Replacing the Chalkboard: Walter Dean Myers: Author

He is one of the most prolific authors of our time. Since the late sixties he has written 90 books, 85 of which have been published. His writing has won many awards and garnered him plenty of recognition, some good and some better. This post will take a look at the author of Monster, our class reading, Walter Dean Myers.

Bio: He was born in West Virginia in 1937 as Walter Milton Myers and somehow ended up in the care of Herbert and Florence Dean in Harlem. To this day he has no clue as to why he was given up but he does know that his adopted parents loved him very much.

Throughout his education he did not do very well academically but played basketball. When he was in high school one of his teachers noticed that Walter liked to write and she told him to always write no matter what happened to him.

She said, "It's what you do."

Later he dropped out of high school, though Stuyvesant High holds him as a graduate, and joined the army at the age of 17.

Much later, while working construction in New York he remembered the words of his high school teacher. "I began writing at night and eventually began writing about the most difficult period of my own life, the teen years. That's what I do." -Walter Dean Myers

Awards: Myers published his first novel, Where Does the Day Go?, in 1969 and has published 85 works over his forty year career.

During that time he has earned many awards in youth literature including several Coretta Scott-King awards and honors, a Michael L. Printz award, Newberry Honors, National Book Awards, and a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor.

He also received the Margaret A. Edwards Award for "lifetime contribution to young adult literature" in 1994 and the Coretta Scott-King Virginia Hamilton Lifetime Achievement award.

Challenges and Bans: Almost as important as the awards is the attention that the books get once published. Myers's books have not only received critical acclaim but have also stimulated knee-jerk reactions from people who do judge the book by its cover. His three most contested books are:

1: Fallen Angels (2008) is the story of a 17 year old boy who enlists in the Army to fight in the Vietnam War.

2: Hoops (1989) follows a basketball player facing the championship. He's a talented athlete but gets into fights.

3: Monster (2001) is narrated by a young boy in the middle of a trial regarding his role in a robbery/murder.

Walter Dean Myers's words on the subject of censorship: "I think its silly. People don't understand that by withholding information from people, you hurt them. You're not helping them."

Reading:

Myers believes that reading is very important and he talks about it in this video.