Sometimes the race is disclosed and sometimes it’s not.

Most of the time, teachers appreciate the fact that I have a wide variety of characters. The principal uninvited me because he said he read the book and there were no sympathetic white characters in it. I believe it was (the high school story) “Tears of the Tiger” and it was in some small town in Michigan (where they had) invited me to come to speak. They’ll say, 'Don’t put that in your book!”ĭraper: One. Plus, I have 12-year-olds around me (in my family) so I can keep up with music and trends and they’ll tell me if I’m off. I think there’s a universality there that I can capture. A 12-year-old has the same insecurities regardless of where and when they live. Q: Do you find it difficult to write for young readers now that you’re not seeing them in the classroom and as you’re aging?ĭraper: I don’t think so, I’ve done it so long now, I kind of feel comfortable with the area. I just moved from one kind of teaching to another.Īuthor Sharon Draper is a former teacher from Cincinnati.

When I stopped teaching, I had started writing so I got to go to schools and in that way, I was still teaching. Q: You taught many years in the Cincinnati Public Schools. I’m working on a book now where the main character hangs out in the library all the time. The librarian was my best friend and the library was my second home. It didn’t take long for me to read everything on the elementary side of the library. You could check out 10 books at a time and that’s what I would do. Q: What was reading like for you when you were a child?ĭraper: My mother took me to the library every single Saturday from the time I was 3 years old. The first book, “Out of My Mind,” was translated into 23 languages, so Melody could be French, Arabic, Hebrew, Japanese, Chinese. I wanted to focus on what these kids could do.

Your wheelchair or your crutches don’t care. If you have a disability, it really doesn’t matter what color you are. Is Melody a Black girl?ĭraper: I don’t know. Q: You’re an African American writer but in some of your books, readers can’t tell what race the characters are.

Melody di sharon m draper