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Walter Dean Myers has written over fifty books, which have received numerous awards, including two Newbery Honors, five Coretta Scott King Awards, and four Boston Globe-Horn Book Honors.
Walter Dean Myers
b. August 12, 1937
"I am a product of Harlem and of the values, color, toughness, and caring
that I found there as a child. I learned my flat jump shot in the church
basement and got my first kiss during recess at Bible school. I played the
endless street games kids played in the pre-television days and paid enough
attention to candy and junk food to dutifully alarm my mother.
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"I had a speech difficulty but didn't view it as anything special. It wasn't necessary for me to be much of a social creature once I discovered books. Books took me, not so much to foreign lands and fanciful adventures, but to a place within myself that I have been constantly exploring ever since.
"The George Bruce Branch of the Public Library was my most treasured place. I couldn't believe my luck in discovering that what I enjoyed most—reading—was free. And I was tough enough to carry the books home through the streets without too many incidents.
"At sixteen it seemed a good idea to leave school, and so I did. On my seventeenth birthday I joined the army. After the army there were jobs-some good, some bad, few worth mentioning. Leaving school seemed less like a good idea.
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Walter Dean Myers has written many highly acclaimed books for children and young adults, including Angel to Angel, Glorious Angels, Brown Angels, and the Newbery Honor book, Scorpions. He received the Coretta Scott King Award for Now is Your Time! The African-American Struggle for Freedom, and the 1994 Margaret E. Edwards Lifetime Achievement Award given by the American Library Association. He lives in Jersey City, NJ. |
"Writing for me has been many things. It was a way to overcome the hindrance of speech problems as I tried to reach out to the world. It was a way of establishing my humanity in a world that often ignores the humanity of those in less favored positions. It was a way to make a few extra dollars when they were badly needed.
"What I want to do with the writing keeps changing, too. Perhaps I just get clearer in what it is I am doing. I'm sure that after I'm dead someone will lay it all out nicely. I'd hate to see what kind of biography my cat, Askia, would write about me. Probably something like, "Walter Dean Myers had enormous feet, didn't feed me on time, and often sat in my favorite chair." At any rate, what I think I'm doing now is rediscovering the innocence of children that I once took for granted. I cannot relive it or reclaim it, but I can expose it and celebrate it in the books I write. I really like people—I mean, I really like people—and children are some of the best people I know.
"I've always felt it a little pretentious to write about yourself, but it's not too bad if you don't write too much."
A sample of some of Walter Dean Myers Many Titles:
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ISBN: 0064472884 As a boy, Walter Dean Myers was quick-tempered and physically strong, always ready for a fight. He also read voraciously-he would check out books from the library and carry them home, hidden in brown paper bags in order to avoid other boys' teasing. He aspired to be a writer. But growing up in a poor family in Harlem, his hope for a successful future diminished as he came to realize fully the class and racial struggles that surrounded him. He began to doubt himself and the values that he had always relied on, attending high school less and less, turning to the streets and his books for comfort. In a memoir that is gripping, funny, and ultimately unforgettable, Walter Dean Myers travels back to his roots in the magical world of Harlem during the 1940s and 1950s. Here is the story of one of the strongest voices in young people's literature today.
Reading level: Young Adult WALTER DEAN MYERS returns to the world of 145th Street: Short Stories to show how love can be found, and thrive, in the most unlikely places. Curtis finds love in Iraq as he struggles to stay alive in a war he doesn't want to fight, and Letha discovers her own beauty in the love of her child. There is the "good daughter" who realizes that there's only one way to help her brother and her family. Other stories center on the daily drama of the Curl-E-Que beauty shop, or capture the slapstick side of passion.
by Walter Dean Myers, illustrated by Christopher Myers From Booklist
Myers' original verse is unsettling if young people know the reference from the Billie Holiday song, but unclear if they don't ("strange fruit" is defined in the glossary). The accompanying illustration, though it's one of the less inspired ones, helps clarify things--a boy walks in a crowd carrying a sign saying, "yesterday a man was lynched." But there's no cohesion between the spreads, and the next one features a blues singer at a mike: "The thrill is gone, but love is still in my heart . . . I can feel you in the music and it's tearing me apart." Much of Myers' poetry here is terrific, by turn, sweet, sharp, ironic, but it's the memorable collage artwork, executed in the bluest of blue ink and brown paper, that will draw readers first. Once inside the book, some children will immediately hear the songs the poetry sings; others will have to listen more closely. Ilene Cooper Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved —This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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by Walter Dean Myers, Illustrated by Nina Laden, and performed by Charles Turner
Amazon.com Undoubtedly one of America's greatest singers, Anderson was hardly known in her own country because of her race--music schools ignored her applications ("We don't take colored!") and even after she began singing professionally, many venues only featured white performers. Ryan's well-paced story becomes especially poignant as she recounts Anderson's overwhelming success in Europe ("one newspaper in Sweden called it 'Marian Fever' ... In Austria, the world-famous conductor Arturo Toscanini announced that what he had heard, one was privileged to hear only once in a hundred years"). The book reaches its climax with a wordless, deep brown two-page spread from Selznick, a crowd's-eye view of Anderson singing at the Lincoln Memorial in 1939, an historic concert that drew an integrated audience of over 75,000. Ryan's simple, metered text (punctuated frequently by lyrics) captures the quiet drama of Anderson's story, and kids will especially identify with the confusion and frustration of young Marian. And as with the pair's previous collaboration, Selznick's rich illustrations ably convey the undeniable strength and courage of a talented, determined woman. (Ages 4 to 8) —Paul Hughes
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 JazzClick to order via Amazon ISBN: 0823415457 A Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Books and NAACP Image Award Nominee From bebop to New Orleans, from ragtime to boogie, and every style in between, this collection of Walter Dean Myers's energetic and engaging poems, accompanied by Christopher Myers's bright and exhilarating paintings, celebrates different styles of the American art form, jazz. Jazz takes readers on a musical journey from jazz's beginnings to the present day. Time line, glossary.
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 Street
LoveAmazon
ISBN: 0060280794 Book Description
Publisher: Scholastic, Inc. From the award-winning author of Fallen Angels and Malcolm X: By Any Means Necessary, here is a powerful, award-winning novel about a 14-year-old boy who meets his father for the first time and learns that although some things can't be fixed, they can be understood--and forgiven. 1993 Newbery Honor Book; 1993 Coretta Scott King Award Honor Book; 1992 Boston Globe/Horn Book Award Honor Book. For Grades 7-10 -- A poignant story of motherless, 14-year-old Jimmy Little, whose convict father takes him on a search for truth, identity, and family. Whisked away from the stability of a homelife with his devoted grandmother, Mama Jean, Jimmy confronts the harsh realities of his father's life on the run. Jailed for his involvement in an armed robbery and falsely accused of killing a man, Crab escapes from prison to convince his son of his innocence. What Jimmy discovers is a man desperate to establish a relationship with his son but unable to break free of a lifestyle of stealing and moving on that leaves little room for security. On their highway odyssey, Crab becomes increasingly sick with a kidney ailment. Following a climactic encounter with the man who accused him, Crab is again arrested and hospitalized. For Jimmy, the flicker of hope that he and his father might work things out becomes a realization that love is built on trust, concern, and honesty. Through terse dialogue and characterization, Myers conveys a powerful message about the need for parent and child to believe in and respect one another. By story's end, the boy understands that to fully appreciate someone else's life you must first give meaning to your own. Whether from urban or rural backgrounds, single or double parent families, readers will find this universal journey of self-discovery gratifying. --Gerry Larson, Chewning Junior High School, Durham, NC (School Library Journal)
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The Glory FieldClick to order via Amazon Format:
Mass Market Paperback, 288pp. One of the best reviewed books of 1994, the Newbery author's novel follows five generations of one African-American family from Africa to a South Carolina plantation through the Civil War, the end of segregation and beyond, to a moving finale, when a young drug-addicted cousin is brought home to the glory field for a day of reunion and renewal.
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 The
Righteous Revenge of Artemis Bonner Click to order via Amazon Format: Paperback, 1st ed., 140pp. "After Uncle Ugly's gunned down by that sneaky dog Catfish Grimes, 15-year-old Artemis leaves his sainted Dear Mother and turns cowboy avenger. . . . The pace is brisk, the tongue-in-cheek humor is beautifully maintained [in this] fist-swinging adventure." 'BL. "An entertaining yarn that could well introduce new readers to historical fiction."
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 MonsterClick to order via Amazon 2000 Coretta Scott King Author Award Book Format: Hardcover, 1st ed., 288pp.
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 Slam!Click to order via Amazon 1997 Coretta Scott King Author Award Book
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| Fallen Angels, Walter Dean Myers |
Bad Boy:
A Memoir
What
They Found: Love on 145th Street 
Blues Journey
The Blues of Flats Brown
Related Links
LEARNING ABOUT WALTER DEAN MYERS. Compiled by: Marilyn
Fischer, Carol Levandowski, Carol Marlowe
www.scils.rutgers.edu/special/kay/myers.html
Walter Dean Myers, the recipient of the first annual
Virginia Hamilton Literary Award
www.kent.edu/virginiahamiltonconf/Myersbio.htm
Color photo of Walter Dean Myers above taken by Marci Wilson at the 1st Harlem Book Fair
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