The Reading Culture

For this week’s episode, we are testing out a slightly different format, something we have named a “Mixtape” episode. Rather than making the reading challenge the last bit of an author’s show, we have made the reading challenge the show itself.  We could not be more excited to welcome the biggest spot of joy on the web, Mychal Threets, to the podcast.

Give a story to twenty kids, and you might get twenty different takeaways. Some will catch the details you didn’t even notice. Others will pull out meaning that wasn’t intentionally placed, but rings true all the same. Sharon M. Draper writes for everyone and fiercely advocates for students’ right to read for themselves.

Sharon knows the capacity of a book to transport and transform kids; she was the kid who maxed out her library card every Saturday at the Cleveland Public Library. She then became the teacher who read aloud to even the most skeptical students, and the writer whose bestselling novel, Out of My Mind, which was adapted into a film for Disney+ and remains requisite reading for many middle schoolers year after year. A two-time Coretta Scott King Award winner, Sharon is the author of Stella by Starlight, Blended, Tears of a Tiger, and many, many more.

We all want to believe in heroes and villains, right and wrong, and clear-cut answers. But history and life are rarely that simple. Debbie Levy has spent her career exploring the gray areas, challenging readers to see multiple perspectives and embrace complexity. 

A former lawyer, journalist, and now award-winning children’s author, Debbie has written books like I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Makes Her Mark, The Year of Goodbyes, and A Dangerous Idea: The Scopes Trial, the Original Fight Over Science in Schools. Her work invites readers to think critically, recognize misinformation, and understand that even those we disagree with are still human.

Aida Salazar believes deeply in the power of words to change the world. For Aida, writing isn’t just a creative act; it’s a responsibility—an act of honoring her ancestors, healing personal wounds, and empowering her young readers.

Her stories like The Moon Within, Land of the Cranes, Jovita Wore Pants, and Ultraviolet center on identity, social justice, and healing, with a particular focus on the immigrant experience. As a poet, novelist, activist, and mother, Aida discusses how writing helped her process grief, how Latin American literature gave her the permission to dream, how growing up in a mixed-status household shaped her, and how motherhood steered her toward children’s literature.