I take great pride in being able to carry the torch forward for young readers today and for the foreseeable future.Īlready have a copy? If you love it, please leave a review on Amazon and GoodReads. It is such a thrill to walk into a bookstore and see my name on a book, or visit a classroom or book fair and learn that my stories resonate with readers of all ages.
Representation matters as much now as it did when I was child. That was a turning point for me as a reader and writer, seeing young characters who looked like me, and had families who looked like mine, on the page. Sadly, it wasn’t until I was a pre-teen that a family friend gifted me my first YA novel written by a Black author, featuring a Black family: Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Writing for young readers is a natural outgrowth of my own love for books as a child. And I have been ever since in some form or another.Īs an only child and social introvert, I was raised on a healthy diet of library books, gravitating always to books of poetry and stacks of Judy Blume novels and Nancy Drew mysteries. Thankfully, my teacher was very supportive of what I shared and when a classmate accused me of plagiarizing the poem from a book, I felt empowered to keep “playing” with words. Everything I wrote at that time was in rhyme.
I discovered poetry submissions of other children in the back of a Highlights magazine in my dentist’s office and thought I’d give it a try too. I started writing poetry when I was seven years old. Kaija Langley writes books for young readers and lives in Cambridge, MA
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