The Reading Culture

By Beanstack

What's The Reading Culture about?

Host Jordan Lloyd Bookey speaks with authors and reading enthusiasts to explore ways to build a stronger culture of reading in our communities. They'll dive into their personal experiences, inspirations, and why their stories and ideas are connecting so well with kids.

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The Reading Culture episodes:

06.25.2024
You Are Flawed, You Are Messy, You Are Loved: Shannon Hale on Hope and Heroines
"I feel like it was this little miracle that in some areas of my life, I'm shutting myself up and shutting myself down. But with my writing, I was always really connecting with that inner voice.” - Shannon Hale Flaws....
06.11.2024
Unstoppable Force, Movable Object: Dhonielle Clayton on Levering Children's Books Into the 21st Century
"I'm not a person that's like, let's throw out the classics. It's, let's move forward. Let's disrupt the canon. Some of these universal themes, some of these ingredients that we love, how do I remix them into a new stew?”...
05.28.2024
Summon the Tiger: Minh Lê Blurs the Boundaries
"That barrier between what is “real” and what is not, when that's more fluid, I think it's that's where the fun of fiction comes in. Especially when you're writing for kids.” - Minh Lê Life is full of barriers. Barriers...
05.14.2024
Twilight Zone: Julie Murphy on Self-Doubt and Self-Love
"I've found that the books that have resonated with me the most are books where your body is incidental, but it's still something that you can never leave behind.” - Julie Murphy Julie Murphy has an unexpected story, one that...
04.30.2024
Filling in the Blanks: Cece Bell on the Comedy of the Absurd
"...the reader's mind is filling in the blanks in between those panels and as a lip reader, that's what I do. I fill in the blanks. I'm trying to piece together what that person says. So, comics really make sense...
04.16.2024
Hero of the Anti-Heroes: Gregory Maguire on the Value of Second Chances
"That's really all we are obliged to do for those we call our enemies. We are obliged to see them as humans, and then we behave the way we will. We are obliged not to consider them as less than...
04.02.2024
Simple Thing, Felt: Nina LaCour on Unwrapping a Moment
"I spend a lot of time trying to hope that I'll remember little things and how a certain simple thing felt. … Writing is one way of trying to capture that feeling, even if I'm fictionalizing it still.” - Nina...
03.19.2024
The World As It Should Be: LeUyen Pham Illustrates an Ideal
"There's something very lovely about feeling like, well, it's not my name, and it's not me, it's just the books.” - LeUyen Pham To listen to LeUyen Pham is to feel inspired. She is full of hope and ideas and...
03.05.2024
If Your Heart Breaks, It’s Working: Nicola Yoon on Love and Other Risky Behaviors
"Love is risky. Love always ends. Should you do it anyway?” - Nicola YoonLove is a feeling that never exists solely on its own, and those likely companions to love (anxiety, grief) often bring questions such as, is this worth...
02.20.2024
The Blackest Book Ever: Derrick Barnes on Writing Unapologetically
"I'm putting every single ounce of who I am into every single book that I write, so y'all know to expect the blackest books you have ever read from yours truly.” - Derrick BarnesDerrick Barnes’ introduction to vulnerable storytelling was...
02.06.2024
Rabbit Holes: Brandy Colbert on Deep Research and Deep Characters
"I'm a bad liar. So I'm just like, I'm really good at telling the truth.” - Brandy Colbert Going down internet rabbit holes and discovering everything there is to know about random subjects is a relaxing way to spend an evening,...
01.23.2024
The One and Only John: Mr. Schu Turns His Heart Inside Out
"Books can be the perfect prescriptions to let us know that we're going to be okay.” - John Schu John Schu’s entire life has been shaped by books. As a kid, he fell in love with Shel Silverstein; Emily Dickinson...
01.10.2024
A Gut Punch and a Hug: Mark Oshiro on Practicing Vulnerability
On Today's Show"It's practice. Vulnerability is practice. It is learning that you can do things and say things that seem scary, but ultimately know that you're safe.” - Mark OshiroMark Oshiro was taught to fear the world. To be someone...
12.26.2023
The Reading Culture: Yearbook 2023
With the 2023 year coming to a close (our first full year in production!), we wanted to celebrate. And what better way to do that than high school yearbook superlative style? Welcome to a special edition of The Reading...
12.12.2023
The Things We Know: Oge Mora on Finding the Magic in the Everyday
"It's not like I haven't experienced pain or tragedy or grief in my life, and it's not like I want to deny that. I don't think that that's the entirety of my song. When I want to look back on...
11.28.2023
Visibility Cloak: Hena Khan on Commonality Over Conformity
"There's these universal truths [...] specific details, but universal feelings and universal experiences that people hopefully can relate to. And that's what I go for in all of my books. Common humanity.” - Hena Khan Hena Khan didn’t believe her...
11.14.2023
A Good Guest: Daniel Nayeri on the Obligations of a Storyteller
"Don't follow your dreams if that's the only thing you're doing. Ask yourself, what will make you most useful? What will make you most, in terms of a purpose, help you do meaningful work?” - Daniel Nayeri You want Daniel...
10.31.2023
Revisit - The Gift of Fear: Lamar Giles on How Horror Helps Kids Cope
We revisit our Halloween special episode with Lamar Giles. ****** On Today's Show"The fear is like the ramp on the roller coaster. It's that build-up of adrenaline intention that you're having in that moment when that roller coaster is cranking. It's...
10.17.2023
Family Ties: Dan Santat on Childhood, Parenthood, and Finding Himself
On Today's Show"It (TV) was my junk food, but also it was my in with the kids to be able to talk about pop culture, to know all the little nuances and jokes about the cultural zeitgeist things.” - Dan...
10.03.2023
Inner Section: Kacen Callender on Trauma, Healing, and Magic
On Today's Show"I think that has a lot to do with why I was so interested in writing for children. It's like, I was trying to heal. I was trying to heal my childhood experiences through writing, through these characters.”...
09.19.2023
Cool To Be You: Kwame Alexander On Authenticity
On Today's Show"I'm just being real. I'm telling my story. I think Nikki Giovanni calls it dancing naked on the floor. I am unafraid and I'm doing my dance… I don't feel like I can go wrong if I'm just...
09.05.2023
Here, Extrapolated: Neal Shusterman on The Art of World Building
On Today's Show"I think it comes down to caring about the characters. When you care about the characters, you care about the world that they live in.” - Neal ShustermanWhen Neal Shusterman was in college, he was told to stop...
08.22.2023
Negative Space: Jon Klassen on Restraint
On Today's Show"That's still my trick too, never tell them how they're feeling. Never begin to even show how they're feeling. They'll get it anyway. You're describing negative space and the negative space you can't even get at.” - Jon...
08.08.2023
Revisit - The Heart of the Story: Karina Yan Glaser Talks Empathy in Writing
Grace Lin (The Year of the Dog, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon) shares her thoughts on the value art provides to those who experience it and those who create it, and how it contributes to getting us in touch...
07.25.2023
Revisit - Voice Through Verse: Renée Watson on Poetry as Empowerment
We revisit our episode with Renée Watson. **** On Today's Show"There's just something about literally raising your voice and letting these words come out of you. That's powerful." - Renée WatsonMaya Angelou was mute for six years. After a traumatizing childhood experience,...
07.24.2023
Big Summer Reading Giveaway!
Exciting news! We are hosting a big summer reading giveaway in which you can choose any three titles by any three authors who have been on our podcast. Three books each for three winners. The magic number really is three,...
07.11.2023
The Fire Inside: Jacqueline Woodson Carries the Torch
On Today's Show"For me, in the fiction, it is so much about keeping that continuum going, that someone's going to come along after me and tell a story that's connected to the story that I've told. I'm telling the story...
06.27.2023
Mixed Feelings: Matt de la Peña on Balancing Being Stoic and Sensitive
On Today's Show"Kids are growing up in an interesting time and they're led to believe that if we don't feel happy, we're doing something wrong. I think what I respond to is a deeper truth, which is, happiness is incredible...
06.13.2023
Ignorance Isn’t Bliss: Sabaa Tahir on the Need to Bear Witness
On Today's Show"This is happening in our world and at the very least you can bear witness to it. That's literally the absolute least you can do. - Sabaa Tahir Sabaa Tahir’s (“All My Rage,” “An Ember in the Ashes” quartet)...
05.30.2023
Recovering Identity: Angeline Boulley Calls for a Reckoning
On Today's Show"I think there's recognition that publishing is better the more voices are heard, and the more diverse those rooms can be as well –that it's not just a matter of changing the skin tone of a character, it's...
05.16.2023
Never Empty-Handed: Yuyi Morales on the Stories, the Pain, and the Hope We Carry
In This Episode"It is through these books and through this work that I'm doing that I hope that I can be a worthy companion of [children's] journeys, because they have a lot of journeys to go through, and there is...
05.02.2023
The Depth of the Universe: M.T. Anderson on the Sneaky Relevance of Sci-fi and Fantasy
On Today's Show“If you write about the world as it is, there's too much of a danger of it just feeding into our assumption that everything that we live with is right and normal. Whereas if you start to say,...
04.18.2023
Inflection Point: Shadra Strickland Puts the Dash in Author-Illustrator
Creators & Guests Jordan Lloyd Bookey - Host Shadra Strickland - Guest On Today's Show“I remember everything was so shiny. Like the way that Pat illustrated that book, everything glistened, and main characters were Black and that was really...
04.04.2023
Little Windows: Victoria Jamieson on the Underrated Power of Graphic Novels
On Today's Show"I think there's so much you can do. It's so rich because you have words, you have pictures. Sometimes they say the same things, sometimes they say opposite things. There's such an interplay between the two that I...
03.21.2023
Lonely Planet: Erin Entrada Kelly on Looking After the Overlooked
On Today's Show"A lot of my books have characters who are lonely, who are trying to figure out their way, who don't feel seen in the world, who don't know how to use their voice. I want to write books...
03.07.2023
Screen Play: James Ponti on Writing with a Filmmaker's Eye
On Today's Show"I go to the locations in the books when I can, and I go there and I scout them the same way I scouted them when I was shooting documentaries. I'll just kind of walk around the same...
02.21.2023
Eye of the Tiger: Ellen Oh on Rising Up for the Right to Read
On Today's Show The author of the “Prophecy” trilogy and “Spirit Hunters” series and the founder of We Need Diverse Books, Ellen Oh is equal parts no-nonsense and hilarious truth-teller. "We all know the importance of representation in books and how...
02.07.2023
Comfortably Uncomfortable: Nic Stone on the Story Less Told
On Today's Show" When I sat down and I decided I wanted to start writing, what I started writing was something that bothered me." - Nic Stone After Nic Stone graduated college, she went on a trip to Bethlehem in Israel...
01.24.2023
Oh, the Humanity: Grace Lin on Art and the Human Experience
On Today's Show" Creating something is not just for people to view, but it's for the creator. It's that idea that when you create, it puts you more in touch with your humanity and that being in touch with your...
01.10.2023
Truth From Fiction: Adam Gidwitz on Plato, the Devil, and the BFG
On Today's Show"The world is so complex, right? No theory that anyone has can be accurate because the only accurate model of the world is the world. There are too many complexities. ... And so what literature does is it...
12.27.2022
Revisit - Cultivating Story: Meg Medina on the importance of storytelling in life, writing, and the fight against book bans
On Today's Show"I feel like writers, especially who are wordsmiths, who can name things, tricky things in clear ways ... should be where we put our efforts. Really creating an offensive, an offense in this campaign to win the hearts...
12.13.2022
They Already Know: Kate DiCamillo on Helping Kids Find Hope in Darkness
On Today's Show "If I've done my job right and put my heart and my fears and my questions on the page, if I've told a story right and well, the reader can be aware of me asking those questions, worrying...
11.29.2022
Voice Through Verse: Renée Watson on Poetry as Empowerment
On Today's Show"There's just something about literally raising your voice and letting these words come out of you. That's powerful." - Renée WatsonMaya Angelou was mute for six years. After a traumatizing childhood experience, the famous poet and activist retreated...
11.15.2022
Voice Training: Zetta Elliott on Reckoning with Your Past and Disrupting the Future
On Today's Show"When you're a kid, and if you love to read, you love stories, you aren't always aware of the fact that you're being erased from those stories, or you don't yet have the expectation that you should be...
10.31.2022
The Gift of Fear: Lamar Giles on How Horror Helps Kids Cope
On Today's Show"The fear is like the ramp on the roller coaster. It's that build-up of adrenaline intention that you're having in that moment when that roller coaster is cranking. It's not the same fear of you walking through a...
10.18.2022
Connecting With Authors: Varian Johnson and Seeing Yourself Beyond the Pages
On Today's Show"I think it's really important that readers see the people behind the book: the authors, the illustrators, the librarians, the teachers, the folks in publicity and marketing. Obviously, a young reader won't see all of that, it's just...
10.04.2022
The Heart of the Story: Karina Yan Glaser Talks Empathy in Writing
On Today's Show"Maybe if they haven't been in that situation, they know someone who has, or they have friends who have really struggled with losing loved ones. That all helps build empathy." - Karina Yan Glaser Karina Yan Glaser is always...
09.20.2022
Cultivating Story: Meg Medina on the Importance of Storytelling in Life, Writing, and the Fight Against Book Bans
On Today's Show"I feel like writers, especially who are wordsmiths, who can name things, tricky things in clear ways ... should be where we put our efforts. Really creating an offensive, an offense in this campaign to win the hearts...
08.17.2022
The Reading Culture: Trailer
In our new podcast, The Reading Culture, host Jordan Lloyd Bookey will bring you along as we connect with diverse authors about their own journeys as readers and storytellers, as well as what experiences along the way motivated them to...