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2016 National Book Award Finalist, Young People's Literature

Jason Reynolds

(Atheneum Books for Young Readers /
Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing)

ISBN: 978-1481450157

National Book Foundation: Who did you write this book for?

Jason Reynolds: I wrote Ghost for all the young people who feel like they're suffocating, who feel like they're gasping for breath, exhausted from running for their lives, and sometimes FROM their lives. It's for both the traumatized and the triumphant.

Judges' citation

In Ghost, Jason Reynolds flawlessly delivers eloquent moments of terror, anticipation and fun-clear to the finish line-without an extra word to spare. We are immersed in the backdrop of believable characters from the night Ghost Crenshaw runs for his life, to his struggle to silence the "scream inside him." Ghost will stay with you.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Ghost wants to be the fastest sprinter on his elite middle school track team, but his past is slowing him down in this first electrifying novel of a brand-new series from Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe Award-winning author Jason Reynolds.

Ghost. Lu. Patina. Sunny. Four kids from wildly different backgrounds with personalities that are explosive when they clash. But they are also four kids chosen for an elite middle school track team-a team that could qualify them for the Junior Olympics if they can get their acts together. They all have a lot to lose, but they also have a lot to prove, not only to each other, but to themselves.

Ghost has a crazy natural talent, but no formal training. If he can stay on track, literally and figuratively, he could be the best sprinter in the city. But Ghost has been running for the wrong reasons-it all starting with running away from his father, who, when Ghost was a very little boy, chased him and his mother through their apartment, then down the street, with a loaded gun, aiming to kill. Since then, Ghost has been the one causing problems-and running away from them-until he meets Coach, an ex-Olympic Medalist who blew his own shot at success by using drugs, and who is determined to keep other kids from blowing their shots at life.

About the Author

Jason Reynolds is the author of the award winning young adult novel, The Boy in the Black Suit, and the co-author of All American Boys, both of which he won Coretta Scott King honors for, as well as the critically acclaimed middle grade novels, As Brave As You, and Ghost, both released in 2016.

Reynolds has been reviewed and profiled by The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, Kirkus Reviews, The Horn Book, School Library Journal, and a host of other media outlets. But what excites him more than anything is speaking to young people around the country, not only about the power of reading, but also about the importance of telling their own stories.

He currently lives in Washington, DC.

SUGGESTED LINKS

- jasonwritesbooks.com

- TWITTER: @JasonReynolds83

Get THE BOOK

- Barnes & Noble

- IndieBound.org

- WorldCat (Library catalog)

INTERVIEW

Jason Reynolds' Ghost is not a horror story, really. But it is filled with trauma, fear, and hopes of survival. The term "ghost" in this sense is a colloquialism and metaphor for running so fast, no one can no longer see you. Another term I remember from my own childhood is 'Swayze,' as in the star of the movie Ghost. It was a pleasure to see familiar playful slang featured in this manner. This speaks to the unapologetic authenticity and honesty in Ghost. Eleven year-old Castle "Ghost" Crenshaw lives in the hearts of all readers dealing with the realities of adults who don't live up to, well, adulthood. Ghost reminds us that we all are already armed with the skills needed to overcome our pasts. We simply have to take the first step to either run from our former selves or run toward our dreams.

Ibi Zoboi: Ghost's voice is laced with both keen observation and wit. Did you have to tap into your own boyhood perspectives on the world?

Jason Reynolds: That's a good one! I have a theory about middle grade realistic fiction... It's meant to outline first experience questions that lead to the firsts in YA novels. The questions come before the act. This is a sweet spot for young readers where their curiosity is at a fever pitch. The voice comes from this curiosity. There is a confidence in wanting to know and knowing that you don't know. It's also the voice of little black boys. Everything is hilarious. When you're eleven or twelve everything is through the lens of humor, even when you're dealing with trauma. You're viewing the world differently and are guarded.

IZ: Track & field is not usually a sport represented in middle grade fiction, much less in middle schools. Why did you decide on track as opposed to any other sport?

JR: Well, that's the reason. We know kids of color love basketball. Track is a fascinating sport and I wanted to unpack the idea of being black and running. Running makes you uncomfortable and leaves you with the feeling of suffocation. I wanted to explore the fact that kids have grown up with this discomfort and are almost suffocating. Trauma is real. And Ghost already knows how to run. He's running from his past, his family, and trauma. Boys in the inner city already know how to play these sports, they know how to run. The trick is to learn the discipline of track, to learn how to breathe through the pain. My hope with Ghost is to figure out how to steer the narrative-of how to run from and run to the things in our lives.

IZ: Ghost eats a lot of sunflower seeds. Like track and running, are the seeds and the art of eating them a metaphor for Ghost and his story?

JR: Of course! Everything is intentional. Ghosts says, "I've learned to crack a shell open." Ghost and his affinity for seeds represents the discipline and concentration needed to eat a sunflower seed. The reward is not in the actual eating, but in the process-the process of being able to do something right. It's a feeling of completion and it's all happening in his mouth. No one else sees this. He already possesses this skill set.

IZ: What are some of your thoughts on how to go about presenting violence and trauma to young readers in a middle grade novel?

JR: It's my responsibility to honor young people with honesty, even if their parents are uncomfortable. They are human beings with feelings. They also have the internet, and they come with their own set of trauma. Why should I be disrespectful to the young reader by shielding them from what they already know? The story of Castle Crenshaw is a true story. It happened in real life to my best friend who at five or six years old was with his mother when his father chased them with gun in a 7/11. Young people know these things happen, and it has happened to them or their friends.

IZ: Bullying is one of the themes in Ghost. However, what are your thoughts on the difference between what we all know as bullying and the African American tradition of snapping, signifying, or the Dozens?

JR: Great question! Snapping and signifying comes from pain. The way we crack jokes come from trauma. We laugh to keep from crying. We couldn't snap on the white man during slavery and let out all that anger and frustration. So we did it to our brother. Over time, its become what it is today, like roasting. It's a form of camaraderie, and it's not to crush your spirit. When kids do it, it's not malicious. You gotta be able to snap back like being on the court or slap boxing. We do it to get out aggression in a safe space. Snapping and the Dozens are both familial and familiar.

IZ: What's next for you?

JR: Petina comes next in the Track series. She's eleven and is running her whole family. I knew little girls like that growing up. They would hold their whole family down, cooking and taking care of the house. This is Petina's story. It comes out in fall 2017. Long Way Down also comes out in the fall and it's about gang retaliation. It's a novel in verse and the whole book takes place in about a minute on an elevator.

Ibi Zoboi holds an MFA in Writing for Children & Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her writing has been published in Haiti Noir, the Caribbean Writer, The New York Times Book Review, the Horn Book Magazine, and The Rumpus, among others. Her debut YA novel American Street (Balzer+Bray/HarperCollins) is due out in February 2017.

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Ghost, by Jason Reynolds, 2016 National Book Award Finalist, Young People's Literature

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Jason Reynolds (Atheneum Books for Young Readers / Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing) ISBN: 978-1481450157 National Book Foundation: Who did you write this book for? Jason Reynolds: I wrote Ghost for all the young people who feel like they're suffocating, who feel like they're gasping for breath, exhausted from running for their lives, and sometimes FROM their lives.

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On the first Monday in July-a day it seemed like everyone else in Washington, D.C., took off to start celebrating the Fourth early-Jason Reynolds walked from his home to a coffee shop on H Street, a mile or so away. He had work to do.

Reynolds works a lot. He will have published eight novels in less than three years, including three coming out this fall: Miles Morales: A Spider-Man Novel (Marvel, Aug.); Patina (Atheneum/Dlouhy, Aug.), a sequel to his National Book Award finalist Ghost; and Long Way Down (Atheneum/Dlouhy, Oct.), a standalone YA that will likely ratchet his reputation up another notch.

After 13 years in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, Reynolds moved back to Washington a year ago to be closer to his 72-year-old mother, Isabell, who still teaches special education in a Maryland public school.

But actually being at home is a rarity for Reynolds, whose meteoric rise has made him a highly sought-after speaker. He admits to having trouble saying no. "It's hard, because I will hear from a teacher who says, 'My kids could really benefit from hearing your story,' and the kids she's talking about are like the kids I grew up with," he says. "So I give all that I have, three to four talks a day, 100 times a year, every year for the last three years. This opportunity means the world to me."

Kids Like Him

Though he was born in D.C., Reynolds moved "two blocks" across the Maryland border as a child so his mother could have a yard and enough space to shelter "grandparents, aunties, and cousins," if need be. The third of four children, he graduated from Bishop McNamara High School in 2000 (11 years after fellow alumnus Jeff Kinney) and went on to the University of Maryland, where he earned a degree in English while working part-time at the now-closed Karibu Books, a chain that specialized in African-American literature.

Reynolds says that, until college, the major influences on his imagination had been almost exclusively rappers. Biggie, Queen Latifah, and Tupac Shakur spoke far more directly to him than the books he had been assigned to read in high school.

"Hip-hop saved me," he notes. "It gave me permission to use language in a certain way. It validated my community and my friends. It gave our slang a certain elegance." The blowback from people who criticized the music eventually worked in his favor. "I have a chip on my shoulder I pet every morning, a constant feeling like I have something to prove," Reynolds says. "Hearing that the canon can't be diversified, there's no room for more brown faces-that fueled my fire. I loved music that people said was not music, that it was too violent, too crass, too sexual. And now everyone in the world is rapping Hamilton."

At Karibu he found literature he had never encountered in grade school-stories about the black experience by black writers. His college introduction to the work of people like Langston Hughes refocused his creative energy on writing-and reciting-poetry.

After graduation, he and a classmate, Jason Griffin, moved to Brooklyn and self-published My Name Is Jason. Mine Too., a poetry collection written by Reynolds and illustrated by Griffin. The autobiographical work tells the story of two broke young men with the same first name and the same dream: becoming artists.

Though the book didn't find a wide readership, it caught the attention of former HarperCollins editor Joanna Cotler, who republished it for teens. "It was quirky, but it was a way for me to get him on my list," Cotler recalls. "I think it's really clear when you meet someone who has something powerful to say. You can't fake that. He had the gift."

When Cotler decided to retire, she suggested to Reynolds's agent, Elena Giovinazzo of Pippin Properties, that Caitlin Dlouhy, who had worked with Cotler at HarperCollins, might be a good editor for whatever Reynolds wrote next. Giovinazzo invited Dlouhy to her agency's annual picnic. "Without telling either of us what she had in mind, she introduced me to Jason, just to see what our rapport would be like," says Dlouhy, who now has her own imprint at Atheneum. "We hit it off immediately."

Dlouhy has since edited seven of his novels, beginning with When I Was the Greatest (Atheneum/Dlouhy, 2014), for which he won the 2015 John Steptoe Award for New Talent from ALA's Coretta Scott King committee-the first in a long list of awards his subsequent books have received.

"It's a lot in a short amount of time, but it's rare to find an author who has so many ideas and each one is a gem," Dlouhy says. "And he isn't just firing them out. Every word matters. It's the poet in him."

Coming Full Circle

Though there is great anticipation for Miles Morales, Reynolds's Spider-Man novel, and Patina, the first book he has written from a female viewpoint, the fall title that is likely to get the most attention represents a return to his earliest literary love: Long Way Down is his first novel in verse.

The story centers on 15-year-old Will Holloman, who gets on the elevator in his building with a gun, intent on killing the person who just murdered his older brother. But as the elevator descends, it stops for passengers, each an important figure from Will's life who has been victimized by gun violence. Reynolds calls it " Christmas Carol magic," adding: "It's not waving a wand, but it is magic. He's being revisited by people from his own life, but are they ghosts, or are they his subconscious telling him to think?"

The story was inspired by Reynolds's frequent visits to juvenile detention centers. "Most of these boys are in detention because of gang violence and don't realize this turf stuff exists in its own vacuum," he says. " 'You shoot me, I shoot you,' and it's been like that for decades."

Reynolds knew that world. When he was 19, one of his best friends was murdered, execution-style. He and his friends vowed to exact revenge but never followed through on their plan; they didn't know for sure who had pulled the trigger. "After we did not murder that asshole I realized how lucky that was," he says.

Reynolds hopes the story helps boys who are confronted with terrible choices to think twice before they act. "The reason he tours all these juvenile detention centers is that he wants those boys to know, 'I could've been you. I was you. But you could be me,' " Dlouhy says. "Those are the readers he most wants to speak to."

Re-establishing His Roots

Reynolds has two books scheduled for publication next year. One, Jump Anyway, was written years ago. It's a lengthy poem-maybe a letter to himself, he says-that he originally read at the dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington. Dlouhy is packaging it as a gift book, to give to graduates. "He talks to kids in a way that's not gilded, to prepare them for how hard it might be, but also to say how important it is to have a dream and go for it anyway," Dlouhy says.

In May, Reynolds signed a seven-figure deal for four more as-yet-untitled books with Dlouhy. When he isn't traveling, he'll continue to write from early morning until midafternoon in coffee shops along the H Street corridor. Most of the people in his neighborhood don't know who he is, and the people who do know of him aren't aware he lives here. "I have walked into the public library on 17th Street and the librarians were like 'Whaaaaaaat?' " he says.

Reynolds does not intend to rest on his laurels. Success, he says, is "weird." He adds: "The people who know me do not ask me about the next book, or how it's going, they ask, 'Jason, are you sleeping?' because they know my brain will not shut down. There are so many things I want to do, so many things I have to say. I got into this to serve children. I love children dearly. But I also intend to be great. There are no other options."

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Jason Reynolds Is the Hardest-Working Man in Washington

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On the first Monday in July-a day it seemed like everyone else in Washington, D.C., took off to start celebrating the Fourth early-Jason Reynolds walked from his home to a coffee shop on H Street, a mile or so away. He had work to do. Reynolds works a lot.

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/ CBS News

New York Times bestselling author Jason Reynolds says he never got straight A's in school. In fact, he didn't read his first novel until he was 17 years old.

Reynolds, the author behind a string of books for young adults, says he writes stories on topics he felt didn't exist when he was growing up.

"Writing is like any other sort of sport," Reynolds told "CBS This Morning" co-anchor Gayle King. "In order for you to get better at it, you have to exercise the muscle."

His new book, "Long Way Down," is about a young boy whose brother is killed by gun violence. (It's published by Atheneum, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, a division of CBS.)

When Reynolds was a student at Barnaby Manor Elementary School, in Oxon Hill, Md., he may not have guessed he would become an award-winning author for young adults.

King asked, "What would the teachers say about you back then?"

"Back then, the teachers said two things: one, that I was one of the most disorganized kids that they'd ever seen," he replied. "And two, that I didn't work to my full potential."

Her son's potential is not something Isabel Reynolds -- who teaches there now -- has ever questioned. "As a little boy growing up, it was important for him to know that he could do anything," she said. "He held the power to do anything."

"I taught that to him, and every night when he said his prayers, that was the last statement that he made: 'I can do anything,'" she added.

Reynolds admitted that he didn't read his first novel from cover to cover until he was 17. "I don't know whether to be mad or impressed by that," said King.

"Be upset!" he said. "Definitely be upset. And I guess I should start with why -- why that is the case. And the truth is that, when I was younger, books were given to me. Right? I want to be clear. There were books around me. There were books in the home. But the books that were given to me had nothing to do with my life."

"So if you didn't get fulfillment from books, where did you get fulfillment from?"

"Rap music," he said. "Rap music was and is, for me, everything. It's interesting, because I recognize that it's complicated, and it was complicated back then. I remember the protesting against the language of the artists and these songs. But for me, they were honest. And so rap music was the thing that really drew me in, specifically Queen Latifah -- the great Queen Latifah."

"Her image was something I directly connected to, because Queen Latifah reminded me of my mother, of my sister, of my cousins, of my aunties, because she was a woman with such stature," Reynolds added. "The way that she spoke was a little hard-edged. And she looked like she could give you the greatest hug of your life, and she looked like she could bust you in the face at the same time."

When asked what Queen Latifah's lyrics taught him, Reynolds said, "There was a direct connection between what she was doing with lyrics and what the poets that I was learning in school were doing with lyrics. That the only separation between these poets -- which we didn't even call rappers back then -- is generation. But the truth is, is that Queen Latifah's 'Ladies First,' [and] Maya Angelou's 'Phenomenal Woman' are literally the same poem, a generation apart."

Reynolds was so inspired by their words, he became a poet, but for years struggled to find his place in the literary world until, he says, a friend changed his life.

"His name is Christopher Myers. His father was the late, great Walter Dean Myers," said Reynolds. "A juggernaut in our industry. He changed the way we thought about children's literature.

"Chris came to me one day, and he said, 'What you working on?' And I said, 'Nothing. I think it's over.' And he said, 'Well, let me tell you something. My father's getting old. Who's gonna write the stories about the kids like us? Who's gonna write the stories about the kids who are still searching for themselves in books, searching to see their families in a novel? Searching for themselves as characters? Who's gonna write those stories?'"

Reynolds embraced the task, writing eight novels in only three years. His latest release is titled "Long Way Down."

It's a story of a 15-year-old boy whose brother is killed, who gets on an elevator with a gun intent to take revenge on the person who killed his brother.

As the elevator doors open, on every single floor, others get onto the elevator with him - people who are no longer alive. "They are people that he knows, but they have all been murdered," Reynolds said.

From "Long Way Down":

"I don't know you. Don't know your last name. If you've got brothers or sisters or mothers or fathers or cousins that be like brothers and sisters or aunties or uncles that be like mothers and fathers. But if the blood inside you is on the inside of someone else, you never want to see it on the outside of them."

Connecting with young people is a personal responsibility for Reynolds. Today, he has visited over 100 schools around the country.

"To write for kids, you're taking on a certain load," he said. "The other part of that load is that they need to see you, right? If I'm writing these books and I'm saying that I love them and I'm saying that I care for them, to me, it's important that they see me, that they see what I look like, that they see how I speak. We talk about rap music and Jordans and we dance, and at the end of all of that, they say, 'Yo, I like this guy. I'm gonna read these books.'"

King asked, "What would 33-year-old Jason say to 17-year-old Jason?"

"That excellence is a habit," Reynolds laughed. "All that matters to you is, are you going to do it or are you not? And if you're not, stop talking about it."
"Long Way Down" by Jason Reynolds (Atheneum) is available via Amazon. More

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Young adult author Jason Reynolds on coming late to reading

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CBS News New York Times bestselling author Jason Reynolds says he never got straight A's in school. In fact, he didn't read his first novel until he was 17 years old. Reynolds, the author behind a string of books for young adults, says he writes stories on topics he felt didn't exist when he was growing up.