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Standard News Bureau

[Lexile Level: 870L]

Jason Reynolds: Writing What’s Real

Jason Reynolds did not grow up loving books. As a kid growing up in Washington, D.C., he looked for himself on the pages of novels—and he couldn’t find himself anywhere. The characters didn’t sound like him. Their lives didn’t look like his. So he stopped reading. He turned instead to rap music and poetry, places where words felt alive and true (“Writing the Truth”). He had no idea that one day he would transform the world of children’s literature.

Today, Reynolds is one of the most celebrated authors writing for young people. His books, including Ghost, Long Way Down, Look Both Ways, and Stamped, have reached millions of readers. He has won major awards and served as the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, a role appointed by the Library of Congress. But Reynolds will tell you that none of that is the point. The point is the kids.

“I want people to read and be like, yo, this feels real, feels like me, feels like people I know” (Dear Dreamer).

Reynolds changed the way people think about what a book can be and who books are for. Reynolds did not just add to children’s literature. He helped reshape it.

“I just want to create work that makes young people feel cared for” (Dear Dreamer).

That sentence might sound simple, but it explains everything about why he writes. He is not chasing fame or trying to impress other adults. He is trying to reach a twelve-year-old who feels invisible—a kid like the one he used to be.

“I write my books to tell good stories. I happen to focus on young people because I think … there’s a sense of wonder, and a sense of curiosity … and a sense of fear and anxiety that adults tend to mask” (Dear Dreamer).

Reynolds believes that young people are special readers. Adults learn to hide their feelings. Kids haven’t yet. That honesty—that openness—is what Reynolds writes toward. He meets young readers right where they are.

His books center young Black American characters living through real, complicated situations involving grief, violence in their neighborhoods and questions about who they are and where they belong. Reynolds believes that too few stories ever did that for kids who looked like him.

Many people describe Reynolds’ books as a mirror. When young people open one of his novels, they can see themselves, their neighborhoods, their worries and their joy. The book reflects their lives back at them. For many of Reynolds’ readers, that is something they have never felt before.

“Not only should we be all right with who we are, we should celebrate it. I come from a people who were never supposed to read—and here I am—writing” (Dear Dreamer).

Reynolds also knows what it means when a book becomes more than a book. He has met young readers who told him his stories changed how they saw themselves. They remind him why every sentence matters.

As National Ambassador, Reynolds traveled across the country, visiting schools that are often overlooked—schools without a lot of resources, in communities that outsiders rarely think about. He started a tour called “GRAB THE MIC: Tell Your Story,” encouraging students to find their own voice. A voice, of course, is the sound that comes from your throat when you speak. But Reynolds was not asking kids to be loud. He was telling them that, combined, their stories, their perspectives and their truths are their voice, and it deserves to be heard.

“If my books are still being read 40 years from now, in schools … I’ve failed” (Dear Dreamer).

While Reynolds is honored to have his book read in schools nationwide, he recognizes that with each generation there are—there should be—new stories, stories that reflect the different experiences the young people in that generation are experiencing. That is what should be told, read and studied. He hopes to empower and encourage the next generation of writers to tell their stories and make a greater impact than he has.

Jason Reynolds is proof that a story can do something powerful: it can make a person feel less alone. It can take someone who has been pushed to the edge of the page and place them right at the center—at the center of a world where their life finally matters. That is what great writing does. And that is exactly what Jason Reynolds set out to do.

WORKS CITED

Dear Dreamer: A Portrait of Jason Reynolds. Directed by Kristian Melom, Fulton Institute, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74Y8IKlFMhA.

“Jason Reynolds: Writing the Truth So Young People Can See Themselves.” She Rises Studios, 17 Sep. 2025, https://www.sherisesstudios.com/post/jason-reynolds-writing-the-truth-so-young-people-can-see-themselves.