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Walter Dean Myers Biography

Walter Dean Myers

Walter Dean Myers (born Walter Milton Myers; August 12, 1937 – July 1, 2014) was an American writer of children's books best known for young adult literature. He wrote more than one hundred books including picture books and nonfiction. He won the Coretta Scott King Award for African-American authors five times. His 1988 novel Fallen Angels is one of the books most frequently challenged in the U.S. because of its adult language and its realistic depiction of the Vietnam War.

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Walter Dean Myers Quotes

We’re suggesting that [kids are] missing something if they don’t read but, actually, we’re condemning kids to a lesser life. If you had a sick patient, you would not try to entice them to take their medicine. You would tell them, ‘Take this or you’re going to die. ’ We need to tell kids flat out: reading is not optional.

Die, Kids, Medicine, Read, Reading

People told me to give up trying to be special and settle down to a regular life. There ain't nothing wrong with a regular life, and that's the Lord's truth. . . but it wasn't for me, because I wanted to be something special. I knew how easy it was for a dream to die. I seen that all around me. You could let it die by just looking the other way.

Dream, Giving Up, People, Settle, Special

My dad was a janitor for U. S. Radium Corporation, and he stayed there for 37 years. So he didn't read.

Dad, Years, Corporations, Stayed, Corporation, Radium

Looks to me like you've been making garbage for a while and dragging it with you. Now you need to get out of here, and that garbage is weighing you down.

Down, Dragging, Garbage, Looks, Making, Needs

As a young man, I saw families prosper without reading because there were always sufficient opportunities for willing workers who could follow simple instructions. This is no longer the case. Children who don't read are, in the main, destined for lesser lives. I feel a deep sense of responsibility to change this.

Change, Children, Longer, Prosper, Reading, Responsibility

As a kid I didn't see black cowboys on the screen. What that said to me was that there were things I couldn't do or be because of my color. What we see others like us do gives us permission to expand our own horizons.

Color, Cowboy, Cowboys, Kids, Said, Screen

My life is not packaged, Not tidy. There are leftover strands and jagged Edges that cut even my friends.

Cut, Cutting, Edges, Jagged Edge, Life Is, Packaged

I talk to myself out loud at times, and feel embarrassed when people overhear me.

People, Loud, Embarrassed, Overhear

I write in a small office at home.

Home, Office, Small, Writing

But now, like a fallen sparrow On a golden chain, I'm forever bound in shadow, A prisoner to my pain.

Chain, Forever, Pain, Shadow, Sparrow

The movie is more real in so many ways than the life I am leading. No, that’s not true. I just desperately wish this was only a movie.

Desperately, Leading, Real, Way, Wish

What I found fascinating was just how quickly the best of the young Negro League players were drafted into the major leagues once Branch Rickey broke the color line by hiring Jackie Robinson. It was clear that all of the major league owners already knew the talents of the black ballplayers that they had refused to let into their league.

Color, Drafted, League, Line, Player, Talents

Each time I think there is no place lower to go, I find that there is at least one place that will mess you up worse than you were.

Thinking, Mess, Time, Think, Worse, Place

Yes, she is the fruit that will Sustain me and yes, she brings A rain that I know can chill But it is a rain so sweet and sings A song my soul insists That I follow, if I would exist As more than I have ever, ever been If my mother calls it evil, then I embrace the sin

Mother, Song, Soul, Sweet, Yes

I admired the work ethic of the cowboys I read about. The idea of these young people taking on this much responsibility was impressive. I would like modern readers to have an appreciation of this.

Appreciation, Cowboy, Cowboys, Like, Modern, Responsibility

We all know we should eat right and we should exercise, but reading is treated as if it's this wonderful adjunct.

Adjunct, Eat, Exercise, Reading, Treated, Wonderful

One of the lessons learned during the Vietnam War was that the depiction of wounded soldiers, of coffins stacked higher than their living guards, had a negative effect on the viewing public. The military in Iraq specifically banned the photographing of wounded soldiers and coffins, thus sanitizing this terrible and bloody conflict.

Iraq, Military, Negative, Soldiers, Vietnam, War

And I see the - you know, when I go to the juvenile detention centers and prisons, I see people who can't read now. And I know that when they leave those prisons and those detention centers, they're not going to be able to make it in our society.

Able, Detention, Know, Our Society, People, Read

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.

Book, Found, Teacher, Tore, Upset

It is this language of values which I hope to bring to my books. . . . I want to bring values to those who have not been valued, and I want to etch those values in terms of the ideal. Young people need ideals which identify them, and their lives, as central. . . guideposts which tell them what they can be, should be, and indeed are.

Book, Ideals, Lives, Needs, People, Values

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