-: You know, to talk about 'What Lane'
I'm going to pass it on to an expert book talker.
Her name is Betsy Bird from the school library journal.
She book talked to me about 'What Lane'.
And she said that she felt it was the perfect companion
to the recent Newbery winner New Kid.
Why did she say that?
I think maybe it's because the book is thin,
it's only 126 pages.
'What Lane' also, if you look at the front,
it looks like a graphic novel.
Now there are no visual images on the inside.
However, the son of another librarian read the book.
And as soon as he put it down, he said, "I read this book
in one sitting and also it should be a graphic novel."
Why? you will find tons of superheroes
that we know and love inside this book.
Wakanda Forever, Miles Morales,
the new Spider-Man, the old Spider-Man
you name it, they're in here.
Another reason why Betsy Bird,
her book talking 'What Lane' really touches my heart
is because New Kid in this book
also talks about tough topics
but they're not really tough topics to young people.
Young people know how talk about these tough topics.
However, they talk about tough topics like racism,
police profiling, police brutality,
white skin privilege, allyship.
But I do it in a way that feels fun and unputdownable.
So, that's how I book talk it.
I've been teaching for over 20 years
and how my school operates
and how schools across our country operate has inspired
how I wrote 'What Lane'.
We see in the world around us that different people
get different types of justice.
Recently, we saw what happened with George Floyd.
My book is about a mixed boy.
He's half African-American and half White.
And he's starting to notice
that he's being treated differently
than his White friends.
So, that relates to my school because for over 20 years
I noticed certain kids get certain consequences
and some kids get treated differently
and we need to change that because we're all equal
and we should all receive equal justice.
As a school teacher who's been teaching for over 20 years,
20 years.
I know that if I give a young person a book,
that book has to not only be fun
and as good as any video game or any movie or show
that the young person checks out
but the book also has to teach them something in a fun way.
And I think often about 'What Lane'
and how I would use this book inside the classroom.
And I have some ideas, before I share my ideas though,
I'd like to share the ideas of other people.
There's a librarian and an educator,
her name is Julie Kirchner.
And she said she loved the book
and she wants to pass the book on
to lots of tweens and teens.
But the first tween that she wants to give the book to
is to her young White son.
And the reason why she wants him to read it,
is 'cause she wants him to become aware
of the different lanes that society puts kids into.
And she wants him to question his privilege
and how he could use his privilege to be a better friend
and ally to nonwhite kids.
So that's one way that she's using the book
inside her educational system.
That makes me think of posters.
Maybe teachers can create posters
where they show different lanes
that different people are going in.
And then question, how can we move people
from heading in one direction to another direction
to live as dreamy a life as other people?
Those are few ways that we use 'What Lane'.
I often get asked, 'What Lane' would go best
with what book and that circles back to
my being a kid who really didn't read a lot of the books
that you would hear about.
I fell in love with storytelling through comic books.
I fell in love with storytelling through music rap.
So I'm gonna kind of remix
the pairing.
And instead of pairing 'What Lane' with a book,
I'm going to pair 'What Lane' with a musical,
with a soundtrack.
If I could pair 'What Lane' with any, I would think
about Hamilton, the musical and the album.
Not just the regular album, but also the mixed tape.
And these are the songs that pair best with 'What Lane.'
One, the world turned upside down.
Why? Because in this book, the world of these boys
are turned upside down by racism.
Also, it helps you deal with what's going on with
right now in quarantine.
And our world is turned upside down with COVID-19.
Another song from both Hamilton, the musical
and the mixtape that pairs well with this book
is who lives, who dies, who tells your story.
This is a hashtag own voices book.
And this book is from a point of view
of a young black boy and growing up as a black male.
It was very important for me to put his voice out there
and give you a never before walk through the heart
and mind of the young black boy,
as he's becoming aware of racism.
The last Hamilton song to pair with this book would be,
"I wrote my way out" and that relates to
how the boy he is thinking things.
And he's feeling things that he's not expressing
at the beginning of the book, but as the book progresses
and goes on, he learns to use his voice
and using his voice, helps him out
of some tight situations and helps him and everyone drive
to a higher ground of empathy, togetherness, and humanity.