracing you. It's creating warmth for you. It's creating safety and protection for you, but that's not gendered. Like, it's not gendered. Right?

And I think these stories are sort of about that in different ways.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: You can find Jason's reading challenge and all past reading challenges at the readingculturepod.com. And this week's Beanstack featured librarians are not actually librarians, but they are integral members of the literary community who are pioneers when it comes to student voice and writing. And they also happen to be good friends of Jason's. Today, we welcome Kathy Crutcher and Sasa Akhil from Shout Mouse Press. They share about their upcoming book, Bright Before Us Like a Flame, which Jason Reynolds has called a gift and for which a previous guest of this podcast, Elizabeth Acevedo, wrote the foreword.

Kathy Crutcher: So right before us, like a flame, is a compilation of ten years of publishing youth writing by ShoutMouse Press. ShoutMouse is a nonprofit organization based in DC. We coach young people to write and publish diverse and inclusive books. And so far, we have published over 500 young people through over 64 and counting books. And in so many different genres, children's books, graphic memoirs, novels, personal essays, poetry, and centering so many different stories and communities.

So the young people that we work with are all historically underrepresented in the children's book marketplace as authors. And so we're always asking them, what's the story that only you can tell that's not out there that needs to be written and needs to be read right now? So this book is ten years of those stories altogether with the writing prompts and kind of the story behind the story, behind those pieces that are used to inspire a new generation to write their own stories.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: I did want to inquire about the writing prompts because it's so great how there will be a story, but then it appears there's, a writing prompt that might have been related to that story preceding it. So if you could just speak a little bit to the writing prompts and their place in this book.

Sasa Aakil: Yeah. I can take that one. So, the writing prompts, their addition to this book was kind of somewhat like, we're kind of far into the game of the editing process. But what we've realized is that we really wanted to engage the young people for whom this book was actually made and, you know, organized for. And so thinking about ways to get people engaged in the stories that they've already seen and that they've already connected with, a really easy way to do that is to bring out those prompts that were used to write those initial stories.

And so what we did was we went through, like, lots of the actual, like, teaching material that we had produced a shot must have produced for many of the writing workshops that had taken place in the past. And then we pulled directly prompts from there as well as some others that we came up with, you know, throughout the process. Really thinking of it as a way to, one, be a teaching tool for educators, but also, and most importantly, I think to me, really engage the young people who often are just looking for that spark or looking for that one bit of courage to actually step into the process of writing. And so it seems like a really fun and easy way to do that.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey: This has been the reading culture, and you've been listening to my conversation with Jason Reynolds again I'm your host Jordan Lloyd bookie and currently I'm reading atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid and my advanced reader copy Bright Before Us Like a Flame edited by Sasa Akhil and Kathy Crutcher. If you enjoyed today's episode, show some love and give us a five star review. If you're listening on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen, please take a moment to leave a written review. It just takes a second and it truly truly helps our show thank you and to learn more about how you can help grow your community's reading culture check out all of our resources at beanstack.com and remember to sign up for our newsletter at the readingculturepod.com forward slash newsletter for special offers and bonus content this episode was produced by Mel Webb with lower street media and script edited by Josiah Lamberto Egan thanks for listening and keep reading.