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" There is a crisis involving reading in certain communities. "
Walter Dean Myers
Crisis
Certain
Reading
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" My dad was a janitor for U.S. Radium Corporation, and he stayed there for 37 years. So he didn't read. "
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" Now, my mom did not read well and she read 'True Romance' magazines, but she read with me. And she would spend 30 minutes a day, her finger going along the page, and I learned to read. Eventually, by the time I was four and a half, she could iron and I could sit there and read the 'True Romance.' And that was wonderful. "
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" We need to tell young people that America was built by men and women of all colors and that the future of this country is dependent on the participation of all of our citizens. "
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" I know what falling off the cliff means. I know from being considered a very bright kid to being considered like a moron and dropping out of school. "
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" I remember one time being told I could not play in a basketball game at the College of William and Mary because I was black, even though I was playing with a United States Army team. "
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" We all know we should eat right and we should exercise, but reading is treated as if it's this wonderful adjunct. "
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" My younger brother's death in Vietnam was both sobering and cause for reflection. In 'Fallen Angels' I wanted to dispel the notion of war as either romantic or simplistically heroic. "
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War
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Death
" After so many books and so many years of writing, I have a good idea of my strengths and weaknesses. I love the process of writing and, if I allowed myself, I would write far too much every day. One weakness which I've struggled to overcome is my tendency to having my characters ruminate for pages. "
Walter Dean Myers
Love
Good
Day
" Fifty percent of all meaningful education takes place in the home. What do you share with your child? You share your interests. I was a book person. I read with my son. My wife is an artist. She dragged his little butt around to museums. He's an illustrator of children's books. "
Walter Dean Myers
Children
Education
Home
" Children have adopted a consumerist attitude - I dare you to entertain me. "
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Children
You
Me
" There have been two areas identified as being vital to reading - and that's for very young children between the ages of one month and five years and for teenagers. I've been trying to find ways of approaching both groups. "
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Children
Trying
Young
" There were two very distinct voices going on in my head and I moved easily between them. One had to do with sports, street life and establishing myself as a male... The other voice, the one I had from my street friends and teammates, was increasingly dealing with the vocabulary of literature. "
Walter Dean Myers
Sports
Myself
Friends
" What I found fascinating was just how quickly the best of the young Negro League players were drafted into the major leagues once Branch Rickey broke the color line by hiring Jackie Robinson. It was clear that all of the major league owners already knew the talents of the black ballplayers that they had refused to let into their league. "
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Best
Young
Talents
" And I see the - you know, when I go to the juvenile detention centers and prisons, I see people who can't read now. And I know that when they leave those prisons and those detention centers, they're not going to be able to make it in our society. "
Walter Dean Myers
See
People
Now
" As a kid I didn't see black cowboys on the screen. What that said to me was that there were things I couldn't do or be because of my color. What we see others like us do gives us permission to expand our own horizons. "
Walter Dean Myers
Color
Black
See
" I didn't even know for years that people ever even got paid for this, because they don't teach you that in school. They don't say Shakespeare got a check. "
Walter Dean Myers
Teach
You
School
" New York is my favorite city. "
Walter Dean Myers
New York
New
City
" I admired the work ethic of the cowboys I read about. The idea of these young people taking on this much responsibility was impressive. I would like modern readers to have an appreciation of this. "
Walter Dean Myers
Like
Appreciation
Work
" People still try to sell books that way - as 'books can take you to foreign lands.' We've given children this idea that reading and books are a nice option, if you want that kind of thing. I hope we can get over that idea. "
Walter Dean Myers
Children
Hope
Reading
" There was a time I was no longer going to be black. I was going to be an 'intellectual.' When I was first looking around for colleges, thinking of colleges I couldn't afford to go to, I was thinking of being a philosopher. I began to understand then that much of my feelings about race were negative. "
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Time
Negative
Looking
" We need to tell kids flat out: reading is not optional. "
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Need
Kids
Flat
" I think it's difficult for young people to acknowledge being smart, to knowledge being a reader. I see kids who are embarrassed to read books. They're embarrassed to have people see them doing it. "
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People
Knowledge
" As a young man, I saw families prosper without reading because there were always sufficient opportunities for willing workers who could follow simple instructions. This is no longer the case. Children who don't read are, in the main, destined for lesser lives. I feel a deep sense of responsibility to change this. "
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Children
Change
Man
" I was a good student, but a speech impediment was causing problems. One of my teachers decided that I couldn't pronounce certain words at all. She thought that if I wrote something, I would use words I could pronounce. I began writing little poems. I began to write short stories, too. "
Walter Dean Myers
Words
Writing
Good
" If what I read doesn't reflect my life - whether I'm gay or Latino or on welfare - doesn't that really mean that my life is not valuable? "
Walter Dean Myers
My Life
Reflect
Gay
" With my writing, what I want to do is humanize the young people I write about. "
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Writing
People
Want
" The most difficult idea to reconcile in war is the notion that anything is going to be solved by killing a stranger, or in risking your life for a cause anchored in some distant political arena. "
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Political
Life
War
" I began going to juvenile prisons. And some of these kids face some very, very tough lives. How do they handle these lives? Do they even know that if their life is bad, that they're still OK? Do they know that? Do they know that someone is thinking the same way that they're thinking? "
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Know
Face
Thinking
" One of the lessons learned during the Vietnam War was that the depiction of wounded soldiers, of coffins stacked higher than their living guards, had a negative effect on the viewing public. The military in Iraq specifically banned the photographing of wounded soldiers and coffins, thus sanitizing this terrible and bloody conflict. "
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Vietnam
Negative
Living
" I want young people to be hesitant to glorify war and to demand of their leaders justification for the sacrifices they ask of our citizens. "
Walter Dean Myers
Young People
Young
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