On Today's Show "It's practice. Vulnerability is practice. It is learning that you can do things and say things that seem scary, but ultimately know that you're safe.” - Mark Oshiro Mark Oshiro was taught to fear the world. To be someone they were not and to repress someone they were. But books were an escape. Books taught them that freedom was possible. Mark spent over a decade blogging about the stories they consumed, empathizing with characters, criticizing choices, and embracing every person...
Jan 10, 2024•41 min•Ep. 35
With the 2023 year coming to a close (our first full year in production!), we wanted to celebrate. And what better way to do that than high school yearbook superlative style? Welcome to a special edition of The Reading Culture podcast – "The Reading Culture: Yearbook." In this episode, we're rolling out the red carpet to unveil "The Readies," an award show of sorts, to remember the standout moments and stories from the show this year. Yes, it's a clip show. We'll relive the "Most Hilarious Admis...
Dec 26, 2023•30 min•Ep. 34
"It's not like I haven't experienced pain or tragedy or grief in my life, and it's not like I want to deny that. I don't think that that's the entirety of my song. When I want to look back on my life, I want to look at all the amazing things and experiences I had because that's what makes the time we have in this world so incredibly special, is that we have these connections, we have these experiences with people.” - Oge Mora Life is full of small pleasures, bits of magic in ordinary moments tha...
Dec 12, 2023•37 min•Ep. 33
"There's these universal truths [...] specific details, but universal feelings and universal experiences that people hopefully can relate to. And that's what I go for in all of my books. Common humanity.” - Hena Khan Hena Khan didn’t believe her perspective mattered. As a Pakistani-American Muslim, she grew up not seeing her or her family reflected in the media she was consuming. As any kid might do, she concluded that it was simply because her experience was not important, a realization that be...
Nov 28, 2023•41 min•Ep. 32
"Don't follow your dreams if that's the only thing you're doing. Ask yourself, what will make you most useful? What will make you most, in terms of a purpose, help you do meaningful work?” - Daniel Nayeri You want Daniel Nayeri at your dinner party. Always with a story or an insightful question, it turns out he is also the person you want on your podcast! The Iranian-American author of the Printz Award-winning “Everything Sad is Untrue,” and the more recent “The Many Assassinations of Samir, Sel...
Nov 14, 2023•37 min•Ep. 31
We revisit our Halloween special episode with Lamar Giles. ****** On Today's Show "The fear is like the ramp on the roller coaster. It's that build-up of adrenaline intention that you're having in that moment when that roller coaster is cranking. It's not the same fear of you walking through a dark alley at night and you sense someone's behind you in real life. That's a different type of fear that I don't know that anybody really wants. This is controlled fear. This is me going into it saying, O...
Oct 31, 2023•30 min•Ep. 30
On Today's Show "It (TV) was my junk food, but also it was my in with the kids to be able to talk about pop culture, to know all the little nuances and jokes about the cultural zeitgeist things.” - Dan Santat Media and stories around us around us are more than just entertainment. They provide a common space, a piece of the world around us that connects us to others. We learn from these stories, shape our own views and ideas, and listen to and share these ideas with others. Dan Santat, a son of T...
Oct 17, 2023•37 min•Ep. 29
On Today's Show "I think that has a lot to do with why I was so interested in writing for children. It's like, I was trying to heal. I was trying to heal my childhood experiences through writing, through these characters.” - Kacen Callender Just as books provide readers with a space to learn, see themselves, reflect, and cope with their inner thoughts, writing has served as a means for Kacen Callender to process and heal from their own trauma. Throughout their writing journey, Kacen has traverse...
Oct 03, 2023•38 min•Ep. 28
On Today's Show "I'm just being real. I'm telling my story. I think Nikki Giovanni calls it dancing naked on the floor. I am unafraid and I'm doing my dance… I don't feel like I can go wrong if I'm just being me.” - Kwame Alexander Exciting reluctant middle school kids about reading (or really, anything) can be a battle. Getting them to think reading is cool is another. Kwame Alexander excels at both. His ability to authentically relate to his readers is a skill around which he has built his car...
Sep 19, 2023•36 min•Ep. 27
On Today's Show "I think it comes down to caring about the characters. When you care about the characters, you care about the world that they live in.” - Neal Shusterman When Neal Shusterman was in college, he was told to stop building worlds and start building characters. He listened. And from then on, his worlds became more magical and deep than ever before, because, as he says, when you care about characters, you care about the world they live in. Neal’s career has revolved around incredible ...
Sep 05, 2023•34 min•Ep. 26
On Today's Show "That's still my trick too, never tell them how they're feeling. Never begin to even show how they're feeling. They'll get it anyway. You're describing negative space and the negative space you can't even get at.” - Jon Klassen Where there is empty space, our brains will fill in the blanks, and often, the way in which we personally fill those blank spaces is far more potent than anything that can be written in words or shown in an image. That’s why despite being gifted in both il...
Aug 22, 2023•39 min•Ep. 25
Grace Lin (The Year of the Dog, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon) shares her thoughts on the value art provides to those who experience it and those who create it, and how it contributes to getting us in touch with our own humanity. **** On Today's Show "Maybe if they haven't been in that situation, they know someone who has, or they have friends who have really struggled with losing loved ones. That all helps build empathy." - Karina Yan Glaser Karina Yan Glaser is always emotionally honest in...
Aug 08, 2023•36 min•Ep. 24
We revisit our episode with Renée Watson. **** On Today's Show "There's just something about literally raising your voice and letting these words come out of you. That's powerful." - Renée Watson Maya Angelou was mute for six years. After a traumatizing childhood experience, the famous poet and activist retreated inward and lost her voice. In Renée Watson's kid-friendly but unflinching retelling of her story in "Maya's Song", Watson shows how poetry was the means to Maya finding her voice and go...
Jul 25, 2023•36 min•Ep. 23
Exciting news! We are hosting a big summer reading giveaway in which you can choose any three titles by any three authors who have been on our podcast. Three books each for three winners. The magic number really is three, y’all! We will select our three winners on August 11, so make sure that you have done a few things to get maximum entries! Follow The Reading Culture pod on Instagram Comment on our post about this giveaway Subscribe to our newsletter at thereadingculturepod.com/newsletter...
Jul 24, 2023•1 min•Ep. 25
On Today's Show "For me, in the fiction, it is so much about keeping that continuum going, that someone's going to come along after me and tell a story that's connected to the story that I've told. I'm telling the story that's connected to the writers and the relatives who came before me.” - Jacqueline Woodson Jacqueline Woodson was born a watcher. An observer. Even as a young girl, she recognized that our stories are part of an enduring legacy that stretches far before and beyond our own lifeti...
Jul 11, 2023•42 min•Ep. 22
On Today's Show "Kids are growing up in an interesting time and they're led to believe that if we don't feel happy, we're doing something wrong. I think what I respond to is a deeper truth, which is, happiness is incredible and we should strive for it, but we should also acknowledge that half of our life is challenging or melancholy." - Matt de la Peña Hailing from a working class border town in Southern California, Matt de la Peña (Last Stop on Market Street, Mexican WhiteBoy, Milo Imagines the...
Jun 27, 2023•40 min•Ep. 21
On Today's Show "This is happening in our world and at the very least you can bear witness to it. That's literally the absolute least you can do. - Sabaa Tahir Sabaa Tahir’s (“All My Rage,” “An Ember in the Ashes” quartet) upbringing in the Mojave desert, isolated nearly 100 miles from the nearest city, exposed her to an unforgiving landscape and also many unforgiving truths of humanity. Within this backdrop, one place held significant importance in shaping her worldview: The Motel, a small busi...
Jun 13, 2023•43 min•Ep. 20
On Today's Show "I think there's recognition that publishing is better the more voices are heard, and the more diverse those rooms can be as well –that it's not just a matter of changing the skin tone of a character, it's that culture is all these things that are seen and unseen, and it's in your world building. " - Angeline Boulley Angeline Boulley was born into story-telling people. As a member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, she was first introduced to the art through gener...
May 30, 2023•39 min•Ep. 19
In This Episode "It is through these books and through this work that I'm doing that I hope that I can be a worthy companion of [children's] journeys, because they have a lot of journeys to go through, and there is nothing more difficult than going through those journeys alone." - Yuyi Morales Growing up in Mexico in the 60s and 70s, Yuyi Morales wasn’t familiar with children’s books. Instead, she was surrounded by a family of vibrant storytellers, and a mother whose creative side was brought ou...
May 16, 2023•40 min•Ep. 18
On Today's Show “If you write about the world as it is, there's too much of a danger of it just feeding into our assumption that everything that we live with is right and normal. Whereas if you start to say, well wait, let's project this into the future, or let's see where this comes from in the past, suddenly it opens up a whole new vista about what the present is doing. " - M.T. Anderson M.T. Anderson's home in small-town Vermont is rumored to be haunted and he relishes the ghost stories told ...
May 02, 2023•39 min•Ep. 17
Creators & Guests Jordan Lloyd Bookey - Host Shadra Strickland - Guest On Today's Show “I remember everything was so shiny. Like the way that Pat illustrated that book, everything glistened, and main characters were Black and that was really cool for me. It was so colorful. I just wanted to live in that world.” - Shadra Strickland on “Clouds” by Pat Cummings One of Shadra Strickland’s earliest memories is drawing underneath her grandma’s table. From a young age, she had a visual, creative mi...
Apr 18, 2023•38 min•Ep. 16
On Today's Show "I think there's so much you can do. It's so rich because you have words, you have pictures. Sometimes they say the same things, sometimes they say opposite things. There's such an interplay between the two that I feel like there's so many possibilities. " - Victoria Jamieson Victoria Jamieson was always an introverted child, but a move across states in middle school pushed her further inward and made her grasp for familiarity. She quickly found comfort in the local library after...
Apr 04, 2023•40 min•Ep. 15
On Today's Show "A lot of my books have characters who are lonely, who are trying to figure out their way, who don't feel seen in the world, who don't know how to use their voice. I want to write books for those kids because I want a safe way for them to navigate all that stuff. " - Erin Entrada Kelly As an introvert battling depression and bullying, it was easy for Erin Entrada Kelly to feel overlooked by those around her, but she found her place in reading and finding uniquely relatable charac...
Mar 21, 2023•37 min•Ep. 14
On Today's Show "I go to the locations in the books when I can, and I go there and I scout them the same way I scouted them when I was shooting documentaries. I'll just kind of walk around the same way I did for years producing television to really figure out the best way to take advantage of a location. " - James Ponti As a child, James Ponti was not a reader. Instead, he discovered an interest in storytelling through film. James’ mother’s own love for movies, coupled with her artistic career p...
Mar 07, 2023•35 min•Ep. 13
On Today's Show The author of the “Prophecy” trilogy and “Spirit Hunters” series and the founder of We Need Diverse Books , Ellen Oh is equal parts no-nonsense and hilarious truth-teller. "We all know the importance of representation in books and how life-affirming it can be for those who are historically underrepresented. Books are powerful. There's a reason for all this book banning. Books are more important than ever.” - Ellen Oh Ellen Oh learned early on that she would have to fight against ...
Feb 21, 2023•42 min•Ep. 12
On Today's Show " When I sat down and I decided I wanted to start writing, what I started writing was something that bothered me." - Nic Stone After Nic Stone graduated college, she went on a trip to Bethlehem in Israel to connect with the story behind her faith. But instead of a religious experience, she found herself moved by the stories of the people who live in the city in the present day. Stories that she decided also needed telling. In this episode, Nic joins us to share more about how she...
Feb 07, 2023•37 min•Ep. 11
On Today's Show " Creating something is not just for people to view, but it's for the creator. It's that idea that when you create, it puts you more in touch with your humanity and that being in touch with your humanity is what you are giving through your artwork. " - Grace Lin For Grace Lin, the value in literature comes from its ability to allow you to understand other humans and get in touch with your own humanity. But this value isn't just from reading. As a writer, she recognizes the change...
Jan 24, 2023•37 min•Ep. 10
On Today's Show "The world is so complex, right? No theory that anyone has can be accurate because the only accurate model of the world is the world. There are too many complexities. ... And so what literature does is it catalogues the unique and particular truths of the world and a really great writer, a Jane Austin, Chekhov, Kate DiCamillo, will take one of those truths and reveal it to you in a narrative way that's just so deeply satisfying." - Adam Gidwitz As a young adult, Adam Gidwitz was ...
Jan 10, 2023•36 min•Ep. 9
On Today's Show "I feel like writers, especially who are wordsmiths, who can name things, tricky things in clear ways ... should be where we put our efforts. Really creating an offensive, an offense in this campaign to win the hearts back." - Meg Medina Meg Medina's passion for telling stories goes back as far as she can remember. Crafting words into lessons and engaging experiences has always been her calling, but it took her a few careers to fully dive in. Now, she's a Newbery Award-winning ch...
Dec 27, 2022•38 min•Ep. 8
On Today's Show "If I've done my job right and put my heart and my fears and my questions on the page, if I've told a story right and well, the reader can be aware of me asking those questions, worrying those worries, putting my heart there, and then it's a place for both of us to be together. And it makes you feel less alone as a kid." - Kate DiCamillo Kate DiCamillo's stories take us to the dark parts of the world and back again. And once we get back, we realize that even in the darkest moment...
Dec 13, 2022•43 min•Ep. 7
