About this episode
Newbery Award-winning author Erin Entrada Kelly (“Blackbird Fly,” “Hello, Universe,” “We Dream of Space”) discusses her favorite books growing up, her path to youth literature, and why she believes kids are not ‘incomplete vessels.’
"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 for those kids because I want a safe way for them to navigate all that stuff." - Erin Entrada Kelly
Erin Entrada Kelly was a lonely child. As an introvert battling depression and bullying, it was easy for her to feel overlooked by those around her, but she found her solace in reading and finding uniquely relatable characters. Not those she shared outward similarities with, but those she was able to empathize with on an emotional level.
Inspired, Erin also began to write her own stories, –something that allowed her to build her own world, her own identity, and provide her with that outlet and sense of control she never felt she had.
Erin’s admiration for these complex characters and an unrelenting dream of being a writer pushed her into the world of youth literature. Her ability to understand and convey the perspective of vulnerable, unseen children in her writing has found her a closely-bonded, communal audience.
This episode's Beanstack featured librarian is Erin Bechdal, a middle and high school librarian at Beaver Area School District in Pennsylvania. She’ll tell us about her go-to author recommendation for students.
Contents
- Chapter 1 - The Unseen Child
- Chapter 2 - Born Writing
- Chapter 3 - Hurricane Child
- Chapter 4 - Short Stories, Long Journey
- Chapter 5 - Incomplete Vessels
- Chapter 6 - A 200-person hug
- Chapter 7 - Out-of-place (and time)
- Chapter 8 - Here to There
- Chapter 9 - Beanstack Featured Librarian
Author Reading Challenge
Download the free reading challenge worksheet, or view the challenge materials on our helpdesk.
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Links:
- https://erinentradakelly.com/
- https://www.basd.k12.pa.us/
- https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-childrens-book-podcast/
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Erin Entrada Kelly:
I am writing for the kid that's easily overlooked. That's what I think about. For whatever reason, they're overlooked. I don't want them to feel overlooked because I know what that feels like. So, I'm definitely writing to my younger self, for sure.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Geek or athlete, misfit or metalhead, being a kid in school usually means being vulnerable and probably insecure about something. Socially, kids are still figuring things out. But when you find your friends at that raw age, the bonds run deep. Those connections can last a lifetime. Even so, some kids never stop feeling out of place. Some kids get left behind. Erin Entrada Kelly remembers deeply what that felt like from her own experiences growing up. It's a time she takes a lot of inspiration from in her writing.
Erin Entrada Kelly:
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, and I want to write books for those kids because I want a safe way for them to kind of navigate all that stuff.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Erin is a Newbery Award-winning author known for titles such as Hello Universe, We Dream of Space, the Marisol Rainey Series, and many more. In today's episode, she shares the importance of connecting to overlooked children. She'll talk about how her childhood depression shaped her adult writing and why Erin thinks it's essential for adults to stop looking at kids as incomplete vessels. She'll also drop some plot hints about her new novel that dives into the world of sci-fi.
My name is Jordan Lloyd Bookey, and this is the Reading Culture, a show where we speak with authors and reading enthusiasts to explore ways to build a stronger culture of reading in our communities. We dive into their personal experiences, their inspirations, and why their stories and ideas motivate kids to read more.
Let's start with you as a kid. What was eight-year-old Erin Entrada Kelly?
Erin Entrada Kelly:
I wasn't really shy, but I was quiet. I was introspective. I was very sensitive, so I was often sad and I didn't really know why I was sad. For example, I accidentally killed a housefly once and I cried and I gave it a funeral, and I put a little tissue over it. I was so sad that I had killed this housefly, and that kind of encapsulates what kind of kid I was. But it's a tricky way to go through the world, right? Because there's so many things that can hurt your feelings.
So, I spent a lot of time in my room reading books and writing books, and I really loved writing because it allowed me to create a world however I wanted. I had full control.
I was afraid of a lot of things, like Marisol in my books. I had a lot of worries. I worried a lot as a kid. I would go to bed and just lay in bed and worry and think and worry about things that happened that day, things that were going to happen tomorrow. So, that was pretty much my vibe when I was a little kid.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
And you were the younger sister, right? So, what was your older sister like as a kid?
Erin Entrada Kelly:
My older sister has always kind of been my complete opposite. We're very close. But she is outgoing. She was always cheerful, smiling, had a lot of friends, played sports. She was a cheerleader. Her room was full of trophies. My room had no trophies, by the way. They don't give you trophies for staying in your room reading books for eight hours, although they should.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
It's hard to do.
Erin Entrada Kelly:
Yeah. It is. So, she was very much my opposite, and I perceived her as fearless. All the things that made me afraid, it didn't seem to bother her.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah. What about as you grew into your middle school personality? Did you hold onto the way that you were, those traits? I'm interested in what you were like during the time of life that you predominantly write for now, middle school.
Erin Entrada Kelly:
To be honest, I was a very troubled girl. All those things that I described when I was in elementary school, being easily wounded and kind of moving through the world like an open wound, I like to think of it as is, it's a difficult way to exist. So, when trauma or bad things happen to you, I already didn't have a very strong exterior to deal with all the things that happened in life. So, in middle school, I was very troubled and I got more troubled as time went on. So, middle school was kind of the beginning.
Actually, one of the reasons why I love writing middle schoolers is because I feel like that was the age, when I was about 11 or 12, where I started really suffering from chronic depression. I feel like if someone had intervened at that time, which no one did, it could have put me on a different path. So, whenever I write books, that's what I think about because I want my books to be at least one thing that is on that path to get a young person before they have to suffer too much through high school and even adulthood. If you step in early and you can retrack someone's life and then prevent all that suffering, and I didn't have that. So, I feel like that's one of the reasons why 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, and I want to write books for those kids because I want a safe way for them to navigate all that stuff.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah. You were Filipino American living in a community where there weren't any or many kids with similar experiences. So, was there a lot of bullying that contributed to that depression and loneliness?
Erin Entrada Kelly:
When I was in elementary school, I wasn't bullied as much as I was approached with like, "What are you?" That question and just feeling like an Other. But it wasn't bullying. I think it was just kids literally asking me, "What are you?" Because they didn't know. But in middle school, things shifted, and into high school.
When I got to high school, I spent much of the beginning of my freshman year hiding in the library during lunch because I was being bullied so badly. It was that, a combination of many other things, a lot of other traumas that I was experiencing at the time, kind of just compounded one on top of the other.
I had great friends. I had two best friends. I didn't have a ton of friends, but I had two very close friends. But they were also kids. There were no adults, or there were no people in a position to really help me. I did not have that. Books can do that for people, though, who don't have that.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Do you remember some of the very first books that you were attracted to?
Erin Entrada Kelly:
Some of my very, very early books, I loved Dr. Seuss. I loved The Monster at the End of This Book. I loved fairytale books, all those kinds of things. As I got older in elementary school, I loved Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sachar, and I started reading Judy Blume. I was probably about 8, 9, 10. I loved Sweet Valley High. But back then, there wasn't as much of a selection as there is today. So Judy Blume was, and kind of still is, the reigning queen of middle grade, so I read a lot of her books. I really enjoyed realistic fiction, which is what I write. So, even from that young age, I had trouble sometimes getting into fantasy. I was much more interested in the real-life stories.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
For you, it sounds like really reading and maybe writing, too, were some escape from feeling what you're describing, which was really isolated.
Erin Entrada Kelly:
Absolutely, yes.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Some people you talk to and they're like, "Oh, I didn't discover I was a writer until later on." It seems like you knew you were born to write. Is that pretty accurate? You had that revelation earlier on?
Erin Entrada Kelly:
Absolutely. I feel like I was born writing. For me, writing was an escape for one reason because I thought, oh, I can make the world however I want. I can write whatever characters I want. It's the power in that creation was really compelling to me. But also, sometimes when things were really, really hard, and this is especially true in high school, which was probably the lowest point in my life, whenever I would feel that sense of I don't want to be here anymore, I would think to myself, "One day I'm going to be an author and none of this will matter, and I'm going to write books and I won't be in high school anymore, and I'm going to be doing something much better than this and much more important than this." And I believed that.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah. You had like an anchor.
Erin Entrada Kelly:
Yeah. It was really my security blanket that I could just wrap myself up in, and I think that's what dreams do for people. When you have a big dream and you want to do something bigger than where you are, it can serve as a security blanket for you when times are really tough because you feel like you have an escape.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Did you share that dream? Did your sister and your mom, did they know "that's what she wants to do when she's older"?
Erin Entrada Kelly:
Yes. Anyone who was in my life knew that that's what I wanted to do and that's what I was and that I wrote and I was going to be a writer. I was one of those... You know, like a lot of writers they write secretly and they don't want to share it with people, but I was all-too-happy to share my stories with people close to me, my friends and family. I was proud, although I would probably have never used that word when I was a kid. I was proud because it was the thing that I was good at. And as a kid who never felt like they were good at anything and who didn't get a lot of praise and compliments for things like my sister did, right? Because writing is something that people don't see. So, it was the thing I was good at, so I was all-too-happy to share it with people close to me.
"Have you ever heard an accordion play? They're not the prettiest instruments to listen to, she says, but I don't like that there are some instruments that are considered prettier than others. I feel like those instruments are always listened to, like the guitar or the piano, but it isn't fair that they should be listened to all the time only because someone has decided they're prettier. The accordion has just as much sound. It's different than the other instruments. I like that it's different. That's what makes it important.
"I can't stop staring at her. I think I'm the accordion. She laughs long and hard. I can't help but feel ashamed. I think she's laughing at me. Why is that funny? I'm only laughing because, well, I think I'm the accordion, too, she says. I don't think she could be any further from an accordion. You're not an accordion, I tell her. You're something else entirely. You're the violin. Her smile fades away. Violins are so sad. I'd hate to be a violin. Yet I know with absolute certainty that this is exactly the instrument that should be used to describe Kalinda. And you're not an accordion, she tells me. You're a drum. She watches me, waiting for my response, but I have no words. I only know suddenly that I want to take her hand. And so I do."
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
That's a passage from Kacen Callender's 2018 novel Hurricane Child, set in the US Virgin Islands. The story follows a young girl named Caroline, who was born during a hurricane and is supposedly marked with bad luck as a result. Throughout her journey, Caroline's bright side is brought to life as she slowly discovers her feelings toward a young girl that recently moved to her town. For Erin, that was a profound personal connection and furthered her commitment as an author to write about the emotional lives of her characters.
Erin Entrada Kelly:
I identified with Caroline so much. Caroline in the book is bullied at school. She has very few friends. She feels very alone in the world until her friend Kalinda arrives. But Caroline and I are, on the surface, very different. Caroline lives in the Virgin Islands. Caroline is a young Black girl; her mother is out of the picture. None of those things describe me. But when I read books like this where I seem to have nothing in common with the character, and then the character moves me so deeply and I feel so connected to them, it just reminds me of how universal humanity is, that I can connect to this little girl who lives in the Virgin Islands and whose life is very, very different from mine, and still feel a kinship because we all know what it's like to be lonely. We all know what it's like to want to be better than we are. We all know what it's like to feel like we're not good enough. And it just reminds me that being human is a universal experience, in many ways. I mean, obviously, it's unique, but it's also universal.
And when I write, that's what I want to tap into. I want my characters to be unique enough that they feel like real characters that could just walk right out of the book, but also universal enough that readers connect with them and feel seen by them. That's what I strive for. I want my books to reflect the interior life of the character. That's the number one most important thing for me. In this passage, it's probably my favorite passage in all of middle grade literature because in this moment, Caroline, who has suffered so much through this book and who has such a difficult life and has such a low opinion of herself and is so sad and lonely, in this moment, she feels seen by someone else.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
As we've heard, Erin never wavered from her big dream of being a writer, but there were some sharp bends in the road ahead.
Erin Entrada Kelly:
I had a daughter when I was 19, so she's 26 now. So, during all this, I've also got a daughter. I had a lot of support, so that's good, like family support. I was also going to school. So, because I got pregnant, I was 18 years old, obviously that kind of makes it difficult to go to school full-time. So, I'd take one class per semester, so it took me 10 years to get my bachelor's degree.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
The tenacity of that is pretty mind-blowing. Even with that incredible perseverance, that commitment to her big dream, Erin's career began with a bit of a detour.
Erin Entrada Kelly:
My dream was always to write books, but I knew as I got older, in high school, I realized, okay, when I was a young kid, I thought, "Oh, I'll just write a bestseller and that'll be it." But then of course you realize as you get older, "Oh, wait. That's not how that works." So, I knew I would have to have a job that involved writing, and I knew that I would have to write books on my own time and then try to get them published. I knew that I couldn't just be a published author. I tried to figure out, okay, what can I do that involves words and something that I'm really interested in? So, that's how I went into journalism.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
After nearly a decade of dedication to her career, education, and her daughter, Erin went on to get her master of fine arts. Finally, she could devote herself to writing fiction. But when she did eventually take the leap, she initially thought she was going to write for adults.
Erin Entrada Kelly:
The novels that I would start were all intended for adults. And then, around page 50, they would just kind of lose momentum and I would lose interest, and I just thought, "I cannot finish a book." So, I started writing short stories and those, I was able to finish, and I started submitting them and they started getting published. Ultimately, I've published about 30 short stories, I think. I don't have time to write them anymore, unfortunately.
But at some point, I realized that these short stories had a very common thread, and they all had characters who were between the ages of 8 and 12, and they were all coming-of-age stories. They were all about moments in these characters' lives. I just realized, I thought, why am I always writing about young people? The short stories were obviously meant for adults, not kids. But I thought, "That is so interesting that I'm just really gravitating toward," usually 12 is the age that I would write about. I thought, "There's something there." And then I thought, "Maybe I should be writing for and about 12 year olds." So, then I started diving into middle grade literature and going to the bookstore and looking at books for that age group and reading and realizing that the world of children's literature was much more vast than I realized at the time. And now, it's even more vast. I mean, this was years ago, so I was probably in my late 20s, so this was a long time ago. But that's what started it.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
I think that was such an important time for you, too, it sounds like, those years. So, I think it's you're kind of writing to yourself. Do you feel like that sometimes? Like, you're writing...
Erin Entrada Kelly:
Yes. I am. I think that there's all different kind of writers, obviously, and some writers don't think about the readers when they're writing, but I always do. The reader is always with me, and the reader is usually me. It's not me literally. But it's me, what I felt like when... There's a reason why most of my characters are kind of introspective, quiet kids who are trying to find their way. I'm writing for the kid that's easily overlooked. That's what I think about. For whatever reason, they're overlooked. I don't want them to feel overlooked because I know what that feels like. So, I'm definitely writing to my younger self, for sure.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
I was thinking, I had not read all of your books, but I've read many, and in We Dream of Space, for me, when I was younger, I think Bird is the character. I feel like you're talking about just feeling seen. Obviously, I mean, there were many characters, certainly, who looked like me in the books that I read, but just my issues and stuff with body image and how that was really not talked about. It just had that there's this moment in the book where she notices that she can't eat the junk food or something, and then the mom's like, "But the boys can; they're growing boys." It made me feel the way that I think Judy Blume and if Judy Blume being your model, I think it had that same effect of, oh, that would've been something that I could have said, like, yeah, I also was kind of looking around, wondering why didn't we have junk food? Why weren't we allowed? Why wasn't I allowed to have it? Why was I eating whatever after school? I think that that was really a moment for me in reading through your books.
Erin Entrada Kelly:
Oh, thank you. Thank you. My goal is always I want to... It's kind of a tricky line, especially when you're writing for young people because you don't want to lecture and you don't want to exactly spell out "this is what I'm trying to say here." So, there's a lot of subtext, and I always hope that readers pick up on the subtext because there is that scene where Bird can't eat the junk food that her brothers eat. The mother, like you said, says, "Well, they're growing boys; they need to eat." It's confusing for girls because you're like, "Okay, well, I'm also growing. I don't understand why it's different." So, thank you for that.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Drawing on this great depth of emotion that you had as a kid, you give a lot of credit to and have a lot of faith in children's processing of life in the world. On the other end of that spectrum, is this perception of kids as incomplete vessels, which is a term I've heard you use before. I'd love to hear you expand a little on that.
Erin Entrada Kelly:
One of the missteps that adults make is they view children as incomplete vessels that we need to fill with all our knowledge. But the fact of the matter is kids are complete and complex at every age. They're just different. So in other words, when a kid falls in love at, let's say, age 11, to us as adults, we just kind of dismiss it: "Oh, it's puppy love." But when you're 11, that's not what it feels like. It feels very real to you, and it is real to you. The relationship may last one day or one week, but it's just as meaningful to that 11-year-old as our relationships are as adults.
So, my goal is I don't ever want to be patronizing or condescending. I respect young people at every age that they're at. As a matter of fact, when I do school visits, I always ask if anyone has any questions, and I make sure that they know they can ask me whatever they want because they usually will ask how old I am. I can always see the teachers get nervous, but the fact of the matter is, in their life, age is very important. They're always asking each other how old they are: "How old are you? How old..." It doesn't have the same context for them as it does for us. I want them to be able to ask questions that they feel like are important without this adult lens, if that makes sense.
So, I always try to, and I think I do, respect young people as being complete and having opinions and values and beliefs, and they may be unsophisticated compared to our adult values and beliefs, but that doesn't make them any less real or any less valuable.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah. I mean, thinking about when I grew up and you grew up, the notion of validating a kid's worldview as being something that was widespread is just... You can't even think about it. I mean, Judy Blume, she was hip to it back then, but I don't know about anybody else, really.
Erin Entrada Kelly:
Well, yeah, because you think back of all the times you were dismissed as a kid. That hurt and it just made you feel like your opinions don't even matter, but they do matter. It's just a feeling of feeling devalued when people just dismiss your ideas or your thoughts or your opinions because you're a kid. I remember what that feels like and I don't ever want to do that.
And also, another thing when you're a kid, I always recognized when adults were being hypocrites, which is often because we are often hypocritical, and that used to drive me bananas when I was a kid. I just couldn't stand it. That was another thing with We Dream of Space that I wanted to touch on, is how adults can tell you to act one way and they act a completely different way and how, for kids, it's not kosher. That's not the way to go. So, I feel like it is kind of a newer thing.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
But it's very hard to also practice. It's one thing to say, but it's another thing to believe that. So, for them to have the opportunity when you're doing visits or in their books and they're reading the books to feel that level of respect and value, is something very special.
Erin's mission to validate and make children, especially the lonely ones, feel heard and understood, extends beyond the words in her stories and her approach to school visits. She's also very active online, sharing and celebrating what her readers share with her. Erin has created this culture among her readers because she's instilled the trust in them that she is listening and she wants to hear what they have to say. I was curious if she had any stories in particular that stood out to her.
Erin Entrada Kelly:
I got a really wonderful note from this young reader who read Blackbird Fly, which is my first book. It's the most autobiographical of the ones that I've written. Apple, the main character in the book, she's being bullied and she has no friends. And Apple goes to the library at lunch to avoid things. This girl wrote to me and said that every day she would see this girl sitting all by herself on a bench and she never had any friends. And because she read Blackbird Fly, she thought, "I wonder why she doesn't have any friends. So, I'm going to be her friend." So, she went and sat with her on the bench and they became friends. And it turned out the girl had no friends. She was all alone in the world. And this book kind of inspired her to... Because she thought about Apple, she was like, "That could be Apple sitting on that bench." I was very moved by that.
I've had kids who have been victims of bullying reach out to me and tell me about their experiences and how they felt seen. I mean, they didn't use that language, but in their language they said that they felt like they weren't alone. So, I've heard all kinds of things from all kinds of different readers and a lot of adult readers, honestly. I hear from a lot of adult readers, especially with We Dream of Space in particular because that's a toxic family dynamic that the kids live in. I intentionally wanted to write about a family that's problematic and that's not a healthy family environment. I wanted to write about a family where it's not that the parents don't love the children, it's just that they're caught up in their own drama, so they're not being the best parents they can be and the children are trapped in that.
It was important for me to write that because there's so many young people who are experiencing that at home, and I want all children to be able to see their home life reflected back at them or a life that's different from theirs reflected back at them. So, I've heard from adult readers who tell me that's what their home life was growing up: Their parents argued all the time, where it was a very stressful environment, and that they feel seen as an adult, which is also very meaningful to me.
One recent one that actually made me cry was I did school visits when one of my Marisol Rainey books came out. And those are for the younger kids, so early elementary kids.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
I love them.
Erin Entrada Kelly:
Thank you. I love them, too. I did school visits, obviously, where I talk about Marisol. Afterward, I got this message from a mom and it said that she had been wanting her daughter to read and her daughter refused to read books. She didn't like reading. It was really upsetting to her mom because, as a mom, she wants her kid to read books. I understand that. And after the school visit, because the little girl thought I was so cool... I'm finally cool. She wanted to read the book. She wanted to read the Marisol Rainey book, and she did. Then she read the other Marisol Rainey book, and now she wants to read more books like that. So basically, the mom said, "I never dreamed one author visit would have such an impact on my kid's life that now she's reading constantly." And I thought, even if she never reads another one of my books again, oh, my gosh, what a gift that I triggered something in this kid to read books. I mean, that's amazing.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah. Yeah. What about other school visits? Is there ever anything that really stands out to you and makes you think, "This is a place that is building a healthy culture of reading"?
Erin Entrada Kelly:
The vast majority of my school visits have been that experience, I have to say. One of the most memorable school visits I had was in Dallas at St. Thomas Aquinas School, and I'm still in touch with the librarian there, actually, who arranged it. We still communicate because I can't really explain what it was. They were just responsive. They were full of ideas. They were enthusiastic. I talked to many grades there. I think I talked fourth through eighth, and I usually don't do too many over seventh grade, so I was nervous. But then the eighth grade came in because eighth grade, they start getting scary around eighth grade. So, the eighth graders came in, but they had posters. "We love you!" And then at the end, one of the kids asked if they could give me a hug, and I said, "Yes, of course." I said, "Yes." She hugged me and then all the kids stood up to hug me, and it was like a 200-person hug.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Oh, my gosh.
Erin Entrada Kelly:
It was amazing. It's one of my favorite memories. But I have to say, the vast majority of my school visits have been positive and have been enthusiastic reading environments. The only time I get nervous at school visits is sometimes I go to schools where they're very, very... I don't know if strict is the right... Maybe strict is the right word. Where they don't want the kids to talk out of turn. They don't want the kids to wiggle. They want the kids to sit still and be very, very quiet. I actually don't like that because they just kind of are sitting there like little robots and just listening, and they're behaving. But part of the thing I love about school visits is the interaction, and we're all laughing and we're all engaged.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
It's not like the theater and you're the show.
Erin Entrada Kelly:
Yes, exactly. They sometimes get rowdy at my school visits because that's what I like, but that's fine. Why not? You know what I mean?
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah.
Erin Entrada Kelly:
So, those are the only ones where I get, and there's not many that. Usually, it's a great balance of respectful, but also engaged.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
I love that image of all the kids, the 200-person hug.
Erin Entrada Kelly:
It was amazing.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Until now, Erin's skill and outsider perspective have mostly been applied to stories about real people in real, relatable situations, just like the stories she liked to read as a kid. But in her new middle grade novel, coming out in 2024, she's taking that idea of being out-of-place and applying it with a new wrinkle: time travel.
Erin Entrada Kelly:
I'm really excited about it because I love time travel. I mean, I haven't actually time traveled yet, but I love the concept. I'm really excited about it. It's also set in 1999. So, I've been living a 1999-life for the past many weeks. I'm like mired in 1999. My books share a similar theme, I think as many authors' books do, but I never want to keep writing the same book. So, I'm really excited about something new.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah. Also, is there dealing with Y2K since it's 1999?
Erin Entrada Kelly:
There is absolutely. Y2K is a big deal because the main character, Michael, he has a lot of Y2K anxiety. In fact, that's one of the threads in the book. He's very worried about Y2K. And basically, one day, he is walking in his apartment complex and he sees this teenage boy who looks odd and out of place. To make a long story short, this isn't a spoiler because it happens very early in the book, the boy is from the future. So, Michael really wants to know everything that's going to happen, especially with Y2K, so he doesn't have to worry anymore. It's kind of like a metaphor, in a way, of living in the present and not worrying about what might happen, which is something I did a lot when I was a kid. And Michael has to learn that, too.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
I'm very excited for that. I love that idea.
If you could go back and give your 12-year-old self or whatever was the most, like the height of your anxiety, some advice, what would you tell her?
Erin Entrada Kelly:
Honestly, if I could go back and talk to my 12-year-old self, I think I would just say, "You will be okay." I think that would be enough. "You will be okay."
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
For Erin's reading challenge, Here to There, she's taking inspiration from her experience connecting to characters that, on the surface, she didn't seem to have all that much in common with.
Erin Entrada Kelly:
Okay. So, my reading challenge is to read a book about a character from outside the US because presumably most of your listeners are probably in the US. The reason is because, going back to Hurricane Child and being able to connect with someone whose life may look very different from your own, and finding those connections with those characters is really important. I love when that happens to me with characters. So, I want to share some books with readers who feature characters who are living in or from or leaving a country outside of the US.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
You can check out Erin's challenge and all of our author reading challenges at the readingculturepod.com.
Before we sign off, let's hear from another incredible Erin who, like Erin Entrada Kelly, is focused on truly connecting with all of her students. Today's Bean Stack featured librarian is Erin Bectall, a middle and high school librarian at Beaver Area School District in Pennsylvania. She told us about her go-to author recommendation for her students.
Erin Bechdal:
I love mysteries. The first book that I read by Jennifer Lynn Barnes was The Naturals. Since then, our copy is so beat up here in the library because I'm constantly like, "Oh, you're looking for a really good psychological thriller? Here you go." We start with The Naturals, and then pretty soon they're on book four and they're like, "Wait! It ended." And so then, okay, let's go to The Fixer and let's go to Little White Lies. I think that was the next series. So, we just keep going with her because the kids are just loving her style. The Final Inheritance Games book, when it came out, I had a lineup here, like, "Do you have it? Do you have it? Do you have it?" And yes, we have it, but I get it first because she didn't release arcs of it. So, I didn't get to read it before the kids got it. And I was like, "Nope. I get first dibs. And then you can all have access." So, my go-to is Jennifer Lynn Barnes.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
This has been the Reading Culture. You've been listening to our conversation with Erin Entrada Kelly. Again, I'm your host, Jordan Lloyd Bookey, and currently, I'm reading Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, and You Are Here: Connecting Flights edited by Ellen Oh.
If you've enjoyed today's show, please show some love and rate, subscribe, and share the Reading Culture among your friends and networks. To learn more about how you can help grow your community's reading culture, you can check out all of our resources at beansstack.com and join us on social media @TheReadingCulturePod for some awesome giveaways.
And be sure to check out the Children's Book Podcast with teacher and librarian Matthew Winter. It's a book podcast made for kids ages 6 to 12 that explores big ideas and the way that stories can help us feel seen, understood, and valued. You can find it wherever you listen to podcasts.
This episode was produced by Jackie Lampor and Lower Street Media, and script edited by Josiah Lamberto Econ. We'll be back in two weeks with another episode. Thanks for joining, and keep reading.
I am writing for the kid that's easily overlooked. That's what I think about. For whatever reason, they're overlooked. I don't want them to feel overlooked because I know what that feels like. So, I'm definitely writing to my younger self, for sure.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Geek or athlete, misfit or metalhead, being a kid in school usually means being vulnerable and probably insecure about something. Socially, kids are still figuring things out. But when you find your friends at that raw age, the bonds run deep. Those connections can last a lifetime. Even so, some kids never stop feeling out of place. Some kids get left behind. Erin Entrada Kelly remembers deeply what that felt like from her own experiences growing up. It's a time she takes a lot of inspiration from in her writing.
Erin Entrada Kelly:
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, and I want to write books for those kids because I want a safe way for them to kind of navigate all that stuff.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Erin is a Newbery Award-winning author known for titles such as Hello Universe, We Dream of Space, the Marisol Rainey Series, and many more. In today's episode, she shares the importance of connecting to overlooked children. She'll talk about how her childhood depression shaped her adult writing and why Erin thinks it's essential for adults to stop looking at kids as incomplete vessels. She'll also drop some plot hints about her new novel that dives into the world of sci-fi.
My name is Jordan Lloyd Bookey, and this is the Reading Culture, a show where we speak with authors and reading enthusiasts to explore ways to build a stronger culture of reading in our communities. We dive into their personal experiences, their inspirations, and why their stories and ideas motivate kids to read more.
Let's start with you as a kid. What was eight-year-old Erin Entrada Kelly?
Erin Entrada Kelly:
I wasn't really shy, but I was quiet. I was introspective. I was very sensitive, so I was often sad and I didn't really know why I was sad. For example, I accidentally killed a housefly once and I cried and I gave it a funeral, and I put a little tissue over it. I was so sad that I had killed this housefly, and that kind of encapsulates what kind of kid I was. But it's a tricky way to go through the world, right? Because there's so many things that can hurt your feelings.
So, I spent a lot of time in my room reading books and writing books, and I really loved writing because it allowed me to create a world however I wanted. I had full control.
I was afraid of a lot of things, like Marisol in my books. I had a lot of worries. I worried a lot as a kid. I would go to bed and just lay in bed and worry and think and worry about things that happened that day, things that were going to happen tomorrow. So, that was pretty much my vibe when I was a little kid.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
And you were the younger sister, right? So, what was your older sister like as a kid?
Erin Entrada Kelly:
My older sister has always kind of been my complete opposite. We're very close. But she is outgoing. She was always cheerful, smiling, had a lot of friends, played sports. She was a cheerleader. Her room was full of trophies. My room had no trophies, by the way. They don't give you trophies for staying in your room reading books for eight hours, although they should.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
It's hard to do.
Erin Entrada Kelly:
Yeah. It is. So, she was very much my opposite, and I perceived her as fearless. All the things that made me afraid, it didn't seem to bother her.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah. What about as you grew into your middle school personality? Did you hold onto the way that you were, those traits? I'm interested in what you were like during the time of life that you predominantly write for now, middle school.
Erin Entrada Kelly:
To be honest, I was a very troubled girl. All those things that I described when I was in elementary school, being easily wounded and kind of moving through the world like an open wound, I like to think of it as is, it's a difficult way to exist. So, when trauma or bad things happen to you, I already didn't have a very strong exterior to deal with all the things that happened in life. So, in middle school, I was very troubled and I got more troubled as time went on. So, middle school was kind of the beginning.
Actually, one of the reasons why I love writing middle schoolers is because I feel like that was the age, when I was about 11 or 12, where I started really suffering from chronic depression. I feel like if someone had intervened at that time, which no one did, it could have put me on a different path. So, whenever I write books, that's what I think about because I want my books to be at least one thing that is on that path to get a young person before they have to suffer too much through high school and even adulthood. If you step in early and you can retrack someone's life and then prevent all that suffering, and I didn't have that. So, I feel like that's one of the reasons why 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, and I want to write books for those kids because I want a safe way for them to navigate all that stuff.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah. You were Filipino American living in a community where there weren't any or many kids with similar experiences. So, was there a lot of bullying that contributed to that depression and loneliness?
Erin Entrada Kelly:
When I was in elementary school, I wasn't bullied as much as I was approached with like, "What are you?" That question and just feeling like an Other. But it wasn't bullying. I think it was just kids literally asking me, "What are you?" Because they didn't know. But in middle school, things shifted, and into high school.
When I got to high school, I spent much of the beginning of my freshman year hiding in the library during lunch because I was being bullied so badly. It was that, a combination of many other things, a lot of other traumas that I was experiencing at the time, kind of just compounded one on top of the other.
I had great friends. I had two best friends. I didn't have a ton of friends, but I had two very close friends. But they were also kids. There were no adults, or there were no people in a position to really help me. I did not have that. Books can do that for people, though, who don't have that.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Do you remember some of the very first books that you were attracted to?
Erin Entrada Kelly:
Some of my very, very early books, I loved Dr. Seuss. I loved The Monster at the End of This Book. I loved fairytale books, all those kinds of things. As I got older in elementary school, I loved Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sachar, and I started reading Judy Blume. I was probably about 8, 9, 10. I loved Sweet Valley High. But back then, there wasn't as much of a selection as there is today. So Judy Blume was, and kind of still is, the reigning queen of middle grade, so I read a lot of her books. I really enjoyed realistic fiction, which is what I write. So, even from that young age, I had trouble sometimes getting into fantasy. I was much more interested in the real-life stories.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
For you, it sounds like really reading and maybe writing, too, were some escape from feeling what you're describing, which was really isolated.
Erin Entrada Kelly:
Absolutely, yes.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Some people you talk to and they're like, "Oh, I didn't discover I was a writer until later on." It seems like you knew you were born to write. Is that pretty accurate? You had that revelation earlier on?
Erin Entrada Kelly:
Absolutely. I feel like I was born writing. For me, writing was an escape for one reason because I thought, oh, I can make the world however I want. I can write whatever characters I want. It's the power in that creation was really compelling to me. But also, sometimes when things were really, really hard, and this is especially true in high school, which was probably the lowest point in my life, whenever I would feel that sense of I don't want to be here anymore, I would think to myself, "One day I'm going to be an author and none of this will matter, and I'm going to write books and I won't be in high school anymore, and I'm going to be doing something much better than this and much more important than this." And I believed that.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah. You had like an anchor.
Erin Entrada Kelly:
Yeah. It was really my security blanket that I could just wrap myself up in, and I think that's what dreams do for people. When you have a big dream and you want to do something bigger than where you are, it can serve as a security blanket for you when times are really tough because you feel like you have an escape.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Did you share that dream? Did your sister and your mom, did they know "that's what she wants to do when she's older"?
Erin Entrada Kelly:
Yes. Anyone who was in my life knew that that's what I wanted to do and that's what I was and that I wrote and I was going to be a writer. I was one of those... You know, like a lot of writers they write secretly and they don't want to share it with people, but I was all-too-happy to share my stories with people close to me, my friends and family. I was proud, although I would probably have never used that word when I was a kid. I was proud because it was the thing that I was good at. And as a kid who never felt like they were good at anything and who didn't get a lot of praise and compliments for things like my sister did, right? Because writing is something that people don't see. So, it was the thing I was good at, so I was all-too-happy to share it with people close to me.
"Have you ever heard an accordion play? They're not the prettiest instruments to listen to, she says, but I don't like that there are some instruments that are considered prettier than others. I feel like those instruments are always listened to, like the guitar or the piano, but it isn't fair that they should be listened to all the time only because someone has decided they're prettier. The accordion has just as much sound. It's different than the other instruments. I like that it's different. That's what makes it important.
"I can't stop staring at her. I think I'm the accordion. She laughs long and hard. I can't help but feel ashamed. I think she's laughing at me. Why is that funny? I'm only laughing because, well, I think I'm the accordion, too, she says. I don't think she could be any further from an accordion. You're not an accordion, I tell her. You're something else entirely. You're the violin. Her smile fades away. Violins are so sad. I'd hate to be a violin. Yet I know with absolute certainty that this is exactly the instrument that should be used to describe Kalinda. And you're not an accordion, she tells me. You're a drum. She watches me, waiting for my response, but I have no words. I only know suddenly that I want to take her hand. And so I do."
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
That's a passage from Kacen Callender's 2018 novel Hurricane Child, set in the US Virgin Islands. The story follows a young girl named Caroline, who was born during a hurricane and is supposedly marked with bad luck as a result. Throughout her journey, Caroline's bright side is brought to life as she slowly discovers her feelings toward a young girl that recently moved to her town. For Erin, that was a profound personal connection and furthered her commitment as an author to write about the emotional lives of her characters.
Erin Entrada Kelly:
I identified with Caroline so much. Caroline in the book is bullied at school. She has very few friends. She feels very alone in the world until her friend Kalinda arrives. But Caroline and I are, on the surface, very different. Caroline lives in the Virgin Islands. Caroline is a young Black girl; her mother is out of the picture. None of those things describe me. But when I read books like this where I seem to have nothing in common with the character, and then the character moves me so deeply and I feel so connected to them, it just reminds me of how universal humanity is, that I can connect to this little girl who lives in the Virgin Islands and whose life is very, very different from mine, and still feel a kinship because we all know what it's like to be lonely. We all know what it's like to want to be better than we are. We all know what it's like to feel like we're not good enough. And it just reminds me that being human is a universal experience, in many ways. I mean, obviously, it's unique, but it's also universal.
And when I write, that's what I want to tap into. I want my characters to be unique enough that they feel like real characters that could just walk right out of the book, but also universal enough that readers connect with them and feel seen by them. That's what I strive for. I want my books to reflect the interior life of the character. That's the number one most important thing for me. In this passage, it's probably my favorite passage in all of middle grade literature because in this moment, Caroline, who has suffered so much through this book and who has such a difficult life and has such a low opinion of herself and is so sad and lonely, in this moment, she feels seen by someone else.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
As we've heard, Erin never wavered from her big dream of being a writer, but there were some sharp bends in the road ahead.
Erin Entrada Kelly:
I had a daughter when I was 19, so she's 26 now. So, during all this, I've also got a daughter. I had a lot of support, so that's good, like family support. I was also going to school. So, because I got pregnant, I was 18 years old, obviously that kind of makes it difficult to go to school full-time. So, I'd take one class per semester, so it took me 10 years to get my bachelor's degree.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
The tenacity of that is pretty mind-blowing. Even with that incredible perseverance, that commitment to her big dream, Erin's career began with a bit of a detour.
Erin Entrada Kelly:
My dream was always to write books, but I knew as I got older, in high school, I realized, okay, when I was a young kid, I thought, "Oh, I'll just write a bestseller and that'll be it." But then of course you realize as you get older, "Oh, wait. That's not how that works." So, I knew I would have to have a job that involved writing, and I knew that I would have to write books on my own time and then try to get them published. I knew that I couldn't just be a published author. I tried to figure out, okay, what can I do that involves words and something that I'm really interested in? So, that's how I went into journalism.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
After nearly a decade of dedication to her career, education, and her daughter, Erin went on to get her master of fine arts. Finally, she could devote herself to writing fiction. But when she did eventually take the leap, she initially thought she was going to write for adults.
Erin Entrada Kelly:
The novels that I would start were all intended for adults. And then, around page 50, they would just kind of lose momentum and I would lose interest, and I just thought, "I cannot finish a book." So, I started writing short stories and those, I was able to finish, and I started submitting them and they started getting published. Ultimately, I've published about 30 short stories, I think. I don't have time to write them anymore, unfortunately.
But at some point, I realized that these short stories had a very common thread, and they all had characters who were between the ages of 8 and 12, and they were all coming-of-age stories. They were all about moments in these characters' lives. I just realized, I thought, why am I always writing about young people? The short stories were obviously meant for adults, not kids. But I thought, "That is so interesting that I'm just really gravitating toward," usually 12 is the age that I would write about. I thought, "There's something there." And then I thought, "Maybe I should be writing for and about 12 year olds." So, then I started diving into middle grade literature and going to the bookstore and looking at books for that age group and reading and realizing that the world of children's literature was much more vast than I realized at the time. And now, it's even more vast. I mean, this was years ago, so I was probably in my late 20s, so this was a long time ago. But that's what started it.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
I think that was such an important time for you, too, it sounds like, those years. So, I think it's you're kind of writing to yourself. Do you feel like that sometimes? Like, you're writing...
Erin Entrada Kelly:
Yes. I am. I think that there's all different kind of writers, obviously, and some writers don't think about the readers when they're writing, but I always do. The reader is always with me, and the reader is usually me. It's not me literally. But it's me, what I felt like when... There's a reason why most of my characters are kind of introspective, quiet kids who are trying to find their way. I'm writing for the kid that's easily overlooked. That's what I think about. For whatever reason, they're overlooked. I don't want them to feel overlooked because I know what that feels like. So, I'm definitely writing to my younger self, for sure.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
I was thinking, I had not read all of your books, but I've read many, and in We Dream of Space, for me, when I was younger, I think Bird is the character. I feel like you're talking about just feeling seen. Obviously, I mean, there were many characters, certainly, who looked like me in the books that I read, but just my issues and stuff with body image and how that was really not talked about. It just had that there's this moment in the book where she notices that she can't eat the junk food or something, and then the mom's like, "But the boys can; they're growing boys." It made me feel the way that I think Judy Blume and if Judy Blume being your model, I think it had that same effect of, oh, that would've been something that I could have said, like, yeah, I also was kind of looking around, wondering why didn't we have junk food? Why weren't we allowed? Why wasn't I allowed to have it? Why was I eating whatever after school? I think that that was really a moment for me in reading through your books.
Erin Entrada Kelly:
Oh, thank you. Thank you. My goal is always I want to... It's kind of a tricky line, especially when you're writing for young people because you don't want to lecture and you don't want to exactly spell out "this is what I'm trying to say here." So, there's a lot of subtext, and I always hope that readers pick up on the subtext because there is that scene where Bird can't eat the junk food that her brothers eat. The mother, like you said, says, "Well, they're growing boys; they need to eat." It's confusing for girls because you're like, "Okay, well, I'm also growing. I don't understand why it's different." So, thank you for that.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Drawing on this great depth of emotion that you had as a kid, you give a lot of credit to and have a lot of faith in children's processing of life in the world. On the other end of that spectrum, is this perception of kids as incomplete vessels, which is a term I've heard you use before. I'd love to hear you expand a little on that.
Erin Entrada Kelly:
One of the missteps that adults make is they view children as incomplete vessels that we need to fill with all our knowledge. But the fact of the matter is kids are complete and complex at every age. They're just different. So in other words, when a kid falls in love at, let's say, age 11, to us as adults, we just kind of dismiss it: "Oh, it's puppy love." But when you're 11, that's not what it feels like. It feels very real to you, and it is real to you. The relationship may last one day or one week, but it's just as meaningful to that 11-year-old as our relationships are as adults.
So, my goal is I don't ever want to be patronizing or condescending. I respect young people at every age that they're at. As a matter of fact, when I do school visits, I always ask if anyone has any questions, and I make sure that they know they can ask me whatever they want because they usually will ask how old I am. I can always see the teachers get nervous, but the fact of the matter is, in their life, age is very important. They're always asking each other how old they are: "How old are you? How old..." It doesn't have the same context for them as it does for us. I want them to be able to ask questions that they feel like are important without this adult lens, if that makes sense.
So, I always try to, and I think I do, respect young people as being complete and having opinions and values and beliefs, and they may be unsophisticated compared to our adult values and beliefs, but that doesn't make them any less real or any less valuable.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah. I mean, thinking about when I grew up and you grew up, the notion of validating a kid's worldview as being something that was widespread is just... You can't even think about it. I mean, Judy Blume, she was hip to it back then, but I don't know about anybody else, really.
Erin Entrada Kelly:
Well, yeah, because you think back of all the times you were dismissed as a kid. That hurt and it just made you feel like your opinions don't even matter, but they do matter. It's just a feeling of feeling devalued when people just dismiss your ideas or your thoughts or your opinions because you're a kid. I remember what that feels like and I don't ever want to do that.
And also, another thing when you're a kid, I always recognized when adults were being hypocrites, which is often because we are often hypocritical, and that used to drive me bananas when I was a kid. I just couldn't stand it. That was another thing with We Dream of Space that I wanted to touch on, is how adults can tell you to act one way and they act a completely different way and how, for kids, it's not kosher. That's not the way to go. So, I feel like it is kind of a newer thing.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
But it's very hard to also practice. It's one thing to say, but it's another thing to believe that. So, for them to have the opportunity when you're doing visits or in their books and they're reading the books to feel that level of respect and value, is something very special.
Erin's mission to validate and make children, especially the lonely ones, feel heard and understood, extends beyond the words in her stories and her approach to school visits. She's also very active online, sharing and celebrating what her readers share with her. Erin has created this culture among her readers because she's instilled the trust in them that she is listening and she wants to hear what they have to say. I was curious if she had any stories in particular that stood out to her.
Erin Entrada Kelly:
I got a really wonderful note from this young reader who read Blackbird Fly, which is my first book. It's the most autobiographical of the ones that I've written. Apple, the main character in the book, she's being bullied and she has no friends. And Apple goes to the library at lunch to avoid things. This girl wrote to me and said that every day she would see this girl sitting all by herself on a bench and she never had any friends. And because she read Blackbird Fly, she thought, "I wonder why she doesn't have any friends. So, I'm going to be her friend." So, she went and sat with her on the bench and they became friends. And it turned out the girl had no friends. She was all alone in the world. And this book kind of inspired her to... Because she thought about Apple, she was like, "That could be Apple sitting on that bench." I was very moved by that.
I've had kids who have been victims of bullying reach out to me and tell me about their experiences and how they felt seen. I mean, they didn't use that language, but in their language they said that they felt like they weren't alone. So, I've heard all kinds of things from all kinds of different readers and a lot of adult readers, honestly. I hear from a lot of adult readers, especially with We Dream of Space in particular because that's a toxic family dynamic that the kids live in. I intentionally wanted to write about a family that's problematic and that's not a healthy family environment. I wanted to write about a family where it's not that the parents don't love the children, it's just that they're caught up in their own drama, so they're not being the best parents they can be and the children are trapped in that.
It was important for me to write that because there's so many young people who are experiencing that at home, and I want all children to be able to see their home life reflected back at them or a life that's different from theirs reflected back at them. So, I've heard from adult readers who tell me that's what their home life was growing up: Their parents argued all the time, where it was a very stressful environment, and that they feel seen as an adult, which is also very meaningful to me.
One recent one that actually made me cry was I did school visits when one of my Marisol Rainey books came out. And those are for the younger kids, so early elementary kids.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
I love them.
Erin Entrada Kelly:
Thank you. I love them, too. I did school visits, obviously, where I talk about Marisol. Afterward, I got this message from a mom and it said that she had been wanting her daughter to read and her daughter refused to read books. She didn't like reading. It was really upsetting to her mom because, as a mom, she wants her kid to read books. I understand that. And after the school visit, because the little girl thought I was so cool... I'm finally cool. She wanted to read the book. She wanted to read the Marisol Rainey book, and she did. Then she read the other Marisol Rainey book, and now she wants to read more books like that. So basically, the mom said, "I never dreamed one author visit would have such an impact on my kid's life that now she's reading constantly." And I thought, even if she never reads another one of my books again, oh, my gosh, what a gift that I triggered something in this kid to read books. I mean, that's amazing.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah. Yeah. What about other school visits? Is there ever anything that really stands out to you and makes you think, "This is a place that is building a healthy culture of reading"?
Erin Entrada Kelly:
The vast majority of my school visits have been that experience, I have to say. One of the most memorable school visits I had was in Dallas at St. Thomas Aquinas School, and I'm still in touch with the librarian there, actually, who arranged it. We still communicate because I can't really explain what it was. They were just responsive. They were full of ideas. They were enthusiastic. I talked to many grades there. I think I talked fourth through eighth, and I usually don't do too many over seventh grade, so I was nervous. But then the eighth grade came in because eighth grade, they start getting scary around eighth grade. So, the eighth graders came in, but they had posters. "We love you!" And then at the end, one of the kids asked if they could give me a hug, and I said, "Yes, of course." I said, "Yes." She hugged me and then all the kids stood up to hug me, and it was like a 200-person hug.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Oh, my gosh.
Erin Entrada Kelly:
It was amazing. It's one of my favorite memories. But I have to say, the vast majority of my school visits have been positive and have been enthusiastic reading environments. The only time I get nervous at school visits is sometimes I go to schools where they're very, very... I don't know if strict is the right... Maybe strict is the right word. Where they don't want the kids to talk out of turn. They don't want the kids to wiggle. They want the kids to sit still and be very, very quiet. I actually don't like that because they just kind of are sitting there like little robots and just listening, and they're behaving. But part of the thing I love about school visits is the interaction, and we're all laughing and we're all engaged.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
It's not like the theater and you're the show.
Erin Entrada Kelly:
Yes, exactly. They sometimes get rowdy at my school visits because that's what I like, but that's fine. Why not? You know what I mean?
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah.
Erin Entrada Kelly:
So, those are the only ones where I get, and there's not many that. Usually, it's a great balance of respectful, but also engaged.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
I love that image of all the kids, the 200-person hug.
Erin Entrada Kelly:
It was amazing.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Until now, Erin's skill and outsider perspective have mostly been applied to stories about real people in real, relatable situations, just like the stories she liked to read as a kid. But in her new middle grade novel, coming out in 2024, she's taking that idea of being out-of-place and applying it with a new wrinkle: time travel.
Erin Entrada Kelly:
I'm really excited about it because I love time travel. I mean, I haven't actually time traveled yet, but I love the concept. I'm really excited about it. It's also set in 1999. So, I've been living a 1999-life for the past many weeks. I'm like mired in 1999. My books share a similar theme, I think as many authors' books do, but I never want to keep writing the same book. So, I'm really excited about something new.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah. Also, is there dealing with Y2K since it's 1999?
Erin Entrada Kelly:
There is absolutely. Y2K is a big deal because the main character, Michael, he has a lot of Y2K anxiety. In fact, that's one of the threads in the book. He's very worried about Y2K. And basically, one day, he is walking in his apartment complex and he sees this teenage boy who looks odd and out of place. To make a long story short, this isn't a spoiler because it happens very early in the book, the boy is from the future. So, Michael really wants to know everything that's going to happen, especially with Y2K, so he doesn't have to worry anymore. It's kind of like a metaphor, in a way, of living in the present and not worrying about what might happen, which is something I did a lot when I was a kid. And Michael has to learn that, too.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
I'm very excited for that. I love that idea.
If you could go back and give your 12-year-old self or whatever was the most, like the height of your anxiety, some advice, what would you tell her?
Erin Entrada Kelly:
Honestly, if I could go back and talk to my 12-year-old self, I think I would just say, "You will be okay." I think that would be enough. "You will be okay."
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
For Erin's reading challenge, Here to There, she's taking inspiration from her experience connecting to characters that, on the surface, she didn't seem to have all that much in common with.
Erin Entrada Kelly:
Okay. So, my reading challenge is to read a book about a character from outside the US because presumably most of your listeners are probably in the US. The reason is because, going back to Hurricane Child and being able to connect with someone whose life may look very different from your own, and finding those connections with those characters is really important. I love when that happens to me with characters. So, I want to share some books with readers who feature characters who are living in or from or leaving a country outside of the US.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
You can check out Erin's challenge and all of our author reading challenges at the readingculturepod.com.
Before we sign off, let's hear from another incredible Erin who, like Erin Entrada Kelly, is focused on truly connecting with all of her students. Today's Bean Stack featured librarian is Erin Bectall, a middle and high school librarian at Beaver Area School District in Pennsylvania. She told us about her go-to author recommendation for her students.
Erin Bechdal:
I love mysteries. The first book that I read by Jennifer Lynn Barnes was The Naturals. Since then, our copy is so beat up here in the library because I'm constantly like, "Oh, you're looking for a really good psychological thriller? Here you go." We start with The Naturals, and then pretty soon they're on book four and they're like, "Wait! It ended." And so then, okay, let's go to The Fixer and let's go to Little White Lies. I think that was the next series. So, we just keep going with her because the kids are just loving her style. The Final Inheritance Games book, when it came out, I had a lineup here, like, "Do you have it? Do you have it? Do you have it?" And yes, we have it, but I get it first because she didn't release arcs of it. So, I didn't get to read it before the kids got it. And I was like, "Nope. I get first dibs. And then you can all have access." So, my go-to is Jennifer Lynn Barnes.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
This has been the Reading Culture. You've been listening to our conversation with Erin Entrada Kelly. Again, I'm your host, Jordan Lloyd Bookey, and currently, I'm reading Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, and You Are Here: Connecting Flights edited by Ellen Oh.
If you've enjoyed today's show, please show some love and rate, subscribe, and share the Reading Culture among your friends and networks. To learn more about how you can help grow your community's reading culture, you can check out all of our resources at beansstack.com and join us on social media @TheReadingCulturePod for some awesome giveaways.
And be sure to check out the Children's Book Podcast with teacher and librarian Matthew Winter. It's a book podcast made for kids ages 6 to 12 that explores big ideas and the way that stories can help us feel seen, understood, and valued. You can find it wherever you listen to podcasts.
This episode was produced by Jackie Lampor and Lower Street Media, and script edited by Josiah Lamberto Econ. We'll be back in two weeks with another episode. Thanks for joining, and keep reading.