During troubled times, books and stories are sometimes seen as a distraction from more important matters, says Jason Reynolds.
“I hear this. It’s like, ‘We don’t have time for books,’ says the award-winning author, rejecting the notion before offering his own thoughts on what stories and film and art provide.
“Books can be medicine,” says Reynolds, speaking from his Washington, D.C. home via Zoom. “The medicine helps us to manage and to cope, and I think that’s totally fine … This is how we survive.”
Wearing a sweatshirt with an image of ’70s-era Marvin Gaye on the front, Reynolds was on the video call to discuss his YA novel, “Soundtrack,” which has just been published.
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Reynolds has often spoken about getting a late start as a reader, reading a novel for the first time at 17. But since then, he has become a towering figure in YA literature: A bestselling author of books for children and young adults, he’s been recognized with a MacArthur Fellow, a Newbery Honor, a Printz Honor, an NAACP Image Award, and multiple Coretta Scott King honors. He served as National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature from 2020 through 2022. He’s published works of fiction, poetry and graphic novels, including “As Brave as You,” “All American Boys,” “Long Way Down” and more.
“I realized that the books that I needed as a kid didn’t exist, not in the way I needed them at least,” he said about his decision to become a writer. “I knew this is what I wanted to do.”
In “Soundtrack,” which Reynolds adapted from an audiobook original he released last year, a group of New York City teens connects through music, playing to passersby on the streets and in subway stations. Together, they forge a deep bond that, for a variety of reasons, they don’t have with family or other friends.
“Yeah, the chosen family – that is a story that will never get old. Mainly because that’s the human experience for so many of us. As my mom used to always say when I was growing up, ‘Your friends have far more influence over you than I ever did,’” says Reynolds.
“The people that you choose to be close to are the ones that at some point become more family than your family,” he says. “We’ve all experienced that.
“It’s like ‘The Breakfast Club’ if they all played instruments,” says Reynolds. “And [the 1984 hip-hop film] ‘Beat Street,’ you know what I mean? These ragtag misfits, who are all incredibly talented and who are in desperate need of each other, and the glue that binds them together is the music and the city.
“That’s really what the story is about, this interesting braided narrative about kids who love each other, kids who love music, and kids who love their city.”
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Written for a YA audience, “Soundtrack” features these young creatives wrangling with challenges that include domestic violence, mental health issues, parental neglect, legal trouble and life-or-death health problems.
That might seem like a lot for younger readers, but Reynolds says it’s not too much.
“That’s life, right?” he says. “I think sophisticated people come in all ages, and the ability to manage and wrestle with complex ideas can happen at 13, 14, 15 years old, because they’re living complex lives.”
“This book, and all of them, are meant to honor that truth,” he says.
Reynolds writes about the good times as well: The joy, laughter and recklessness of youth – and even the simple pleasure of sitting at a pizzeria, eating a slice while getting to know some new friends. But Reynolds says he pays attention to “the grief of youth – especially for certain kids in certain environments” because it’s a powerful thing for young people to be seen – and he wants them to know they are.
“It’s the reason why so many young people, especially Black kids, gravitate towards sports or entertainment, because they see themselves,” he says. “It’s hard to be what you can’t see, right?
“If a young person never sees themselves depicted in the story, then it’s possible for them to assume that their lives and stories – that their family members and the characters that exist in their lives – are not valuable enough to be told, at least not in the form of a book,” says Reynolds, who acknowledges the many who came before him who helped pave the way for him to become a writer.
Books that address the serious issues that young people face these days – especially books featuring people of color and the LGBTQ+ community – are often the ones that end up on lists of challenged and banned titles. Even Reynolds, the recent national ambassador for children’s literature, has seen his own books banned.
While not taking the situation lightly, he’s got ideas about how to confront these bans.
“I wish the book community had better PR and marketing, because this is the time we could be blowing it up. You’re telling me that someone is saying that all these books are dangerous – and we don’t have a PR machine to capitalize?” he laughs, incredulous. “If I’m 14, I’m wondering: ‘What’s going on in the books?’
“We are competing with the internet. We are competing with the cellphone, and this is a competition that is futile, by the way. We will not win,” he says. “I personally think it’s foolish to fight against it. I think we need to figure out how to work beside it and work with it.”
To do that, Reynolds says that as much as books are important to him, he recognizes the value of other art forms and entertainments to connect young people with literature and the skills that reading develops.
“I’m all about literacy, storytelling, reading – anything, I’m OK with it. If there are storytelling video games, I’m cool. That’s literature to me,” says Reynolds, suggesting a young person could develop an interest in poetry from the lyrics on a Rosalía album. “It’s beautiful; it counts as poetry, right?
“If we have more people exercising the muscle of reading, then we have people who are able to think critically … We have people who understand how to hear their own voices, which will be a valuable tool for them,” he says. “You better know how to hear yourself.”
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As well, Reynolds has spoken in previous interviews about the need to hear others, too – especially those with whom we don’t agree – to find common ground.
“We’re all we’ve got, whether we like it or not, right? I love that all the Artemis astronauts are talking about how, from a distance, you realize it’s just us out here in the vast darkness. There is nothing here; it’s just us, and so at the end of the day, we don’t have to agree on everything. I just need to know that you don’t wish me harm, and if you don’t wish me harm, then you and I can coexist,” he says. “Just don’t wish me harm, or don’t try to enact laws that will cause harm. That’s it. Other than that, we’re good. We don’t even have to agree on it all.”
As the conversation wraps up, Reynolds responds quickly when asked if there’s anything else he’d like to add.
“This was never about success. I have a genuine, marrow-deep love for the people that I’m working for, and that means a lot to me,” says Reynolds. “I love these kids.”