More than anything, Myers pushed for his stories to teach children and teenagers never to give up on life.
As the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature from 2012-2013, he traveled around the United States promoting the slogan “Reading is not optional.” He strove to spread the message that a brighter future depends on reading proficiency and widespread literacy, not only during his two-year tenure as National Ambassador, but beyond.
Walter also worked with and mentored teenage fan and writer Ross Workman, and they published the novel Kick together. He frequently met with incarcerated teens in juvenile detention centers and received countless letters thanking him for his inspirational words. Throughout his life, Myers worked to make sure young adults had the tools necessary to become hungry readers, thirsty learners, and, therefore, successful adults. He often wrote books about the most difficult time in his own life his teenage years for the reader he once was these were the books that he wished were available when he was that age. His recent books include Juba!, (HarperCollins, April 2015) a novel for teens based on the life of a young Black dancer, and On a Clear Day (Crown/Random House Books for Young Readers, September 2014).
WHY TEACH MONSTER WALTER DEAN MYERS TRIAL
In his memoir, Bad Boy, he wrote, “Harlem is the first place called ‘home’ that I can remember.” This sentiment is reflected in Walter’s writing, whether via a love letter to the neighborhood in the picture book Harlem a story of a boy’s trial for a crime committed in Harlem, in the novel Monster or the tale of two friends struggling to see a future beyond the community they know in the novel Darius & Twig. In Invasion (2010), Myers once again explored the effects and horrors of war through young protagonists, this time set in World War II. Twenty years later, Myers wrote a riveting contemporary companion novel, Sunrise Over Fallujah, which was named a New York Times Notable Book in 2008. His Coretta Scott King Award-winning novel, Fallen Angels (1988), about the Vietnam War, was named one of the top ten American Library Association Best Books for Young Adults of all time. Printz Award, and received a Coretta Scott King Honor Award. Monster appeared on the New York Times bestseller list, won the first Michael L. Edwards Award, while gritty teen novels Lockdown and Monster were both National Book Award Finalists. Myer’s novel Scorpions won a Newbery Honor Medal and the Margaret A. Myers and his son Christopher, an artist, collaborated on a number of picture books for young readers, including We Are America: A Tribute from the Heart and Harlem, which received a Caldecott Honor Award, as well as the teen novel and National Book Award Finalist Autobiography of My Dead Brother, which Christopher illustrated. In 1968, Myer’s first published book, Where Does the Day Go? Illustrated by Leo Carty, won an award from the Council on Interracial Books for Children. Myers’ body of work includes picture books, novels for teens, poetry, and non-fiction alike. Years later he started writing again…and he didn’t stop. In high school one teacher, who recognized his talent but also knew he was going to drop out, told him to keep on writing, no matter what “It’s what you do.” Myers did drop out of Stuyvesant High School and enlisted in the Army. His love of reading soon progressed to a love of writing.
Though he struggled with a speech impediment, poor grades, and with discipline throughout school, he remained an avid reader. Florence Dean taught Walter to read in their kitchen, and when he began attending Public School 125, he could read at a second-grade level. Myers spent much of his childhood playing basketball on the courts of Harlem and checking books out of the George Bruce Branch of the New York Public Library. Walter Milton Myers would eventually adopt the middle name “Dean” to honor Florence and Herbert. His father, George, sent Walter to live with his first wife, Florence Dean, and her husband, Herbert Dean, in Harlem, along with Florence and George’s two daughters. His mother, Mary died after the birth of his younger sister Imogene. He was a Black author who specialized in children’s books.īorn in Martinsburg, West Virginia. *Walter Dean Myers was born on this date in 1937.
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