THOMAS: So as someone who writes for them, I have to think of them first. You know? Like, last year alone, there still were more books featuring animals and trucks as the main characters than Black kids. Because - if for nothing else, one, publishing hasn't thought about them enough. As a writer - as a Black woman writer specifically, I have to think about the Black kids who pick up my books first and foremost. THOMAS: You know, when I write, my main priority is to think about the young people who will pick my book up and see it as a mirror. Can you talk a bit more about what that process is like? Do you assume that your young adult readers are Black, that they're white? Who is reading the books? KING: It sounds like you took precautions when you wrote the second book to make sure that you weren't taking your characters into the world of stereotype. You hear so much that they don't exist, and it's not true. And I thought about the fact that this is not an image you see in the media, in books and films of young Black fathers. Disaster waiting to happen, you know? But I thought of him a lot when I was writing this character. THOMAS: And looking back now, as an adult, I'm like, oh, my God, that was a. And he would ride by my house on his bike with one baby in one arm and the other in the basket on the bike. And I guess if their mom would call him asking for a break of some sort, he'd come get them. And I remember after those twins were born - he did not have a car. So to get to her, he would have to pass by my house. And the mom lived on the other street around the corner from me. And at a young age - like, I think he was around 17 years old - he became a father to twins. I specifically thought of this one guy who lived around the corner from me. And I had to think back to things that I witnessed growing up in my old neighborhood with some of the young men that I grew up around. I really had to draw on experiences of young men that I know in writing Maverick and his story. I have a responsibility to get it as close to right as possible, to be, if nothing else, respectful of the people who do identify with this character. So I read a lot of Jason Reynolds I read a lot of Kwame Alexander - and then, too, reading books just by Black men like Ta-Nehisi Coates because I recognize that as a writer, I have a responsibility, and it's even greater when I'm writing a character unlike myself, when I'm writing outside of my identity. And for me, that meant reading books by Black men about Black boys. THOMAS: I had to do a lot of work beforehand. KING: Angie Thomas told me the big difference this time was writing from the perspective of a teenage boy. And I knew that he became a father to two children at a young age. He was actually the leader of it at one point.
I knew that his father was once in the same gang that Maverick later joined. THOMAS: For one, I knew that his father was incarcerated when he was 8 years old. KING: So in her new book "Concrete Rose," Thomas goes back in time to tell Maverick's story. He was really likable, and readers noticed it.ĪNGIE THOMAS: My readers made it clear to me that I wasn't done with this character and this family because Maverick was the one they asked me about the most, which, you know, when you're writing a young adult novel, that's not really what you expect. He wasn't distant or annoying or oppressive. It had this propulsive plot and characters who felt very real, like Starr's dad, Maverick. And then while Starr's eyes are averted in fear, an officer shoots and kills Khalil, and Starr is left with the wreckage.
The police pull them over and accuse them of having drugs. It was called "The Hate U Give." A teenage girl, Starr, and her friend Khalil are driving home from a party. A few years ago, the author Angie Thomas wrote a young adult novel that was perfectly of its time.