What if men read more books

The male literacy crisis

0:00Hey everyone, you're listening to Code Switch from NPR. I'm B.A. Parker. And I'm Gene Demby. Alright, so Gene. Yes, Parker. Do you read?

0:14You saying, can I read? I didn't say can. No. You have the ability to read. I'm aware of that. But do you read for like, for recreation, for fuzzies? All the time. All the time do you read. That felt so loaded. Do you read? No! I respect you implicitly. I just wanted to know. But is it like, what are you reading? I'm actually finishing up Tyree Jones' Kin. You're reading Kin? Yeah, man. It's very good.

0:45It is very, very, very good. What are you reading? Do you read, Parker? Do you read? You know I read all the time. I'm currently, okay, I'm currently in the moment where I'm trying to finish up East of Eden. And I'm parlaying that into Toni Morrison's Sula and then getting out of Sula to go back into Kin. Oh, so you're just like, oh, I'm having a light, effervescent reading journey. And I'm going through some stuff. I'm trying to read stuff that isn't just for work.

1:16That's extremely real. I have a complete epitaph. Why are you book checking me, Shodi? Look now, I've just felt like I had to ask because, real talk, the men aren't reading. And, yeah, I mean, to be fair, the people aren't reading in general. But men not reading has gotten so bad that girls on TikTok have started jokingly posting videos of their boyfriends trying to read words.

1:46Or Duvers. Or Chester Shire. Guy Row. And Anamone.

1:55What is it? Anemone. Anemone. Anemone. Oh, God, okay. Yeah, it's okay. Nemo was messed up on that one, too.

2:05I understand, like, oh, this is a functional problem for our relationship. And also, like, you know, literacy is a real problem, a real hurdle for a lot of people. And, like, you know, we shouldn't be shaming people for it. But, yeah, I don't know. Ooh, this is tricky. That's tricky. That feels, uh, that feels bad. It's like you, I know, but you also, you, like, but you want your man to read, but you also just want to make sure it's not just, like, 48 Laws of Power. It makes me sad because there are books that have literally changed me.

2:37Like, I keep going back to, again, like, Tony Morrison Sula. It's about two childhood best friends who ultimately talk over one another instead of seeing each other. But it taught me about, you know, sisterhood and scapegoats and, you know, gentrification. Gentrification. Yeah, I mean, like, I think what I hear when people say that they, um, that dudes don't read is they think that dudes are not interested in the inner lives of other people. Right? Like, they're not, like, they'll say, oh, well, dudes read history books or whatever, or they read 48 Laws of Power, but they're not reading books about actually, like, people's feelings and people's, like, you know, and people's inner worlds, whatever those things look like.

3:19Um, unless, you know, they are, like, archetypal dudes, but it's mostly not fiction at all, right? That's true. I don't know. I do, I mean, people, people should read more. We should all read more. I feel like that should be, that might be controversial. Hot take, hot take. We should all read more. So today, we're going to play an episode of It's Been a Minute, where our host, Brittany Luce, gets into what's behind this male literacy crisis with acclaimed young adult author, Jason Reynolds.

3:52Okay, let's get into it.

3:57That's what fiction reminds us of. It reminds us how to love. It reminds us how to feel. It reminds us how, how, how to fight, right? It reminds us of our evolution. In one book, everybody can change. In 300 pages, every character that you've met has become a new character by the end. And so what might you do in 30 days, let alone 30 years? This is incredible. You get a snapshot of your potential every time you read a novel.

Meeting author Jason Reynolds

4:26Hello, hello. I'm Brittany Luce, and you're listening to It's Been a Minute from NPR, a show about what's going on in culture and why it doesn't happen by accident. This week, we're talking with Jason Reynolds, MacArthur Genius Grant recipient and National Book Award winning author of the beloved young adult books, Look Both Ways, Stump Boy In The Meantime, and Soundtrack. We're discussing the importance of brotherhood, the inspiration behind his characters, and why boys and men should read more fiction.

4:56Jason, welcome to It's Been a Minute. Thank you, Brittany. It's good to see you. It's good to see you. Okay, so you once wrote a novel for Marvel about Miles Morales, a.k.a. Spider-Man. And you once chatted with Ta-Nehisi Coates about his run on the Black Panther comics. So I want to get your thoughts on this. David Johnson as a new Black Panther playing T'Challa's son. What do you think? What do you think about it? I think I trust Ryan Coogler. So whatever decision that Ryan Coogler's making, I'm riding with Ryan.

5:29It doesn't really matter if I have any. You know, it's like for me, look, there's a lot of noise around like, you know, Black Brits playing these characters. There's noise. Although the characters are Wakandan, which is a made-up country. Which is a made-up country, right? Yeah. Exactly. And I think that there are moments in our lives where we should, especially as somebody who works in literature, where I have an editor. And the editor isn't necessarily my captain, but they are my partner. And there are certain things that the editor can see that I can't see, right?

6:03Maybe because I'm too close to the project. Maybe because I'm too emotional about the thing I'm working on. And if the goal is to make the best thing, then sometimes you've got to trust the captain. And that's where I'm at with it. I like that. Trust the captain. I like that. Trust the captain. I got more philosophical than I was anticipating. To get to the meat of what we're really going to talk about today, we're going to talk about a few things. But among them is like young readers.

Writing for young people

6:29How did you know you wanted to write for young people? I didn't know. I didn't know. You know, I wish I had some story. It was like ever since I was a kid, I wanted to write for kids. And it's like, nah, my story is actually that I started young. And because I started young, my voice skewed young. And so my first deal at 21, they categorized as young adult. And when you're 21, you feel so much older in your mind than like 14. Yes. Right? But to a 40-year-old, you might as well.

7:00I was going to say, now that I'm 38, I'm like, wow, 21 and 14. For me, we're a lot closer together. Exactly. Exactly. Now I'm like, I'm like 21, might as well be 14. Right? At 42. Exactly. Exactly. At 42. So, you know, when they categorized the book as young adult, I was actually insulted. Really? Yes. I thought they were trying to belittle the thing that I'd made. And that's mainly because I had absolutely no point of view or perspective about this particular landscape.

7:31I hadn't read any children's books. I hadn't read any young adults. I didn't know that was even a thing. I just knew we were going into the children's department. And I felt a way until we did our first library visit. And I got to talk to kids about the things that we'd made. And it was in that conversation that I realized that I loved it here. That something clicked. And it was like, oh, this is actually, this makes me feel way more useful and more purposeful than anything else I'd ever done before that. And that was sort of how it all began.

8:03You talk about, like, I mean, the library visit that you did. And you've done so many since then. You've visited schools, libraries, you know, detention, like, correctional facilities, all places to see kids. I wonder, like, what was it about even that first visit? Or even just in general, like, what's unique about the way that young people respond to your writing? I think that they don't have, especially the age range in which I primarily work. Like, a lot of my work is sort of in this, like, 9 to 13 sort of space. I mean, there's stuff for older kids.

8:33There's stuff for younger kids. But that, like, 9 to 13 pocket, that 6th, 7th, 8th grade sort of pocket, I find that they're half-baked. And I don't mean that in a way that we typically use that phrase. I'm not saying that they're, I'm not saying that they're, quote, sort of lesser-formed things. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that they're in a weird, mushy space where they're still, they've got one foot in, like, little kid land and then one foot in big kid land.

9:08And because of that, they're willing to still give you a hug but could ask really complicated questions. That's a good point. Like, they don't have, they don't have the self-consciousness that stops them from asking those questions. But they have the self-awareness that pushes those questions forward. And that's the beauty of, like, that weird little sweet spot. And I think that's really what it was. Those kids were asking me things and leaning forward.

9:38And yet I look in their faces and I still just see a baby. And yet they're like, but explain to me why I, why it's wrong that I have two moms. Right? And it's like, well, it's not wrong. It's like, exactly. So, like, they want to have, I was in New York when we had this visit, obviously. Right? And so, you know, the conversations were so fruitful and so alive and so energetic and so joyous. Because that is the age in which you can get all those things. Whereas you get to high school and teenagers are starting to shut down.

10:10I wonder. I mean, it's so interesting that you started off not pitching to, like, a YA audience. But that is a lot of your audience now, right? The young readers. And because you have aged, right? No shade. But you've aged. We all do, hopefully. Listen, that's the hope, right? And you're still writing for a young audience.

Bridging generational gaps

10:33You're pretty much always trying to bridge some sort of generational gap between you and your intended reader. I think a lot of people listening to or watching this conversation are also wondering how to bridge the gap between themselves and some of the young people in their lives. How do you approach thinking about that with your writing? I think the biggest mistake that so many of us are making when it comes to trying to figure out how to build a bridge is to remember who we were when we first learned to build bridges.

11:04Bridge building. When I think about bridge building, I think about who I was as a child playing with my toys. I think about what it meant, right? We think about bridge building in terms of, like, relationship. Yeah, yeah. I think about bridge building in terms of, like, in terms of, like, the actual act of making something come to life by putting this next to this and this next to this and this next to this. Whether it be how I bridge the gap from this side of the couch to this side of the couch. How I bridge the gap from this toy to this toy.

11:36How do I get this thing to get across this room? And I think about what that required and what it required was as a child and what it required was a sense of wonder, a sense of creativity and curiosity and an interesting and strange stick-to-itiveness because I really believe that there was a way to connect this thing to this thing, right? Like, the exact same methodology has to take place when it comes to how do I bridge the gap between a child and my big-aged self, right?

12:08There needs to be a sense of wonder and curiosity, some imagination, and the true belief that the bridge is possible to be built. It's a possibility that I could do it, right? And that's all it really, like, if you have those things, then you're almost there. It's so easy to kind of, like, move past that awe really quickly, the older that we get. I feel like I find myself doing it more, like, I find myself engaging in awe almost deliberately a lot more now in the past, I don't know, two to three years than I did when I was, like, 30 or 25.

12:44You can only kind of access it if you're not feeling self-conscious. And I think, to your point, like, when the world does seem like a bit cool and exciting place, like, most fervently is when you are those ages, like you said, when you are 13, 14, 15. Like, you know, when you are 10, when you get to ride on a big kid roller coaster for the first time, it's like, oh, my God, I didn't know life could be so good. But, yeah, you do have to kind of, like, decide to not feel self-conscious about allowing yourself to feel awed about something. Yeah, I think, isn't it a wonderful, look, I had this incredible moment one time with Omar Epps.

13:19And there's a reason I'm dropping his name because I, mainly because I want to make sure that he's honored in the discussion that we had, in the very short discussion we had. It was in L.A. at a hotel. He's sitting there. And my homeboy I was with, I went to a meeting, came back. My homeboy was like, bro, Omar Epps sitting over there. And I'm like, oh, did you say something to him? He's like, no, no, I could never. I can't do that, man. Like, we grown men. I can't go over there and say, oh, Omar Epps. And I was like, what you mean? This man is literally, like, woven into the genetics of our youth.

13:54He's buying, he literally is a part of who we are as grown men because of us watching him as a teenager in so many of these classic films, right, for us especially. I was like, I'm going over there. And so we're walking by. And, like, I catch his eyes, he catches his eyes. And then I just start heading that direction. And I'm like, look, man, we don't want to, like, I get it. You don't, you're busy. I'm not interested in interrupting you. I just wanted to come over and say thank you so much. My man was feeling a little strange about it. And, you know, I just want to say I appreciate it.

14:25I appreciate what you did for us. And he looked up and he said, thank you, brother. I wonder why it's so hard for us to do this. It shouldn't be so hard for us to, like, why would this be weird? Why should this be strange? And in that moment, I reminded myself that so much of the joy in my life has to do with me being a fan. I want to be a fan, not just of people, but of everything. I'm a fan of nature. I'm a fan of art. I'm a fan of architecture. I'm a fan of children.

14:56I'm a fan of elders. Right? I'm a fan. And I think that is what keeps my light burning. Hmm. I love that. I love that. It does. It takes you back to that sort of primal feeling of feeling delight, excitement. That's so associated with childhood. And it's something that we all can access. I really appreciate that.

15:16Don't go anywhere. We have to sort of rejigger and recalibrate what actually is important. Is it literature or is it literacy? We've got more coming up after the break.

The emotional reality of boyhood

15:34Sticking on being in sort of the mindset of being a younger person right now, the protagonists of your books are often young men. These boys are loving, funny, intelligent, and kind, but also like, you know, all people from time to time, they could be short-sighted, immature, or quick to judge. I mean, in other words, they are like fully realized human beings. I wonder, like, how much is that on your mind as you are writing these days or even going out

16:05and speaking to people? They turn my mind all the time. I think it's at the forefront of everything that I'm doing and have been doing for 20 years is thinking about how do we discuss boyhood in a way that feels healthy? How do we combat some of the unhealthy media that's coming their ways? But ultimately, my goal, just like as you described the characters in these books, ultimately, my goal is to remind young boys that they're human. The way I see my life is that, what's my, I wish I could call her name.

16:40She wrote the, she's the chef who wrote the book, Acid, Salt, Fat. Salt, Fat, Acid, Samin knows about Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. I love that book, I love Samin, yeah. Right, and that these four elements are, like, if you have these four elements in a dish, it is a balanced and whole dish, right? That is how I feel about the boys I write about and myself, right? That there should be some laughter and there should be some crying and there should be some courage and there should be some fear, right?

17:14In every single sort of, like, every day of my life, those four elements exist in me every day, right? People are like, you cry every day? Every day, there is a moment where I have to drop a tear or two. And the next moment, it might be me dying laughing at something else, right? It might be me dealing with my insecurity about the new book that I've written and I'm texting my editor, like, are you sure it's good? Are you sure it's ready, you know? And at the same time, beating my chest like I did that, right? All of those things, all of those things exist in my life on a daily basis in there.

17:47And I think those same things should be allowed to exist in every human's life, let alone every young man, that it's okay for you to feel a little insecure. It's okay for you to be a little nervous and a little afraid. That's your body trying to save you from something. Now, you have to then decide whether or not the thing it's trying to save you from is actually a threat. And once you sort that, then you use your courage to push you forward. To me, every child deserves an opportunity to have all of those elements on their plates.

18:20Mm, that's so interesting. I mean, I haven't heard that put that way before, but that's really thoughtful. The idea that all of these different feelings and experiences are a part of a grander experience. Like, they all feed into what it means to be human. And so, I mean, I think a lot of, honestly, what, and we've talked about a lot of manosphere stuff on this show before. A lot of what's at the core of a lot of that is fear. I'm glad you touched on that, because I think a lot of what's at the core of that is fear. Fear of being left out, fear of being rejected, fear of being unloved, fear of not measuring

18:54up. I think that everybody of all ages feels that way, whether it's like, you know, trying to jump into, oh my gosh, the game of a pickup sport. I've only done that once in my life, and it was literally one of the most fear-inducing experiences of my life. I'm like, the young people that do that, they are our strongest soldiers. Absolutely. Or to ask somebody out, or to send a text to, like, a new possible friend. Like, all of those things do feel scary, but they could also lead you to all of these other experiences that you mentioned, like being able to be moved to tears by how much you care

19:27for someone, or being able to laugh with people that you really like. Yeah, and we catastrophize, right? It's like, it's like we... Don't I know it? Yeah. Yeah, like we catastrophize. And sometimes there's no catastrophe there to catastrophize about, right? There's nothing there. There's no there there, but you deserve the opportunity to take a moment to do that. You deserve that. And I think young men, you know, we go through all the culturally, you know, the gender wars and the culture wars and all this weird stuff that we're all dealing with that the internet is trying to convince me it's real that I still don't quite bite down on because I live

20:01in a real world and I live a real life. I talk to human beings and these aren't the conversations that we're having. But I often think about like, we all are supposed to change and evolve. I hear conversations sometimes, so my old heads will be like, man, men got to get back to being a strong, silent type. I'm not so sure that silence is strong. I'm not so sure that that's strength, right? To me, that sounds a lot more like fear. To me, that sounds a lot more like the feeling that they that they're unsafe.

20:35To me, that sounds like a lack of vocabulary and literacy and therefore not being unable to name said emotion. And I think we've we've miscontextualized the strong, silent types of our lives. My granddaddy was a strong, silent type. I love him to death. But my mother would say he was a complicated man that could have probably used a few extra words, right? He could have used a few extra words, but he didn't have them, nor did he feel like he had the space to find them. Definitely be healthy for our grown men, too. I'll tell you that much. It would definitely be healthy for all of us.

21:06For everybody.

The value of true friendship

21:07Exactly.

The value of true friendship

21:08I wonder, I mean, one one aspect of your books that I have always enjoyed are the friendships. I like how much space is given to the characters, especially the young men, to learn to become good friends. Why are loving friendships so key to your storytelling? The greatest thing that ever happened to me was my friends. I, you know, I, I believe that friendship is, and I've said this many times, and I will

21:38say it until the day I die, that I believe that friendship is the most underrated relationship and yet the most valuable in our lives. I think it is more valuable than our parental relationships. I even think it is more value than our romantic ones. I think our friends, because our friends have no obligation to us. Yeah. Our friends are there by choice, by, by connection. And in my own life, my friends were the ones who, who helped me believe in me when I no

22:11longer did. My friends knew me sometimes better than I knew me. And so in any dark moment, my friends are still the ones who are like, Hey, you know, you know, you're good, right? You know, you got this, you know, you can do this, right? My friends were the ones that I could turn to and say, I'm afraid. Knowing that they wouldn't judge me or laugh at me, but would create a, create a force field around me for me to be that. It's not an event. Yeah. I want young men, especially young boys. I want everybody to have a good friend, but I think for young boys, I think we go so long

22:45thinking that our friends are the, the people who are supposed to fight with us. Like, like if I, if, if I get into it, you're supposed to be there to have my back and it's like, and it's like, yeah, that's, that's, that's a part of it. But the other part of it is like, can you look to that same soldier, that same warrior standing next to you and say, Hey bro, I don't really want to fight. Can you do that? Can you look to him and say, Hey bro, I'm a little nervous about this one. I think we should go this way.

23:11And will he say, all right, we out. Right. Right. And when y'all get back around the rest of the fellas, how will he tell the story? Will he tell it with, will he tell it with, with, with confidence and saying like, yo, we made a different choice or will he say, yo, so-and-so was a sucker. Right. Like that's, that's a, you know, we think about snitching and I can hear, I can hear my, my, my comment section now, right. We, we, we, we talk about snitching and my question around snitching, cause I've been

23:41in a juvenile, in a penal system with these kids. I've been around kids who, who are in, uh, who are in detention centers for, for doing their homeboys numbers and being like, look, I ain't even do it, but I ain't going to snitch. So I'm gonna go ahead and take the numbers and like, look, the rules are the rules. I don't, that's not what I'm debating. What I am questioning though, is like, ain't no friend in my life. Gonna let me go down for something they did.

24:07Ain't no brother of mine. Go and say I did something. And instead of me holding myself accountable, I'll be a coward and let my man go down. Cause I know he is courageous enough to not say something to me. You ain't no friend to me. You a sucker. You a sucker. And I'm your scapegoat. We glorify it. Like, that's cool. That ain't brotherhood. It's interesting. I mean, what you are discussing is I'm, I'm glad you used the word brotherhood. Um, because there's like tension there, right? Friendship is voluntary.

24:37Whereas like, uh, a lot of family relationships, depending on obviously how you grow up and stuff like that, they're involuntary. You are in each other's lives because of circumstance. Um, the same goes for so many other areas of life, right? To have a depth of feeling for another person that is not bound by any obligation. That is not bound by whether or not you pay the bills. Have children. Wash the dishes. Um, or any, it's not bound by a child. It's not bound by any of those things.

25:07It's bound by love and commitment. And the other thing is, is that like, when you have true love, like true friend love in your life, and you do feel that, that love, that trust, that support, that acceptance, that commitment, it actually, in my experience, it really changes and empowers how you're able to show up in the rest of your life. But I noticed when I was becoming like growing closer with this friend, it was like, we spent a lot of time talking and sharing and being open. And I was like, oh, well, what I'm doing is I'm growing closer to loving this friend.

25:43And that's how I want to feel. If I'm not, if I'm in a romantic relationship with somebody, I want to feel that we are growing in openness and love and friendship with each other. And I feel very fortunate that I really enjoy a deep friendship with my husband now. It teaches you how to love though. It teaches you how to love. It made me more cognizant of how I'm loving other people in a way that I don't think that we give friendship enough credit for, how much it nourishes us and sustains us and also

26:14teaches us how to be people. Exactly. It's the best. I mean, they hold up mirrors, right? And they teach you intimacy. Like there's an intimacy to the way friendships work. And, you know, we're secret keepers and all of these things that are sort of between, you know, that are between these friendship survivors. I think for me, at least in my life, they're a huge part of what makes life worth living for me. I agree. I agree.

Literacy versus literature

26:43Something that we've talked a lot about on the show, something I imagine that you think a lot about and that people are talking a lot about are America's literacy rates, how much people are reading, reading proficiency and literary skills are on the decline for kids and adults, but also even people who are proficient readers and have the ability to read confidently. They are just not reading as many books as they used to. Again, that goes for kids and adults. How can we nourish and encourage that among ourselves and also the young people we love?

27:17This is a tricky one, but I do think about this all the time. And my answer, you know, I think about this a few ways. Number one, I think we have to ask ourselves a question about how much we value the book and if that is the conversation we should be having or should we be asking ourselves how much we value reading, which is a different conversation, right? Reading is a skill and it doesn't always require a novel, right?

27:50It's like that is the packaging in which we always use as like the conduit to reading, but I'm not quite sure that that's smart. I'm not quite sure that that's healthy, especially as we as a culture has changed so much, right? And so for me, do I want the novel to be what the novel was? Yes, do I want the novel to be, you know, a linchpin of culture, right? Where we can go to the novels of our time and get a good glimpse of who we were as a country,

28:21let alone as a world, right? Yes, I want that. At the same time, do I think it is also important that we have short stories? Do I think? Yeah, because they've always been very important. As a matter of fact, I would argue that the folk tales that have helped to build these cultures were short stories, right? I would argue that, right? Like I would, you see what I mean? I would argue that even the way the Odyssey was excerpted and when it was taught to us was excerpted by scenes to talk about what was going on.

28:54Because the way that it's written is you can get a whole scene and really have a whole story within that scene. You may not have all the context, but you'll get a whole story there. So I think we should value the short story. Do I think we should value poetry? Yes, very much so, because it's the shortest of the storytelling mediums. And I think, and I think, and yet I would argue the most sophisticated. But do I think that a kid could benefit from reading Mary Oliver? Yes, absolutely. I think, I think that Mary Oliver, which is so sort of like beautiful and to the point and like the words aren't all over the place.

29:32It isn't like. I mean, you can pick it up and immediately feel it. You can pick it up and immediately feel it. Come on. I think kids should memorize Wild Geese. Why not? Right? And I think there's a way for us to connect what Mary Oliver is doing or what, you know, any other poet is doing to the songs that our kids are listening to. Right? Figuring out that we're building the bridges. Right? So I think all of this work has to be done. I don't think that it's like we're losing them to, we're losing them to everything. I think, no, we have to sort of rejigger and recalibrate what actually is important.

30:06Is it literature or is it literacy? Now, for me, it's literacy. Right? It's literacy. I think that as long as our babies can read, then that means they can think. Right? They can read. But the more language they have, the more ability that they'll have to hear their own minds, to critically think and suss through their ideas and their feelings and emotions, let alone expressing said feelings and emotions because they can put name to them. Right? That means more to me than whether or not a kid has read the Odyssey, to be honest with you.

30:34Don't go anywhere. Don't go anywhere. I'm so tired of people quoting me the 48 laws of power or whatever it is. I'm so tired. It's like, bro, we're not going to war. Why are you trying to strategize about how to get over? I'm trying to figure out how to get you to love yourself. We've got more coming up after the break. It makes me think back to when I was a teenager and the LiveJournal was the thing. And it was very much like, you know, but like if you think back on it, it's like we were sitting around reading walls of text that we were writing about however we were feeling, some movie we watched, how boring school was.

31:18But we would go home after school and write paragraphs, like type out paragraphs about our thoughts and feelings and then read each other's paragraphs about their thoughts and feelings and then comment on it. I think, look, young Brittany Luce, who's writing on LiveJournal, I think my argument is the way that we talk about it now is as if there can't be a young Brittany Luce today doing the same thing or whatever that platform might be for them. Or maybe there's no platform, but maybe it's Substack, right?

31:51And so I think sometimes our question, and look, the stats are the stats, but I mean, statistics are interesting, right? Because statistics also have to do with the person who is creating the narrative around the numbers. So it's not always like, because people will say like, numbers don't lie, numbers don't lie, right? And it's like, well, it depends upon the interpreter of said data, right? When I was coming in the industry, they said, we're not going to publish books about Black boys because Black boys don't read. That's one way to read the numbers.

32:22The way I read those numbers is we should probably publish books about Black boys so that— So they want to read them, yeah. There you go, right? So I think that—so I'm even careful with all the statistical talk. Not that I think it doesn't matter, but I think it's just a part of the story, right? And that we have—like, there's also the eye test, right? There's also the fact that I think that books have never been cooler than they are right now. Books have never been cooler. We're talking about fashion brands making ads used— Showing models reading or turning books into—

32:55Yes, into little Dior bags, exactly. All the Dior bags and, like, all this stuff, right? We got—they got some of these—they got book clubs and all this stuff. And look, if you think that they're doing that because they can't make money, you're a fool. So in their mind, in their mind, they're thinking, this is cool and it's going to make us money. Which lets me know, culturally, there is something happening when it comes to the movement of literature, the movement of reading. I actually think that in the next five to ten years, it's going to be the coolest thing in the world to walk around with a book.

33:28Specifically within this downward trend in reading, men are reading less than women, and men are specifically reading less fiction than women are. And you write fiction, and so I know you care about fiction. And so I wonder, what is the importance of men and boys reading fiction? And what do we lose when they don't? First, let me say, I think that men have always read less fiction. I think when I think of—I wish I could—I don't know the numbers, but I wish I knew the numbers around what this looked like 30 years ago or 40 years ago.

34:00Because all the men in my life read the newspaper. I never saw the men in my life reading novels. I don't think I ever saw my father read fiction. Sorry, Dad, I never saw him read fiction. It's not a thing, right? So when I think about the narrative, it's like, this isn't like a new phenomenon. Now, that being said, I think there's much to gain from the novel. I think what the novel does is it very simply reminds us of the complexity of our humanity. But I think what fiction does is it humanizes everything. It humanizes our world.

34:30It humanizes our lives. I think it taps into our emotional centers while also still triggering our intellectual capacities and our intellectual sort of databases back here. I think it pushes us to think about what language can do, how language can create a hammer in the gut, right? Like, that's a wild thing to consider, right? How you could read something and it creates a hammer in the gut. How language could create a metronome in the head that now you can actually feel the rhythm to your life.

35:03That's an incredible thing to consider that you do not get in nonfiction, right? That you can, everybody knows, look, Toni Morrison, we all know and love Toni Morrison. But when you talk about, like, the lines that people pull out, right? Like, oh, you know, what's her most, she gathered me, right? If you look at that line and if we still were doing scansion, right? If we still were scanning lines and scanning language to see where the accents are in, then we could better understand why this is working.

35:33But it's directly connected to some sort of, like, rhythm sensor. It's the way the words sound, let alone what the words are, right? And imagine if we all knew that and could live our lives, like, walking around knowing that I am walking on a metronome. That I have sort of these things working inside me. Like, that's what fiction reminds us of. It reminds us how to love. It reminds us how to feel. It reminds us how to fight, right? It reminds us of our evolution. In one book, everybody can change. In 300 pages, every character that you've met has become a new character by the end.

36:06And so what might you do in 30 days, let alone 30 years? This is incredible. You get a snapshot of your potential every time you read a novel. That, I think, is what the beauty is. And I wish more men tapped into it, right? I wish more men tapped. I'm so tired of people quoting me the 48 Laws of Power or whatever it is. I'm so tired of that. It's like, bro, we're not going to war. Why are you trying to strategize about how to get over? I'm trying to figure out how to get you to love yourself. And what in these books are going to teach you that?

36:39You say you want to win a war. A war that I'm not always sure we're fighting. Who are you fighting other than you? When you're going to determine that part? When you're going to realize all these women around you love you? When you're going to figure out that your children love you? When you're going to figure out that not everybody's out to get you? Novels, fiction is what shows us all of that. And also, too, I think about the scale of fiction. Very often puts you in not just another person's shoes or in their mind,

37:09but it puts you in their heart. And, I mean, I read, what was it, Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. Yeah, a masterpiece. I can't even start to, I literally will start crying if I start talking about the book. A masterpiece. A masterpiece. I got to the end of the book, and I literally was just sitting in silence in the middle of the night because I was just like, well, since I've been living in post-war Korea with my family for the past five days that I've been reading this book, I felt like these people were my kin.

37:42I felt like they were my blood. And I felt like we had gone on this journey together. I feel like fiction puts me back in touch with just how much I don't know, but also just how much about being a person is like a shared experience.

38:00And you don't get the opportunity to do that so regularly and so closely, I feel like. It's just reminders of, exactly, like you say, what you don't know. But it's also a reminder of what you inherently know, right? What we all inherently know as human beings. Because there's never been anything in a book that I've read where I haven't been able to connect, where I haven't been able to find. Even if the details of the plot are so far away from what my realities are, I know what it is to have a mother. I know what it is to lose my father.

38:32I know what it is to have brotherhood that's strained and siblinghood that's strained. I know what it is to feel the weight of family pressure. I know what it, right? Like, I know heartbreak. These are things that we can find in books about Korea or Vietnam or Senegal or New York City. Like, it doesn't matter if you know the details. The human experience and the human condition is something that we all inherently know.

A mother and past lives

38:59I got one last question I ask you. We ask it sometimes at the top of some interviews. What is the most unhinged thing that you sincerely believe? Oof. That's a good one. What's the most unhinged thing that I sincerely believe? There are no wrong answers. That I, and I believe it because my mama told me this when I was a kid. So it's in me because it was taught to me that my mother and I have spent many, many, many, many lives together.

39:32And this is our last. And apparently in these lives, according to my mother, we serve different purposes in each other's lives. We've been, you know, we've held different roles from parental to siblinghood to fandom to, you know, marital to all these different sort of configurations of our relationship. And according to her, apparently this is our final cycle. And I have to say, Brittany, it feels like the culmination of something.

40:05My mother is now 80 years old and I've been caring for her for some time now. And I can't pretend like it doesn't feel like, like we're nearing a finish line that has been, you know, very far away for a very long time. Like, like there's like a, there's a swelling to this moment. It doesn't feel scary or any of that. It feels like all the instruments are about to play. Wow.

40:35You know, and I think that, that one I think would have to be it. It's a beautiful answer. You have stunned me. Jason, as usual, you said it all. You said it all. You said it all. I am so grateful to have had you on this show. I am so sorry it took me so long to have you on, but I appreciate you being so generous with your time. And thank you so much. I really enjoyed this. Thank you. Thank you. It's good to see, you know, I'm doing everything you're doing. So I'm just happy. I'm a fan of you too. You, you also won that list. You know what I mean? That was author Jason Reynolds.

41:06And all of you watching, thank you so much for hanging out with us. Make sure to come back to this feed every Tuesday for a fresh video episode.

41:16This episode was produced by Alexis Williams. The video version was edited by Maya Dangerfield and Pablo Valdivia. It was edited by Nick Michael and Nina Patak. Our executive producer is Barton Girdwood. Our VP of programming is Yolanda Sanguene. Here we lo Learned. Our VP of programming is Yolandaكر. Here we go.

41:32Thank you. Thank you. Our VP of programming is Yolanda someone. Bye bye. We live. Drive home. Bye bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye bye. Bye bye bye. Bye bye tears. Bye bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye bye bye my bye back. Bye bye bye bye. Bye bye bye. Bye bye bye bye. Bye bye bye bye bye bye byelam dear ugh gender.