About this episode
John Schu’s entire life has been shaped by books. As a kid, he fell in love with Shel Silverstein; Emily Dickinson comforted him as he was battling an eating disorder, and “The One and Only Ivan,” well, that book changed his life. In fact, it nearly put him into debt (he tells that story in the episode!)
"Books can be the perfect prescriptions to let us know that we're going to be okay." - John Schu
Books' influential impact on his life inspired him to dedicate his life to sharing this power with everyone he can. His career as an educator led him to the library, and the library led him across America. Now, he has started a new career as a writer of stories himself.
John made his debut with "This is a School," followed by "This is a Story" and "The Gift of Story." However, in his latest work, "Louder Than Hunger," he bravely delves into a new realm of vulnerability. This semi-autobiographical tale draws from the most challenging period in his life, navigating the depths of his battle with anorexia.
In this episode, Mr. Schu, as in Mr.SchuReads, tells us about the transformative reads that shaped his life and explains how some of those stories helped him and some actually harmed him. We’ll hear how he became an author, and about the emotional toll it took to write “Louder Than Hunger.”
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Connect with Jordan and The Reading Culture @thereadingculturepod and subscribe to our newsletter at thereadingculturepod.com/newsletter.
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In John’s reading challenge, Story Within a Story, he wants us to read the actual books found in the pages of his book, “This is a Story.”
Today's Beanstack Featured Librarian is Amanda Maslanka, a 26-year veteran in education and an elementary school librarian in South Houston. She offered valuable advice for parents and caregivers to get kids excited about reading.
Contents
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Chapter 1 - Mr.SchuReads’ Grandma
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Chapter 2 - An Internal Struggle
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Chapter 3 - Recovery and Emily Dickinson
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Chapter 4 - Best Teacher Ever
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Chapter 5 - Becoming a Writer
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Chapter 6 - The One and Only Ivan
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Chapter 7 - Power to Heal, Power to Harm
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Chapter 8 - Ready to Share
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Chapter 9 - Story Within a Story
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Chapter 10 - Beanstack Featured Librarian
Author Reading Challenge
Download the free reading challenge worksheet, or view the challenge materials on our helpdesk.
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John Schu:
Books can be the perfect prescriptions to let us know that we're going to be okay.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
"This is a word on a page. This is a page in a book, and this is a book on a shelf waiting." Those powerful words can be found in John Schu's picture book, This Is a Story. John Schu has devoted his life to books. They've helped him through his toughest times, inspired him, and comforted him. In return, he's made it his mission to share their power with the world as a teacher, a school librarian, a widely read blogger, and eventually kind of a rock star traveling librarian, but there was one particular book still waiting to be shared.
John Schu:
I knew that it was time to finally write my story, even though I knew then I'd probably fictionalize it. Just writing just that one paragraph was so freeing that I remember thinking, what if I wrote an entire book?
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
In this episode, Mr. Schu, as in Mr. Schu Reads, tells us about the transformative reads that shaped his life and explains how some of those stories helped him, and how some actually harmed him. We'll hear how he became an author and about the emotional toll it took to write his most vulnerable book yet.
John Schu:
In order for John Schu to write Louder Than Hunger, he had to turn his heart inside out, and that was true.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
He'll also share how he almost went into debt because of a gorilla. My name is Jordan Lloyd Bookey, and this is The Reading Culture, a show where we speak with authors and illustrators about ways to build a stronger culture of reading in our communities. We dive into their personal experiences, their inspirations, and why their stories and ideas motivate kids to read more. Make sure to check us out on Instagram for giveaways at The Reading Culture Pod, and you can also subscribe to our newsletter at thereadingculturepod.com/newsletter. All right, on with the show.
All right. Let's start early. As a kid, can you tell us a bit about what your life was like?
John Schu:
So, I was a kid who loved to play school almost every single day. My bedroom looked like a classroom. I had a huge brown teacher desk, and the middle drawer was very, very heavy. You'd pull it out and it was filled with lots of chalk. All of that chalk was stolen from various teachers during my elementary school career because I needed to bring my teachers into my imaginary classroom.
So, I spent a lot of my childhood alone playing school with imaginary students who I think allowed me to get out some of my anxieties and allowed me to say things in a safe space that oftentimes I wish I were able to say at school because I was a kid who was often targeted by bullies. I was a kid who cried very easily, just kind of explain my family dynamics.
I was super, super close with my grandmother. I wasn't as close with my mom and my dad. My mom and my dad weren't big readers, but my grandmother was. Really, my love of reading and my love of libraries comes from my grandmother. So, I often wonder like if I didn't have my grandmother. If my grandmother weren't living through my childhood or I didn't go to her house every weekend, what type of reader would I be today?
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
You said you were bullied when you were a kid, and what was that like for you?
John Schu:
Yeah, very isolating. Also, you try to protect your heart. I was a kid that would pretend like it wasn't happening. If my mom did ask me like, "Are you being bullied or something bad going on at school?" I would've said no. Even in my 30s, I think I would've said no, that I was not a child who was bullied.
It really took writing Louder Than Hunger to own that and to say that a lot of my trauma from childhood stems from that, but also knowing as a kid that I was embarrassed by being bullied.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
For you, when you were younger, what were some of the books that shaped you that you remember really well?
John Schu:
So, I read a lot of Shel Silverstein, memorized a lot of those poems like Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take the Garbage Out.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
She'd scour the pots and scrub the pans.
John Schu:
I don't have it memorized anymore but lots of poetry when I was young. Then as I got older, I fell out of love with poetry. Then I came back to poetry because of books like Love That Dog by Sharon Creech, and Out of the Dust. There are so many amazing novels and verse. As a kid, I read the book Matilda a lot. I actually write a story about Matilda in anthology called The Creativity Project that's edited by Colby Sharp.
In it I write a letter to Dr. Mary Margaret Reed, my fifth grade teacher. In it, I confess to her that I stole her copy of Matilda. I realized recently, the reason I stole it was because it brought her into my room. My grandma would've bought me a copy, but it brought my fifth grade teacher's patience and her understanding. It brought her love, and her joy, and all of that. I realized that's what I needed at that time because fifth grade was my last year of staying in public education for quite a while.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Okay. So, you left public school?
John Schu:
I ended up going from public school to private school in the seventh grade. I went to a very small school that was only 50 students. It was a school where you worked at your own pace. It's a Christian curriculum out of Texas, and I only went to school from 9:00 AM until noon. Then in the afternoon, you were expected to volunteer or do something back to your community.
So for seventh and eighth grade, I would go to school, 9:00 AM until noon, working in a cubicle isolated. Again, this was a really good formula for an inner saboteur, a very loud voice getting louder and louder because you were allowed to spend a lot of time alone during the day because there was no PE. There was no art. There was no music. I did that for a year and a half.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Wow.
John Schu:
In that time, my parents had gotten divorced. My mom was going through a midlife crisis. So, it was really easy for me to get away with a lot of really awful behaviors that eventually created a full-fledged eating disorder.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
So you were spiraling this other way during that time, during those critical middle school years?
John Schu:
Yeah, because I ended up being hospitalized. It was during eighth grade that I was hospitalized. It was all of seventh and eighth grade through beginning of school year to November that I was at that very small school.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Who did eventually ring the alarm?
John Schu:
It was actually the nursing home where I volunteered. A lady who I would spend a lot of time with, and I cannot remember her name. In Louder Than Hunger, I call her Ms. Burns. I'd spend a lot of time in her room, and I would read to her. She'd been a fourth grade teacher. She was very sweet, and she was blind. She would often hold my hand when I would read to her.
One day she just said like something startled her about how I felt or about maybe she was reading into my heart and my soul. She ended up meeting with the director of the nursing home. Then, the director called my mom and said, "Your son is not okay. We're worried about a lot of his behaviors." It was because of the lady at the nursing home and the director that I ended up being hospitalized.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
How long were you hospitalized for?
John Schu:
So, I was in two different programs. I was in a program called Linden Oaks, which is what Whispering Pines in Louder Than Hunger is based on. I was there for eight months. Then, I was kicked out of that program because I was sabotaging the treatment of other patients, which is so painful to admit that I was sabotaging other people's treatment, but I wanted to be the sickest person in the program. Whenever somebody would come in that I thought was sicker than I was, I would become sicker in order to compete with that person, which is so, so unhealthy.
During that time, I appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show. Oprah Winfrey interviewed me in the mid-'90s about males with eating disorders. I became famous at the hospital for being the kid who was on Oprah. Because of being on Oprah, the voice in my head actually got louder because I was like, "I can never give up this identity. I'm becoming known for this." I realized a few months later that it's very, very, very unhealthy.
I think I only was able to fully realize it because I left that program. Then I went to Rush, a hospital in Downtown Chicago. It was a very different program. It was a program where I wasn't really ever with people with eating disorders. I was with people who were struggling with a variety of things, and I was in that program for a year. So, I missed two years of school because of my eating disorder.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Did you find solace in books during that time? Were you reading a lot as well in there? Do you remember some of the ...
John Schu:
Yeah, I did later. In the beginning of being hospitalized in both programs, and I think I showed this in Louder Than Hunger, is he can't really focus very well. His thinking is scattered and he can't really dig into anything. He just wants to refuse everything. It took a long time before I could read and comprehend again because I was starving my brain. I was starving my body, and you can't really articulate things, focus on things. It's very, very hard.
So yes, as I got better, my reading started to come back. My mom would bring books all of the time. At that time, I fell in love with Emily Dickinson. I would memorize Emily Dickinson poetry. It was because of someone else who was in the program who was obsessed with the poem, "I'm nobody, who are you? Are you nobody too?" That really resonated with me because at the time I didn't know who I was, and I felt like a nobody.
So in a very negative way, I would just repeat that over, and over, and over again, almost as a toxic voice to remind myself that I was a nobody. Then when I first saw Emily Dickinson's photo, something about her eyes and something about her looking lost resonated with me because I spent most of my adolescence feeling lost, and alone, and really just ... I mean, her poetry is often sad and depressing, which is how I felt.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Eventually, John would recover enough to return to school and set his sights on being an educator. Although while he was out of hospitalization and the bulk of the battle was over, behaviors from his eating disorder followed him.
John Schu:
I recently realized that trying to be the best elementary school major is how I replace my anorexia nervosa because when I got to college, I was so focused on school. "I'm going to be perfect, and I'm going to be the world's best third grade teacher." I had no social life because I did. Everything was about how do I become a teacher.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
It was a book recommended by a professor that helped John restore a healthier balance.
John Schu:
One of my professors toward the end of my, when I was about to go become a student teacher, had me stay after class one day. She read me a book called A Fine, Fine School by Sharon Creech, which is one of my favorite books. It's about a principal named Mr. Keene who loves school so much, that eventually they go to school every single day. Everyone is miserable at the school except for Mr. Keene.
It's what Dr. Koloff was saying to me was, "John, you take school way too seriously." It's what Dr. Koloff said to me was, "You are only going to last six months as a teacher because you're going to burnout." That was a turning point for me. I put a lot of things into place right away for self-care. I always had a copy of A Fine, Fine School displayed somewhere in my class. It often encouraged me to take personal days or sick days because I was like, "No. You need to take care of yourself today."
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Books were life-changing for John, from Shel Silverstein as a kid to Emily Dickinson as he struggled with anorexia. Stories and poems were always there to help him through the challenges in his life. Because of these deeply emotional experiences with story, John made it a priority to share that passion with his students.
John Schu:
All through college, I was a bookseller at Barnes & Noble. I spent every paycheck on books. I had a really, for a first year teacher, I had an incredible classroom library. So, I knew from the beginning that I wanted this to be a place of story. That I want it to be a place where I didn't just read aloud books to students, but we experience books together. That we went on journeys through story every single day.
When I was a third grade teacher, I would not speak to the students on the first day as they were coming into the classroom. They probably thought I was the world's meanest teacher. That I was like Viola Swamp from Ms. Nelson is Missing because I wanted the very first thing that I said to them, not to be Kleenex goes over there, and your pencil cases go over there, and please line all your supplies up against the back wall. I didn't want that to be our first experience. I wanted always the first experience to be us experiencing a story together.
So once they were seated, directions were written on the monitor, as well as on the board. I would then read them Stand Tall Molly Lou Melon.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Oh my God, I love that book.
John Schu:
Yes. That would be the first thing. So that's all to say, that's how I tried to very intentionally say, "This is what is most important to me."
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
John spent 13 years teaching and then eventually moved down the hall into the library, but John's traveling extended far beyond the confines of a single school's hallways. Soon, he would venture out into libraries across the country.
John Schu:
I left my school to become the Ambassador of School Libraries for Scholastic. It was a role to advocate for libraries and librarians and to remind people that every child deserves to go to a school with a full-time school librarian. That going to a school with a full-time school librarian who actually has a budget, should never be seen as a privilege but as a right. That's really been my mission for my entire adulthood.
I left that position because of Covid. I went from traveling 220 days a year to being home for 18 months. It just wasn't sustainable for me. Thankfully, Scholastic helped create a lot of fun projects for me, but it just wasn't what I needed to be doing at that time. It was then that I started taking much more seriously.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Did you ever fancy yourself a writer?
John Schu:
Never, especially because all my books are poetry. I'm really struggling with calling myself a poet. This Is a School is a poem. This Is a Story is a poem.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
This is definitely a poem.
John Schu:
Louder Than Hunger, lots of poems. I think just finally owning that I am a poet, books are always going to come out of me that way. It really was because of her and because of Amy Krouse Rosenthal who once said in a conversation with her daughter, Paris Rosenthal, "Make the most of your time here," that I wrote This Is a Story. This Is a Story was the first story that I sold, even though it was my third book that came out.
Hello. I am Ivan. I am a gorilla. It's not as easy as it looks.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
That sentence is the opening to Katherine Applegate's The One and Only Ivan, the book that changed everything for John.
John Schu:
I feel like my life can be seen in two ways, before I read the One and Only Ivan, and after I read The One and Only Ivan because my life has never been the same since. People will ask me sometimes like, "How did you become Mr. Schu?" which sounds like a trick question. I think I became the Mr. Schu that people know because of The One and Only Ivan.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
The One and Only Ivan was the winner of the 2013 Newbery Medal. It's the heartwarming and heartbreaking tale of a gorilla held captive in a mall. Ivan is tasked with taking care of a young elephant named Ruby at the request of her dying mother. Through this relationship, Ivan's perspective on his environment shifts. He discovers the mall is not a home but a cage.
Ivan then devises a plan to free himself, Ruby, and the other animals. This liberating epiphany had such a profound impact on John. He has since committed to sharing the experience of this book with as many people as possible.
John Schu:
When I read those first, those 15 perfectly placed words, I knew I was about to have an experience that I'd never had before. I've never had an experience like it since. When I read this book, I had a true catharsis. When I read this book, I said to myself, "I've got to find a way to tell as many people as possible about this book." So, this is what I did.
Every Tuesday for one year, I would go to Anderson's Bookshop in Naperville, Illinois. I would buy every single copy of this book that they had, and I would give them away to strangers. I really went into debt for a little bit because of The One and Only Ivan. For me, this is my heartprint book, my touchstone book, my forever book. The book that I wish I could give to every single human.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Wait. You put yourself into debt?
John Schu:
Yeah.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
I did not know that. Why don't you share a bit about what made it so powerful for you?
John Schu:
So, I talked about The One and Only Ivan almost every single day. In my book The Gift of Story: Exploring the Affective Side of the Reading Life, I write about my connection to the book. If it's okay with you, I thought I would just read directly from The Gift of Story.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Sure thing.
John Schu:
This is my first time ever reading aloud to somebody other than myself or my cats. So, this is my debut of reading aloud from The Gift of Story. So, here we go. "Ivan's story moved me on such a personal level that I began to share this book with everyone I could. I blogged about it. I wrote about it. I took a literary road trip traveling the country sharing Ivan's story, and eventually got to meet the real Ivan in person.
"Still, what was it about this book, this story, this character? As a reader, teacher, and school librarian, I'd read thousands of books by that point. What was it about that particular book that spoke to me? In hindsight, I realized that Ivan's story spoke to me in a private, quiet way. As I was reading it, I started to understand parts of myself. His experiences through struggles, loss, survival, friendship, and hope are universal stories that when shared through the heart connect us all.
"I experienced a catharsis of sorts through reading it, as I'm sure many of you have too. While Ivan went on to win the 2013 Newbery Medal, I went on to elevate and celebrate more stories like it that helped share my heart and inspired others through similar experiences." So, that's what I write about Ivan in The Gift of Story.
I think it took me a really, really long time to figure out why I loved Ivan so much. That as a kid, I often felt trapped and I felt alone. As an adult, my whole life is trying to help kids feel not trapped through stories that they write themselves and through stories that they read themselves. It took me at least 11 years of talking about the book to truly realize that as a kid, I felt a lot like Ivan does in the book.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Can you think of an example of somebody who read the book that you gave it to that had a reaction?
John Schu:
Yeah. So in my book, The Gift of Story, I write about a child named Mario. I changed their name to Mario. I met Mario when I was doing a school visit in Marin County near San Francisco. After the visit, this child was very, very emotional. They did something that kids often do during book signings, which is they go to the very last position in line. Sometimes they're doing that because they don't want to go to PE, or they don't want to go back to their classroom, and they don't want to go to lunch, or sometimes they want to open up their heart to you.
In this case, Mario kept going to the end because he wanted to open up his heart. This is what he said. He said, "Thank you for talking about how The One and Only Ivan made you cry." He said, "When I read that book last year, I cried a lot." He said, "This book helped me deal with the death of my sister." I just remember thinking, "I don't know what to say in this moment other than this." I said, "Can I hold your hand?"
I held his little hand and I said, "I'm so grateful that this book was here for you." I said something about, "I'm really sorry for that loss." We talked about memories. Then, he went away. I could see off to the side, his librarian was crying, and his principal was crying. They told me the story-
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
I'm crying.
John Schu:
... about how his kindergarten sister, the previous year died unexpectedly. I asked like, "How did this book get to him?" The librarian I think said, I can't remember that specifically. So in The Gift of Story, I don't say the librarian did. I'm hoping the librarian reads that story in there one day, and then emails me about the few things I don't remember.
I'm pretty sure she said that she gave this book to him because she knew in that moment, although this book is filled with a lot of sorrow, that there's a lot of hope in it. That this is the book that his heart needed in the moment because it was able to help him start to heal.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
I too love that book. I'm pretty sure that it's you who made me know that this was a book that we needed to read because at the time, my kids were much younger. We were reading aloud so many things. You gave that book a new life.
John Schu:
I love that so many people say that. Judy Blume said that to me.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Okay, that's a life goal. You can just check off. You can just, that's-
John Schu:
Judy Blume told me this story in one of my presentation that she read this because of me, because I was tweeting so much about it the year it came out.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Katherine Applegate, what's your relationship to her?
John Schu:
I just love her. She wrote the foreword to my book The Gift of Story. Then in every paperback copy of The One and Only Ivan, I write a letter about my connection to the book. Then when I met Ivan the Gorilla, he signed my book. There's a copy of Ivan's signature.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
I've heard that.
John Schu:
It says, "To the one and only Mr. Schu in the book." So to have a letter that I wrote in the book of my heart, that was the turning point.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
It's interesting because you tell that story, the librarian giving this life-changing book. This story that gives comfort to this child. You did that for so many kids. That's what you were creating. Then, you were out speaking and advocating for librarians. This is just such a hard and impossible time to be a librarian. So I wonder, how you think about and speak to that right now?
John Schu:
Well yeah, it's very hard. I teach at Rutgers University in the School of Information. I only teach one class now. I teach the children's literature class, and I feel so grateful to be working with pre-service librarians. So I work in that capacity, but also at library conferences and just visiting hundreds of schools every single year.
There are two things that I always say. "There's only two things that you remember about our time together. I hope that there are these." This goes back to the importance of libraries and librarians, which is that stories affirm our experiences. We can help kids through reminding them of that and through the books that we give them. Then also in this time that we're in right now, where a very, very small group of people who feel big are trying to get rid of a lot of books and are trying to really, in my opinion harm students by doing that, is that books can be the perfect prescriptions to let us know that we're going to be okay.
So I think librarians centering those two things are super, super important always, but especially now. That a book that you can put in the hands of a child can be that thing that can truly save them. I am walking, living proof of that. I actually developed a worse eating disorder in the '90s because of books that I won't even name that a lot of people now have worked really hard to get off of shelves, not as censorship, which is just, "This is actually harmful. These books are teaching kids how to have an eating disorder."
So when I decided to write a book about my eating disorder, I had to be very, very intentional and careful. Anytime my editor would say something like, "Well, maybe you need to add this?" I'd say, "No. That is teaching a kid now how to have an eating disorder. I will not be responsible for that." My goal is that this is a book that I wish I had had when I was 13 because I don't think I would've allowed the voice to get as deep, and as loud, and as awful as it was, because a lot of books and media helped it become worse.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
I'm thinking now about updating of library collections to reflect updated understandings of issues like mental illness or self-harm like you're describing. I guess that's just a continuous process that all librarians are doing all the time. Maybe you could speak to how do you encourage or speak with librarians about approaching that task, especially now because it's increasingly under this public scrutiny?
John Schu:
Well yeah, because what I always say is, and speaking as a teacher librarian, "One, you have to know your community." Then, everything comes back to your selection policy. So in your selection policy, if somebody challenged a book. By my selection policy, can I say that I use these resources, and this is why I made the decision to include this book? If I can't justify why I included it in our collection, then it doesn't belong.
So an example would be my students, I was a K-5 school librarian, would always ask me why I did not have Hunger Games in the K-5 collection. They're like, "Mr. Schu, come on." This was at the time that everybody was reading it. I would always say to them, "You can go to the public library and get it. Your parents can. Somebody in your family can purchase it for you, put it on your birthday list or whatever, but I can't have it in the collection." Then, they'd again say, "Why?" I'd say, "Well, in the library, come over here and I'll show you my selection policy."
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Right.
John Schu:
They would be interested in that. I would say to them, "If one of your family members were to challenge me having put that book on the shelf, I would lose. I would show them all the reasons I would lose that challenge." So, I think it's having your policy to always go back to is what I always used as a teacher librarian.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Some kids can handle complex content earlier than others, right?
John Schu:
Well, I always say that we have to trust the child. The child knows.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
The child knows.
John Schu:
The children would come to me and say, "Mr. Schu, this word is in here." It's not even what we would consider it a bad word. I would say, "Well, I can see that's making you uncomfortable. So your decision to make right now is, does it make you comfortable enough that you want to stop?" That's your right, stop reading it-"
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Amen.
John Schu:
"... or keep going." It'd always be, because I would say to them, "It doesn't make me uncomfortable. It might not make your friend uncomfortable, but you are able to regulate that yourself, right?"
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah.
John Schu:
Trust the child.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
John Schu for president.
John Schu:
No. Trust the child.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
John's life as an educator, a librarian, and on a personal level someone whose life has been drastically impacted by story, all culminated in writing Louder Than Hunger. We've referenced to Louder Than Hunger a few times already, and you have likely gathered that it is nearly autobiographical. As an unflinching portrayal of a painful self-destructive past, it was also difficult to write. John almost didn't write it at all. While navigating a creative block on a seemingly unrelated project, an expository book for fellow librarians, he had an unexpected breakthrough.
John Schu:
In March 2021, I finished revising a book that I wrote for teachers and teacher librarians called The Gift of Story: Exploring the Affective Side of the Reading Life. There's a chapter in that book called Story as Clarifier. Story as Clarifier was so hard to write. So I walked away from it knowing that if I just wrote this one paragraph in that chapter, everything else would open up.
So, I finally wrote that one paragraph. That one paragraph was opening up a little bit about my struggles in middle school with anorexia nervosa, and about how through research, I clarified way before I was diagnosed that I had an eating disorder. Once I wrote that one paragraph, that's 60 words, I was able to write the rest of the book. I think I was able to write the rest of the book quickly because I knew that it was time to finally write my story-
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Wow.
John Schu:
... even though I knew then I'd probably fictionalize it. Just writing just that one paragraph was so freeing, that I remember thinking, "What if I wrote an entire book about that experience?"
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
May I ask what that original paragraph was or what?
John Schu:
So it's just about how I would go to the library, and I would go to the library. Carol and I would make sure nobody was around. I would type in keywords like anorexia and eating disorder. It would lead me to things about Karen Carpenter that were so bad for me. It would lead me to Tracey Gold. It would lead me to all of these People Magazines. It was clarifying, but it also was teaching me how to have an eating disorder.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
So when you actually started writing about it, was it just really hard to be in that headspace again?
John Schu:
Yeah. I think when I was showing some of his OCD and other things, that it just would come out. So much of this book, I wrote at 3:00 and 4:00 in the morning. I would just wake up, and I would just start writing these poems like Kate DiCamillo always says. That she starts writing at 5:30 in the morning before her inner saboteur is awake. Writing this was often like that. I had to be very tired often.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Interesting.
John Schu:
At one time, I had to stop writing the book. I had to take a break from the book because I was going so deep, and I was starting to be afraid of food again.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Oh, really?
John Schu:
I was like, "Oh, my goodness. I'm writing these beautiful poems, but I am actually taking on some of his behaviors." My agent and I talked about that from the beginning. That we would have safeguards in place. I wrote her and my editor, and I said, "I am creating really good poetry, but I'm not okay right now."
I took a break from it, and then I evaluated what was going on. Then, I was able to go back and write it. Because I had to go so far into my middle school brain that was scary, I don't remember writing some of the poems.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Really?
John Schu:
I know I wrote it, but I'll be like, "Where did that come from?"
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
It's striking because we talk about book's power. You talk about how they can comfort and they can heal, but you've also touched a couple of times on how that really cuts both ways. Here, you literally put yourself in physical jeopardy to write this story. It just sounds like pulling back those layers into the mind of your younger self. You knew that was a risk, and it just must've been really intense.
John Schu:
My editor said to Jasmine Warga, who's one of my favorite authors. We actually live in the same neighborhood. She said to Jasmine Warga, "In order for John Schu to write Louder Than Hunger, he had to turn his heart inside out," and that was true.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
It must feel just really amazing to turn your heart inside out and then to feel all these people looking after it.
John Schu:
It also can be really hard because I'm a highly sensitive person that feels. I feel it. Sometimes when I talk about Louder Than Hunger, it's happened three times now. There are some people in the room that actually remind me of childhood bullies. This is for the first time I'm admitting this out loud. I have to change the presentation.
I am feeling uncomfortable because of the energy that they're putting out, and I don't feel safe. I have to remind myself, "I don't owe it to anybody. I don't owe my story there in person beyond what I feel comfortable saying and that's okay. I can go deeper if I want to, but I can also be surface." In that presentation, I had to be. All my pacing was off because there were stories I wasn't telling because I didn't feel safe to tell them. I've never felt that with kids, with adults, never with kids.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Really? In a room of adults when you're talking.
John Schu:
Adults.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
When you're-
John Schu:
It happened three times. Again, I do 500 presentations a year, and only three times. It was a good lesson for myself too like, "You are downshifting inside right now. Why?" I can figure it out. Thanks to all the therapy I've had, I can often figure things out.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Now, you've really honed your superpowers. In case you haven't caught on yet, John absolutely adores books. He wrote a book about how much he loves them. So for his reading challenge, Story Within a Story, he wants us to read the real stories found inside his story about his love of stories. I'll let him explain it.
John Schu:
I'm the author of a book called This Is a Story, and it's illustrated by Caldecott Honor Illustrator, Lauren Castillo. It is a poem about the importance of story, and libraries, and librarians. It's really the poem of everything I believe in about, how stories can change us, and how stories can connect us. Lauren really wanted it to take place in a library.
Then when it came time to start illustrating the book, Lauren was like, "Oh my goodness, I have to draw hundreds and hundreds of books. I don't want to make up hundreds of titles." So Lauren approached our editor and art director and said, "Could I please include real books?" So, Lauren did win. Because of that, there are approximately 50 real books within the book.
My reading challenge is to encourage people to read as many of the picture books, and graphic novels, and middle school novels, middle grade novels that are featured throughout our book.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
You can find John's challenge, Story Within a Story, at thereadingculturepod.com, along with reading challenges from all of our past guests, including Mark Oshiro, Matt de la Peña, Kate DiCamillo, and many more.
Amanda Maslanka:
My name's Amanda Maslanka, and I am an elementary school librarian. We service some early childhood classes, pre-K through fourth grade. This is my 12th year doing it, my 26th year in education. I am exactly where I need to be. I'm in an urban school in South Houston and just love it.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Today's Beanstack featured librarian is Amanda Maslanka, a 26-year veteran in education and an elementary school librarian in South Houston. She offered valuable advice for parents and caregivers to get kids excited about reading.
Amanda Maslanka:
I was immersed in reading at a very early age. When I tell our parents here, when they come for parenting events. We had Christmas and Cocoa at Christmastime where they come in. We have Christmas books out and holiday books out. They come and have cookies and cocoa and read with their kids. One of the things I always tell them is, "This is so important to your kid to see you read. Have reading materials available." We as a school, we get kids' books, usually winter-themed books for them at Christmas. So, every kid takes a book home.
I try to tell them, "Hey, the public library's right here. They have all different kinds of things available for you, just to have reading material in your home. Because kids, if you can read, you can do anything." I have that hanging up in the library. So if parents can encourage that reading, and make a point to read, and make a point to show that reading is important, their kids are going to go so much further.
Even if you're not a reader, fake it. Pretend like you're super excited about this book your kid brought home, because if you show excitement for it, your kid's going to show excitement.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
This has been The Reading Culture, and you've been listening to our conversation with John Schu. Again, I'm your host, Jordan Lloyd-Bookey. Currently, I'm reading The Woman In Me by Britney Spears, and Lunar New Year Love Story by Gene Yang and LeUyen Pham. If you enjoy today's episode, please show some love and give us a five-star review. It just takes a second and really helps.
To learn more about how you can help grow your community's reading culture, you can check out all of our resources at beanstack.com, and remember to sign up for our newsletter at the readingculturepod.com/newsletter for special offers and insights. This episode was produced by Jackie Lamport and Lower Street Media, and script edited by Josia Lamberto-Egan. Thanks for joining and keep reading.
Books can be the perfect prescriptions to let us know that we're going to be okay.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
"This is a word on a page. This is a page in a book, and this is a book on a shelf waiting." Those powerful words can be found in John Schu's picture book, This Is a Story. John Schu has devoted his life to books. They've helped him through his toughest times, inspired him, and comforted him. In return, he's made it his mission to share their power with the world as a teacher, a school librarian, a widely read blogger, and eventually kind of a rock star traveling librarian, but there was one particular book still waiting to be shared.
John Schu:
I knew that it was time to finally write my story, even though I knew then I'd probably fictionalize it. Just writing just that one paragraph was so freeing that I remember thinking, what if I wrote an entire book?
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
In this episode, Mr. Schu, as in Mr. Schu Reads, tells us about the transformative reads that shaped his life and explains how some of those stories helped him, and how some actually harmed him. We'll hear how he became an author and about the emotional toll it took to write his most vulnerable book yet.
John Schu:
In order for John Schu to write Louder Than Hunger, he had to turn his heart inside out, and that was true.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
He'll also share how he almost went into debt because of a gorilla. My name is Jordan Lloyd Bookey, and this is The Reading Culture, a show where we speak with authors and illustrators about ways to build a stronger culture of reading in our communities. We dive into their personal experiences, their inspirations, and why their stories and ideas motivate kids to read more. Make sure to check us out on Instagram for giveaways at The Reading Culture Pod, and you can also subscribe to our newsletter at thereadingculturepod.com/newsletter. All right, on with the show.
All right. Let's start early. As a kid, can you tell us a bit about what your life was like?
John Schu:
So, I was a kid who loved to play school almost every single day. My bedroom looked like a classroom. I had a huge brown teacher desk, and the middle drawer was very, very heavy. You'd pull it out and it was filled with lots of chalk. All of that chalk was stolen from various teachers during my elementary school career because I needed to bring my teachers into my imaginary classroom.
So, I spent a lot of my childhood alone playing school with imaginary students who I think allowed me to get out some of my anxieties and allowed me to say things in a safe space that oftentimes I wish I were able to say at school because I was a kid who was often targeted by bullies. I was a kid who cried very easily, just kind of explain my family dynamics.
I was super, super close with my grandmother. I wasn't as close with my mom and my dad. My mom and my dad weren't big readers, but my grandmother was. Really, my love of reading and my love of libraries comes from my grandmother. So, I often wonder like if I didn't have my grandmother. If my grandmother weren't living through my childhood or I didn't go to her house every weekend, what type of reader would I be today?
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
You said you were bullied when you were a kid, and what was that like for you?
John Schu:
Yeah, very isolating. Also, you try to protect your heart. I was a kid that would pretend like it wasn't happening. If my mom did ask me like, "Are you being bullied or something bad going on at school?" I would've said no. Even in my 30s, I think I would've said no, that I was not a child who was bullied.
It really took writing Louder Than Hunger to own that and to say that a lot of my trauma from childhood stems from that, but also knowing as a kid that I was embarrassed by being bullied.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
For you, when you were younger, what were some of the books that shaped you that you remember really well?
John Schu:
So, I read a lot of Shel Silverstein, memorized a lot of those poems like Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take the Garbage Out.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
She'd scour the pots and scrub the pans.
John Schu:
I don't have it memorized anymore but lots of poetry when I was young. Then as I got older, I fell out of love with poetry. Then I came back to poetry because of books like Love That Dog by Sharon Creech, and Out of the Dust. There are so many amazing novels and verse. As a kid, I read the book Matilda a lot. I actually write a story about Matilda in anthology called The Creativity Project that's edited by Colby Sharp.
In it I write a letter to Dr. Mary Margaret Reed, my fifth grade teacher. In it, I confess to her that I stole her copy of Matilda. I realized recently, the reason I stole it was because it brought her into my room. My grandma would've bought me a copy, but it brought my fifth grade teacher's patience and her understanding. It brought her love, and her joy, and all of that. I realized that's what I needed at that time because fifth grade was my last year of staying in public education for quite a while.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Okay. So, you left public school?
John Schu:
I ended up going from public school to private school in the seventh grade. I went to a very small school that was only 50 students. It was a school where you worked at your own pace. It's a Christian curriculum out of Texas, and I only went to school from 9:00 AM until noon. Then in the afternoon, you were expected to volunteer or do something back to your community.
So for seventh and eighth grade, I would go to school, 9:00 AM until noon, working in a cubicle isolated. Again, this was a really good formula for an inner saboteur, a very loud voice getting louder and louder because you were allowed to spend a lot of time alone during the day because there was no PE. There was no art. There was no music. I did that for a year and a half.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Wow.
John Schu:
In that time, my parents had gotten divorced. My mom was going through a midlife crisis. So, it was really easy for me to get away with a lot of really awful behaviors that eventually created a full-fledged eating disorder.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
So you were spiraling this other way during that time, during those critical middle school years?
John Schu:
Yeah, because I ended up being hospitalized. It was during eighth grade that I was hospitalized. It was all of seventh and eighth grade through beginning of school year to November that I was at that very small school.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Who did eventually ring the alarm?
John Schu:
It was actually the nursing home where I volunteered. A lady who I would spend a lot of time with, and I cannot remember her name. In Louder Than Hunger, I call her Ms. Burns. I'd spend a lot of time in her room, and I would read to her. She'd been a fourth grade teacher. She was very sweet, and she was blind. She would often hold my hand when I would read to her.
One day she just said like something startled her about how I felt or about maybe she was reading into my heart and my soul. She ended up meeting with the director of the nursing home. Then, the director called my mom and said, "Your son is not okay. We're worried about a lot of his behaviors." It was because of the lady at the nursing home and the director that I ended up being hospitalized.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
How long were you hospitalized for?
John Schu:
So, I was in two different programs. I was in a program called Linden Oaks, which is what Whispering Pines in Louder Than Hunger is based on. I was there for eight months. Then, I was kicked out of that program because I was sabotaging the treatment of other patients, which is so painful to admit that I was sabotaging other people's treatment, but I wanted to be the sickest person in the program. Whenever somebody would come in that I thought was sicker than I was, I would become sicker in order to compete with that person, which is so, so unhealthy.
During that time, I appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show. Oprah Winfrey interviewed me in the mid-'90s about males with eating disorders. I became famous at the hospital for being the kid who was on Oprah. Because of being on Oprah, the voice in my head actually got louder because I was like, "I can never give up this identity. I'm becoming known for this." I realized a few months later that it's very, very, very unhealthy.
I think I only was able to fully realize it because I left that program. Then I went to Rush, a hospital in Downtown Chicago. It was a very different program. It was a program where I wasn't really ever with people with eating disorders. I was with people who were struggling with a variety of things, and I was in that program for a year. So, I missed two years of school because of my eating disorder.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Did you find solace in books during that time? Were you reading a lot as well in there? Do you remember some of the ...
John Schu:
Yeah, I did later. In the beginning of being hospitalized in both programs, and I think I showed this in Louder Than Hunger, is he can't really focus very well. His thinking is scattered and he can't really dig into anything. He just wants to refuse everything. It took a long time before I could read and comprehend again because I was starving my brain. I was starving my body, and you can't really articulate things, focus on things. It's very, very hard.
So yes, as I got better, my reading started to come back. My mom would bring books all of the time. At that time, I fell in love with Emily Dickinson. I would memorize Emily Dickinson poetry. It was because of someone else who was in the program who was obsessed with the poem, "I'm nobody, who are you? Are you nobody too?" That really resonated with me because at the time I didn't know who I was, and I felt like a nobody.
So in a very negative way, I would just repeat that over, and over, and over again, almost as a toxic voice to remind myself that I was a nobody. Then when I first saw Emily Dickinson's photo, something about her eyes and something about her looking lost resonated with me because I spent most of my adolescence feeling lost, and alone, and really just ... I mean, her poetry is often sad and depressing, which is how I felt.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Eventually, John would recover enough to return to school and set his sights on being an educator. Although while he was out of hospitalization and the bulk of the battle was over, behaviors from his eating disorder followed him.
John Schu:
I recently realized that trying to be the best elementary school major is how I replace my anorexia nervosa because when I got to college, I was so focused on school. "I'm going to be perfect, and I'm going to be the world's best third grade teacher." I had no social life because I did. Everything was about how do I become a teacher.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
It was a book recommended by a professor that helped John restore a healthier balance.
John Schu:
One of my professors toward the end of my, when I was about to go become a student teacher, had me stay after class one day. She read me a book called A Fine, Fine School by Sharon Creech, which is one of my favorite books. It's about a principal named Mr. Keene who loves school so much, that eventually they go to school every single day. Everyone is miserable at the school except for Mr. Keene.
It's what Dr. Koloff was saying to me was, "John, you take school way too seriously." It's what Dr. Koloff said to me was, "You are only going to last six months as a teacher because you're going to burnout." That was a turning point for me. I put a lot of things into place right away for self-care. I always had a copy of A Fine, Fine School displayed somewhere in my class. It often encouraged me to take personal days or sick days because I was like, "No. You need to take care of yourself today."
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Books were life-changing for John, from Shel Silverstein as a kid to Emily Dickinson as he struggled with anorexia. Stories and poems were always there to help him through the challenges in his life. Because of these deeply emotional experiences with story, John made it a priority to share that passion with his students.
John Schu:
All through college, I was a bookseller at Barnes & Noble. I spent every paycheck on books. I had a really, for a first year teacher, I had an incredible classroom library. So, I knew from the beginning that I wanted this to be a place of story. That I want it to be a place where I didn't just read aloud books to students, but we experience books together. That we went on journeys through story every single day.
When I was a third grade teacher, I would not speak to the students on the first day as they were coming into the classroom. They probably thought I was the world's meanest teacher. That I was like Viola Swamp from Ms. Nelson is Missing because I wanted the very first thing that I said to them, not to be Kleenex goes over there, and your pencil cases go over there, and please line all your supplies up against the back wall. I didn't want that to be our first experience. I wanted always the first experience to be us experiencing a story together.
So once they were seated, directions were written on the monitor, as well as on the board. I would then read them Stand Tall Molly Lou Melon.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Oh my God, I love that book.
John Schu:
Yes. That would be the first thing. So that's all to say, that's how I tried to very intentionally say, "This is what is most important to me."
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
John spent 13 years teaching and then eventually moved down the hall into the library, but John's traveling extended far beyond the confines of a single school's hallways. Soon, he would venture out into libraries across the country.
John Schu:
I left my school to become the Ambassador of School Libraries for Scholastic. It was a role to advocate for libraries and librarians and to remind people that every child deserves to go to a school with a full-time school librarian. That going to a school with a full-time school librarian who actually has a budget, should never be seen as a privilege but as a right. That's really been my mission for my entire adulthood.
I left that position because of Covid. I went from traveling 220 days a year to being home for 18 months. It just wasn't sustainable for me. Thankfully, Scholastic helped create a lot of fun projects for me, but it just wasn't what I needed to be doing at that time. It was then that I started taking much more seriously.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Did you ever fancy yourself a writer?
John Schu:
Never, especially because all my books are poetry. I'm really struggling with calling myself a poet. This Is a School is a poem. This Is a Story is a poem.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
This is definitely a poem.
John Schu:
Louder Than Hunger, lots of poems. I think just finally owning that I am a poet, books are always going to come out of me that way. It really was because of her and because of Amy Krouse Rosenthal who once said in a conversation with her daughter, Paris Rosenthal, "Make the most of your time here," that I wrote This Is a Story. This Is a Story was the first story that I sold, even though it was my third book that came out.
Hello. I am Ivan. I am a gorilla. It's not as easy as it looks.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
That sentence is the opening to Katherine Applegate's The One and Only Ivan, the book that changed everything for John.
John Schu:
I feel like my life can be seen in two ways, before I read the One and Only Ivan, and after I read The One and Only Ivan because my life has never been the same since. People will ask me sometimes like, "How did you become Mr. Schu?" which sounds like a trick question. I think I became the Mr. Schu that people know because of The One and Only Ivan.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
The One and Only Ivan was the winner of the 2013 Newbery Medal. It's the heartwarming and heartbreaking tale of a gorilla held captive in a mall. Ivan is tasked with taking care of a young elephant named Ruby at the request of her dying mother. Through this relationship, Ivan's perspective on his environment shifts. He discovers the mall is not a home but a cage.
Ivan then devises a plan to free himself, Ruby, and the other animals. This liberating epiphany had such a profound impact on John. He has since committed to sharing the experience of this book with as many people as possible.
John Schu:
When I read those first, those 15 perfectly placed words, I knew I was about to have an experience that I'd never had before. I've never had an experience like it since. When I read this book, I had a true catharsis. When I read this book, I said to myself, "I've got to find a way to tell as many people as possible about this book." So, this is what I did.
Every Tuesday for one year, I would go to Anderson's Bookshop in Naperville, Illinois. I would buy every single copy of this book that they had, and I would give them away to strangers. I really went into debt for a little bit because of The One and Only Ivan. For me, this is my heartprint book, my touchstone book, my forever book. The book that I wish I could give to every single human.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Wait. You put yourself into debt?
John Schu:
Yeah.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
I did not know that. Why don't you share a bit about what made it so powerful for you?
John Schu:
So, I talked about The One and Only Ivan almost every single day. In my book The Gift of Story: Exploring the Affective Side of the Reading Life, I write about my connection to the book. If it's okay with you, I thought I would just read directly from The Gift of Story.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Sure thing.
John Schu:
This is my first time ever reading aloud to somebody other than myself or my cats. So, this is my debut of reading aloud from The Gift of Story. So, here we go. "Ivan's story moved me on such a personal level that I began to share this book with everyone I could. I blogged about it. I wrote about it. I took a literary road trip traveling the country sharing Ivan's story, and eventually got to meet the real Ivan in person.
"Still, what was it about this book, this story, this character? As a reader, teacher, and school librarian, I'd read thousands of books by that point. What was it about that particular book that spoke to me? In hindsight, I realized that Ivan's story spoke to me in a private, quiet way. As I was reading it, I started to understand parts of myself. His experiences through struggles, loss, survival, friendship, and hope are universal stories that when shared through the heart connect us all.
"I experienced a catharsis of sorts through reading it, as I'm sure many of you have too. While Ivan went on to win the 2013 Newbery Medal, I went on to elevate and celebrate more stories like it that helped share my heart and inspired others through similar experiences." So, that's what I write about Ivan in The Gift of Story.
I think it took me a really, really long time to figure out why I loved Ivan so much. That as a kid, I often felt trapped and I felt alone. As an adult, my whole life is trying to help kids feel not trapped through stories that they write themselves and through stories that they read themselves. It took me at least 11 years of talking about the book to truly realize that as a kid, I felt a lot like Ivan does in the book.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Can you think of an example of somebody who read the book that you gave it to that had a reaction?
John Schu:
Yeah. So in my book, The Gift of Story, I write about a child named Mario. I changed their name to Mario. I met Mario when I was doing a school visit in Marin County near San Francisco. After the visit, this child was very, very emotional. They did something that kids often do during book signings, which is they go to the very last position in line. Sometimes they're doing that because they don't want to go to PE, or they don't want to go back to their classroom, and they don't want to go to lunch, or sometimes they want to open up their heart to you.
In this case, Mario kept going to the end because he wanted to open up his heart. This is what he said. He said, "Thank you for talking about how The One and Only Ivan made you cry." He said, "When I read that book last year, I cried a lot." He said, "This book helped me deal with the death of my sister." I just remember thinking, "I don't know what to say in this moment other than this." I said, "Can I hold your hand?"
I held his little hand and I said, "I'm so grateful that this book was here for you." I said something about, "I'm really sorry for that loss." We talked about memories. Then, he went away. I could see off to the side, his librarian was crying, and his principal was crying. They told me the story-
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
I'm crying.
John Schu:
... about how his kindergarten sister, the previous year died unexpectedly. I asked like, "How did this book get to him?" The librarian I think said, I can't remember that specifically. So in The Gift of Story, I don't say the librarian did. I'm hoping the librarian reads that story in there one day, and then emails me about the few things I don't remember.
I'm pretty sure she said that she gave this book to him because she knew in that moment, although this book is filled with a lot of sorrow, that there's a lot of hope in it. That this is the book that his heart needed in the moment because it was able to help him start to heal.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
I too love that book. I'm pretty sure that it's you who made me know that this was a book that we needed to read because at the time, my kids were much younger. We were reading aloud so many things. You gave that book a new life.
John Schu:
I love that so many people say that. Judy Blume said that to me.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Okay, that's a life goal. You can just check off. You can just, that's-
John Schu:
Judy Blume told me this story in one of my presentation that she read this because of me, because I was tweeting so much about it the year it came out.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Katherine Applegate, what's your relationship to her?
John Schu:
I just love her. She wrote the foreword to my book The Gift of Story. Then in every paperback copy of The One and Only Ivan, I write a letter about my connection to the book. Then when I met Ivan the Gorilla, he signed my book. There's a copy of Ivan's signature.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
I've heard that.
John Schu:
It says, "To the one and only Mr. Schu in the book." So to have a letter that I wrote in the book of my heart, that was the turning point.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
It's interesting because you tell that story, the librarian giving this life-changing book. This story that gives comfort to this child. You did that for so many kids. That's what you were creating. Then, you were out speaking and advocating for librarians. This is just such a hard and impossible time to be a librarian. So I wonder, how you think about and speak to that right now?
John Schu:
Well yeah, it's very hard. I teach at Rutgers University in the School of Information. I only teach one class now. I teach the children's literature class, and I feel so grateful to be working with pre-service librarians. So I work in that capacity, but also at library conferences and just visiting hundreds of schools every single year.
There are two things that I always say. "There's only two things that you remember about our time together. I hope that there are these." This goes back to the importance of libraries and librarians, which is that stories affirm our experiences. We can help kids through reminding them of that and through the books that we give them. Then also in this time that we're in right now, where a very, very small group of people who feel big are trying to get rid of a lot of books and are trying to really, in my opinion harm students by doing that, is that books can be the perfect prescriptions to let us know that we're going to be okay.
So I think librarians centering those two things are super, super important always, but especially now. That a book that you can put in the hands of a child can be that thing that can truly save them. I am walking, living proof of that. I actually developed a worse eating disorder in the '90s because of books that I won't even name that a lot of people now have worked really hard to get off of shelves, not as censorship, which is just, "This is actually harmful. These books are teaching kids how to have an eating disorder."
So when I decided to write a book about my eating disorder, I had to be very, very intentional and careful. Anytime my editor would say something like, "Well, maybe you need to add this?" I'd say, "No. That is teaching a kid now how to have an eating disorder. I will not be responsible for that." My goal is that this is a book that I wish I had had when I was 13 because I don't think I would've allowed the voice to get as deep, and as loud, and as awful as it was, because a lot of books and media helped it become worse.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
I'm thinking now about updating of library collections to reflect updated understandings of issues like mental illness or self-harm like you're describing. I guess that's just a continuous process that all librarians are doing all the time. Maybe you could speak to how do you encourage or speak with librarians about approaching that task, especially now because it's increasingly under this public scrutiny?
John Schu:
Well yeah, because what I always say is, and speaking as a teacher librarian, "One, you have to know your community." Then, everything comes back to your selection policy. So in your selection policy, if somebody challenged a book. By my selection policy, can I say that I use these resources, and this is why I made the decision to include this book? If I can't justify why I included it in our collection, then it doesn't belong.
So an example would be my students, I was a K-5 school librarian, would always ask me why I did not have Hunger Games in the K-5 collection. They're like, "Mr. Schu, come on." This was at the time that everybody was reading it. I would always say to them, "You can go to the public library and get it. Your parents can. Somebody in your family can purchase it for you, put it on your birthday list or whatever, but I can't have it in the collection." Then, they'd again say, "Why?" I'd say, "Well, in the library, come over here and I'll show you my selection policy."
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Right.
John Schu:
They would be interested in that. I would say to them, "If one of your family members were to challenge me having put that book on the shelf, I would lose. I would show them all the reasons I would lose that challenge." So, I think it's having your policy to always go back to is what I always used as a teacher librarian.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Some kids can handle complex content earlier than others, right?
John Schu:
Well, I always say that we have to trust the child. The child knows.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
The child knows.
John Schu:
The children would come to me and say, "Mr. Schu, this word is in here." It's not even what we would consider it a bad word. I would say, "Well, I can see that's making you uncomfortable. So your decision to make right now is, does it make you comfortable enough that you want to stop?" That's your right, stop reading it-"
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Amen.
John Schu:
"... or keep going." It'd always be, because I would say to them, "It doesn't make me uncomfortable. It might not make your friend uncomfortable, but you are able to regulate that yourself, right?"
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah.
John Schu:
Trust the child.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
John Schu for president.
John Schu:
No. Trust the child.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
John's life as an educator, a librarian, and on a personal level someone whose life has been drastically impacted by story, all culminated in writing Louder Than Hunger. We've referenced to Louder Than Hunger a few times already, and you have likely gathered that it is nearly autobiographical. As an unflinching portrayal of a painful self-destructive past, it was also difficult to write. John almost didn't write it at all. While navigating a creative block on a seemingly unrelated project, an expository book for fellow librarians, he had an unexpected breakthrough.
John Schu:
In March 2021, I finished revising a book that I wrote for teachers and teacher librarians called The Gift of Story: Exploring the Affective Side of the Reading Life. There's a chapter in that book called Story as Clarifier. Story as Clarifier was so hard to write. So I walked away from it knowing that if I just wrote this one paragraph in that chapter, everything else would open up.
So, I finally wrote that one paragraph. That one paragraph was opening up a little bit about my struggles in middle school with anorexia nervosa, and about how through research, I clarified way before I was diagnosed that I had an eating disorder. Once I wrote that one paragraph, that's 60 words, I was able to write the rest of the book. I think I was able to write the rest of the book quickly because I knew that it was time to finally write my story-
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Wow.
John Schu:
... even though I knew then I'd probably fictionalize it. Just writing just that one paragraph was so freeing, that I remember thinking, "What if I wrote an entire book about that experience?"
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
May I ask what that original paragraph was or what?
John Schu:
So it's just about how I would go to the library, and I would go to the library. Carol and I would make sure nobody was around. I would type in keywords like anorexia and eating disorder. It would lead me to things about Karen Carpenter that were so bad for me. It would lead me to Tracey Gold. It would lead me to all of these People Magazines. It was clarifying, but it also was teaching me how to have an eating disorder.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
So when you actually started writing about it, was it just really hard to be in that headspace again?
John Schu:
Yeah. I think when I was showing some of his OCD and other things, that it just would come out. So much of this book, I wrote at 3:00 and 4:00 in the morning. I would just wake up, and I would just start writing these poems like Kate DiCamillo always says. That she starts writing at 5:30 in the morning before her inner saboteur is awake. Writing this was often like that. I had to be very tired often.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Interesting.
John Schu:
At one time, I had to stop writing the book. I had to take a break from the book because I was going so deep, and I was starting to be afraid of food again.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Oh, really?
John Schu:
I was like, "Oh, my goodness. I'm writing these beautiful poems, but I am actually taking on some of his behaviors." My agent and I talked about that from the beginning. That we would have safeguards in place. I wrote her and my editor, and I said, "I am creating really good poetry, but I'm not okay right now."
I took a break from it, and then I evaluated what was going on. Then, I was able to go back and write it. Because I had to go so far into my middle school brain that was scary, I don't remember writing some of the poems.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Really?
John Schu:
I know I wrote it, but I'll be like, "Where did that come from?"
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
It's striking because we talk about book's power. You talk about how they can comfort and they can heal, but you've also touched a couple of times on how that really cuts both ways. Here, you literally put yourself in physical jeopardy to write this story. It just sounds like pulling back those layers into the mind of your younger self. You knew that was a risk, and it just must've been really intense.
John Schu:
My editor said to Jasmine Warga, who's one of my favorite authors. We actually live in the same neighborhood. She said to Jasmine Warga, "In order for John Schu to write Louder Than Hunger, he had to turn his heart inside out," and that was true.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
It must feel just really amazing to turn your heart inside out and then to feel all these people looking after it.
John Schu:
It also can be really hard because I'm a highly sensitive person that feels. I feel it. Sometimes when I talk about Louder Than Hunger, it's happened three times now. There are some people in the room that actually remind me of childhood bullies. This is for the first time I'm admitting this out loud. I have to change the presentation.
I am feeling uncomfortable because of the energy that they're putting out, and I don't feel safe. I have to remind myself, "I don't owe it to anybody. I don't owe my story there in person beyond what I feel comfortable saying and that's okay. I can go deeper if I want to, but I can also be surface." In that presentation, I had to be. All my pacing was off because there were stories I wasn't telling because I didn't feel safe to tell them. I've never felt that with kids, with adults, never with kids.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Really? In a room of adults when you're talking.
John Schu:
Adults.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
When you're-
John Schu:
It happened three times. Again, I do 500 presentations a year, and only three times. It was a good lesson for myself too like, "You are downshifting inside right now. Why?" I can figure it out. Thanks to all the therapy I've had, I can often figure things out.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Now, you've really honed your superpowers. In case you haven't caught on yet, John absolutely adores books. He wrote a book about how much he loves them. So for his reading challenge, Story Within a Story, he wants us to read the real stories found inside his story about his love of stories. I'll let him explain it.
John Schu:
I'm the author of a book called This Is a Story, and it's illustrated by Caldecott Honor Illustrator, Lauren Castillo. It is a poem about the importance of story, and libraries, and librarians. It's really the poem of everything I believe in about, how stories can change us, and how stories can connect us. Lauren really wanted it to take place in a library.
Then when it came time to start illustrating the book, Lauren was like, "Oh my goodness, I have to draw hundreds and hundreds of books. I don't want to make up hundreds of titles." So Lauren approached our editor and art director and said, "Could I please include real books?" So, Lauren did win. Because of that, there are approximately 50 real books within the book.
My reading challenge is to encourage people to read as many of the picture books, and graphic novels, and middle school novels, middle grade novels that are featured throughout our book.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
You can find John's challenge, Story Within a Story, at thereadingculturepod.com, along with reading challenges from all of our past guests, including Mark Oshiro, Matt de la Peña, Kate DiCamillo, and many more.
Amanda Maslanka:
My name's Amanda Maslanka, and I am an elementary school librarian. We service some early childhood classes, pre-K through fourth grade. This is my 12th year doing it, my 26th year in education. I am exactly where I need to be. I'm in an urban school in South Houston and just love it.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Today's Beanstack featured librarian is Amanda Maslanka, a 26-year veteran in education and an elementary school librarian in South Houston. She offered valuable advice for parents and caregivers to get kids excited about reading.
Amanda Maslanka:
I was immersed in reading at a very early age. When I tell our parents here, when they come for parenting events. We had Christmas and Cocoa at Christmastime where they come in. We have Christmas books out and holiday books out. They come and have cookies and cocoa and read with their kids. One of the things I always tell them is, "This is so important to your kid to see you read. Have reading materials available." We as a school, we get kids' books, usually winter-themed books for them at Christmas. So, every kid takes a book home.
I try to tell them, "Hey, the public library's right here. They have all different kinds of things available for you, just to have reading material in your home. Because kids, if you can read, you can do anything." I have that hanging up in the library. So if parents can encourage that reading, and make a point to read, and make a point to show that reading is important, their kids are going to go so much further.
Even if you're not a reader, fake it. Pretend like you're super excited about this book your kid brought home, because if you show excitement for it, your kid's going to show excitement.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
This has been The Reading Culture, and you've been listening to our conversation with John Schu. Again, I'm your host, Jordan Lloyd-Bookey. Currently, I'm reading The Woman In Me by Britney Spears, and Lunar New Year Love Story by Gene Yang and LeUyen Pham. If you enjoy today's episode, please show some love and give us a five-star review. It just takes a second and really helps.
To learn more about how you can help grow your community's reading culture, you can check out all of our resources at beanstack.com, and remember to sign up for our newsletter at the readingculturepod.com/newsletter for special offers and insights. This episode was produced by Jackie Lamport and Lower Street Media, and script edited by Josia Lamberto-Egan. Thanks for joining and keep reading.