Book by Book: Award-winning author Kwame Alexander
Seira Wilson | September 24, 2024
Kwame Alexander has won multiple awards for his children’s books and been a regular on our Amazon Editors’ Best Children’s Books of the Month lists (including September for the wonderful middle grade novel, Black Star) since his breakout book, The Crossover. Here, he talks about what it took to get that book—which won the Newbery Medal—published, his favorite book, and more. My breakout book
Twenty years after I’d self-published my first book, I wrote a novel called The Crossover. It took me five years to finish it and I received over twenty-three rejections. I even had one agent tell me he submitted the book to several publishers when in fact he didn’t. His reasoning: “You don’t want your career defined by poetry.” Yes, I’d written a novel in verse. About basketball. When I finally gave up and decided to publish it myself, I got two last second offers from publishers. A year later the book was published by Houghton Mifflin. A year after that it won the biggest award in children’s literature, the Newbery Medal, and hit the New York Times best sellers list. And just like that, my life changed. I was a twenty-year overnight success. —Kwame Alexander
My favorite book
When my daughter was a newborn, I would play Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong and Miles Davis to get her to stop crying. And it worked. I thought that since I was introducing her to jazz, I should also teach her about what she was listening to. So, I wrote her a story about a rooster that starts a jazz band with Duck Ellington and Mules Davis. That story became my first children’s book. That children’s book became a musical, and get this, a cartoon that’s debuting on PBS in 2025. So yeah, this is my first, and my fave. Ya dig? —Kwame Alexander
My most recent book
A fifth grader wrote me a letter telling me how much she loved my books but there was one problem: None of my books featured a female main character. Black Star, which is the sequel to the best novel I’ve ever written, The Door of No Return, is about a young girl named Charlene (but don’t call her that, she prefers Charley) growing up in the American South of the 1920s who is on a journey to becoming the first female professional baseball pitcher when a decision she makes on the field brings a consequence that changes her family forever. —Kwame Alexander My shortest book
I was at a farmer’s market selling copies of Acoustic Rooster, and saw a painting of two frogs with very big eyes. Week after week, I’d see the same painting—no one ever bought it—just staring at me. So, I gave them names, and I imagined them as surfers. Before I knew it, I had a whole story in my head about them. So, I bought the painting, went home and wrote the story down, and it was maybe fifty or sixty words. Years later, after I’d won the Newbery Medal and publishers were more open to my ideas, I published Surf’s Up about two frogs, Bro and Dude, on their way to the beach, but one of them gets distracted by an unputdownable book. Also, the funnest (is that a word) book I’ve ever written. —Kwame Alexander My longest to write book
With all the successes I’ve had these past ten years, I found myself unhappy. I was living in London, and I’d gone for a walk one day in Regents Park and it hit me. My Mom had passed. My marriage was falling apart. Covid. My world was crumbling inside. So, I wrote. And wrote. And, before I knew it I was writing a memoir. About me. About love. And I couldn’t just make up a story because this wasn’t fiction. And, I couldn’t just hide behind the metaphor of a poem. This was about me being vulnerable and authentic about everything I was feeling and not feeling. So, while it took me a few years to write it, the truth is I’d been writing it my whole life. And, putting it down on paper was the hardest thing I’d ever done. Being on the other side of it now, I can say it was the best thing I’ve ever written (though my father says I say that about every book). —Kwame Alexander
Author photo credit: Rowan Daly
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