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How a notebook I kept as a kid became the spark for my first novel, Frances and the Monster, twenty years later.
While this book was really good, had wonderful dialogue, and kept me guessing what was happening as we toggled back and forth in time, it's this specific representation of a Black teen boy living with anxiety and panic attacks and getting help that I want to draw your attention to.
I struggled for several years to find a way to do “Goblin Market” justice, while still respecting my audience.
We can’t always understand the things that scare us, but scary stories are the safest places to experience our fears again and again, as many times as it takes for them to become comfortably familiar.
Every time I write and illustrate a new adventure for Marisol, I’m reaching back thirty-five years, whispering to a younger version of myself, saying: You are not invisible. You are not alone.
The Sea Knows My Name asks how our stories shape us. It asks us what happens when all our stories are about Zeus rather than Leda; Apollo rather than Daphne; Ajax rather than Cassandra.
I don’t think I’ll ever forget the things Hazmat has taught me, I don’t think I want to: I love thinking of book plots (and life!) without a beginning, middle, and end…but, instead, seeing moments and days as a wild quilt flashing by, a horizon that keeps opening and expanding …on and on.
Hand this one to social justice-minded readers who will be inspired by the actions of these incredible kids.
You know what I liked best about this book? I didn't know where it was going. I wasn't sure what decisions the characters would make or if things would work out. At points, I wasn't even sure what "work out" meant for these characters.
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