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Walter Dean Myers

Genres: African-American, Contemporary Realistic Fiction, and Urban Life

I came to Harlem from West Virginia when I was three, after my mother died. My father, who was very poor, gave me up to two wonderful people, my foster parents.

Thinking back to boyhood days, I remember the bright sun on Harlem streets, the easy rhythms of black and brown bodies, the sounds of children streaming in and out of red brick tenements. I remember La Marqueta, in East Harlem, where people spoke a multitude of languages. I remember playing basketball in Morningside Park until it was too dark to see the basket and then climbing over the fence to go home.

From my foster parents, the Deans, I received the love that was ultimately to strengthen me, even when I had forgotten its source. It was my foster mother, a half-Indian, half-German woman, who taught me to read, though she herself was barely literate. I remember her reading to me every day from True Romance magazine. Eventually, I was able to read magazines or newspapers to her. My father and my grandfather used to tell me stories. My father would tell scary stories. My grandfather's stories — he was a very religious man — were Old Testament, God's-gonna-get-ya kind of stories.

I read a lot of comic books and any kind of thing I could find. One day, a teacher found me. She grabbed my comic book and tore it up. I was really upset, but then she brought in a pile of books from her own library. That was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Books took me, not so much to foreign lands and fanciful adventures, but to a place within myself that I have been exploring ever since. The public library was my most treasured place. I couldn't believe my luck in discovering that what I enjoyed most — reading — was free.

I was a good student in that I could read well, but I was a behavioral problem. I had this very severe speech difficulty, and I arrived in school ready to conquer the world, but no one could understand a thing I was saying. That was very frustrating for me, and I responded by being angry.

One of my teachers decided that among many of my speech problems, I couldn't pronounce certain words at all. She thought that if I wrote something, I would use words I could pronounce, so she said, " Why don't you write something yourself? Whatever you choose to write." I began writing little poems, and they helped me because of the rhythms. I began to write short stories, too. My writing was about the only thing I was praised for in school.

By high school, I'd identified my own "avenue of value" as an intellectual, because I couldn't speak well and had a limited social life. But I knew my family couldn't afford college for me. So I dropped out of high school at age 15. I was brought back to school, but I dropped out again at 16, and on my seventeenth birthday I joined the Army. When I got out of the army, I didn't have any skills, I had no confidence, and I had that speech problem. So I loaded trucks. Then I worked in the post office, and I wrote at nights.

I wrote for magazines, I wrote adventure stuff, I wrote for the National Enquirer, I wrote advertising copy for cemeteries. Then I saw that the Council on Interracial Books for Children had a contest for black writers of children's books. I won the contest and that was my first book — Where Does the Day Go?. Eventually I got into writing for teenagers. Actually, I had done a short story about teenagers. An editor read the story, thought it was the first chapter of a novel, and asked how the rest of it went. That sounded like opportunity banging on my door, so I made up the novel on the spot and I got a contract. That was my first YA book, Fast Sam, Cool Clyde, and Stuff. It changed my life because I had no real education, and I needed something to validate myself. I needed to find value, and publishing gave me that value.

I so love writing. It is not something that I am doing just for a living, it is something that I love to do. I get up early, between 4:30 and 5:00 a.m. I have a vest that I wear that weighs 20 pounds, and I walk with that about five miles a day. I'll try to get home by 7:00, shower, and start to work. I try to get ten pages done. Once I do my ten pages, that's it.

When I work, what I'll do is outline the story first. That forces me to do the thinking. I cut out pictures of all of my characters, and my wife puts them into a collage, which goes on the wall above the computer. When I walk into the room I can see the characters, and I just get very close to them. I rush through a first draft, and then I go back and rewrite, because I can usually see what the problems ahead of me are going to be. Rewriting is more fun for me than writing is.

My ideas come largely from my own background. I write a lot about basketball, and I've played basketball for years and years. I was in the army and I wrote Fallen Angels. I lived in Harlem, and I write about Harlem. I'm interested in history, so I write about historical characters in nonfiction.

If I accomplish what I set out to do, then I'm happy with the book. If I've compromised, then I'm unhappy. Ultimately, what I want to do with my writing is to make connections — to touch the lives of my characters and, through them, those of my readers.

Caldecott Honor Book for Harlem

American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults for Slam!, The Glory

Field, Somewhere in the Darkness, Malcolm X, Harlem and Fallen Angels.

Coretta Scott King Award for Somewhere in the Darkness and Fallen Angels

Newbery Honor Book for Somewhere in the Darkness

In the Classroom

Read aloud Harlem to the class. Ask your students to describe how the poetry in the story mirrors a rhythm and beat similar to city streets. Then, ask each student to create a collage that tells a story of his or her own neighborhood. Have students examine special people and places from their own community.

Booklist

Here is a selected list of the author’s published works.

At Her Majesty's Request: An African Princess in Victorian England
By Walter Dean Myers

Scholastic, 144pp., Ages 9–12

A young African princess escapes death from human sacrifice in 1850 and is given as a gift to Queen Victoria of England. Her story is pieced together from a series of letters found in a London bookshop. "This solidly researched biography will enthrall readers, and ranks among Myers's best writing." — Kirkus Reviews

Fallen Angels
By Walter Dean Myers

Scholastic, 320 pp., Ages 12 and up

Winner of the Coretta Scott King Award

Seventeen-year-old Richie Perry, just out of his Harlem high school, enlists in the Army in the summer of 1967 and spends a devastating year on active duty in Vietnam."This gut-twisting Vietnam War novel... breaks uncharged ground in teenage fiction." — Booklist, starred review

New to 116th Street in New York, a young boy soon makes friends and begins a year of unusual experiences.

Harlem
By Walter Dean Myers

Illustrated by Christopher Myers
Scholastic, 32 pp., All ages

Winner of the Caldecott Honor and the Coretta Scott King Honor for Illustration

A collection of poems celebrating the people, sights, and sounds of Harlem. The words and pictures together connect readers of all ages to the spirit of Harlem in its music, art, literature, and everyday life.

By Walter Dean Myers

A teenage basketball player from Harlem is befriended by a former professional player who, after being forced to quit because of a point shaving scandal, hopes to prevent other young athletes from repeating his mistake.

Malcolm X: By Any Means Necessary
By Walter Dean Myers

Scholastic, 224 pp., Ages 10 and up

Winner of the Coretta Scott King Honor

"[A] carefully researched portrait of a deeply devoted individual." — Publishers Weekly, starred review "Neither adulatory nor critical, Myers' biography pays eloquent tribute to the brilliant... radical African-American leader... passages of quiet intensity capture the essence of the man." — Booklist

Harper Collins, 281pp., Ages 12 and up

"Arrested and charged with murder, sixteen-year-old Steve Harmon is writing a screenplay of his ordeal. Balancing courtroom drama and a sordid jailhouse setting with flashbacks to the crime, Myers adeptly allows each character to speak for him or herself, leaving readers to judge for themselves the truthfulness of the defendants, witnesses, lawyers, and, most compellingly, Steve himself." — The Horn Book

ALA Notable Children's Book

In this tragic and utterly authentic 1989 Newbery Honor Book about two friends in contemporary Harlem, "Myers has captured the street milieu well, and the characters and the events ring all too true. . . . A dishearteningly effective tale of poverty and inverted values." — Booklist

Shadow of the Red Moon
By Walter Dean Myers

Illustrated by Christopher Myers
Scholastic, 183 pp., Ages 9–12

In this extraordinary fantasy novel, 15-year-old Jon leaves his home in Crystal City on a journey through the Wilderness, where shocking truths are revealed. "A stunning novel about the perseverance and courage of one African-American family. . . . A must read for absolutely everyone." — Kirkus Reviews

Slam!
By Walter Dean Myers

Scholastic, 240 pp., Ages 12 and up

Winner of the Coretta Scott King Award

Sixteen-year-old Greg "Slam" Harris can do it all on the basketball court. His grades aren't so hot, though. And when his teachers jam his troubles in his face, Slam blows up. He never doubted himself on the court until he found himself going one-on-one with his future.

Smiffy Blue: Ace Crime Detective
By Walter Dean Myers

Scholastic, 96pp., Ages 8–12

Smiffy Blue and his sidekick, Jeremy Joe, solve mysteries in this collection of four entertaining slapstick stories. Readers find clues hidden in the illustrations along the way that allow them to crack the case before Smiffy.

Somewhere in the Darkness
By Walter Dean Myers

Scholastic, 176 pp., Ages 10 and up

Winner of the Newbery Honor

A teenage boy accompanies his father, who has recently escaped from prison, on a trip that turns out to be an often painful time of discovery for them both. "Myers conveys a powerful message . . . Readers will find this universal journey of self-discovery gratifying." — School Library Journal, starred review

The Glory Field
By Walter Dean Myers

Scholastic, 384 pp., Ages 10 and up

"Spanning nearly 250 years of African American history, this emotionally charged saga of the Lewis family traces an ongoing battle for freedom and equality." — Publishers Weekly, starred review

The Young Landlords
By Walter Dean Myers

Puffin Books, 197 pp., Ages 12 and up

Winner of the Coretta Scott King Award

If you were looking for a real ghetto dump, you couldn't beat The Stratford Arms. There was Askia Ben Kenobi throwing karate chops upstairs, Petey Darden making booze downstairs, and Mrs. Brown grieving for Jack Johnson, who'd died for the third time in a month — and not a rent-payer in the bunch. Still, when Paul Williams and the Action Group got the Arms for one dollar, they thought they had it made. Yet when their friend Chris was arrested for stealing stereos and Dean's dog started biting fire hydrants and Gloria started kissing, being a landlord turned out to be a lot more work than being a kid.

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