This is also a book that says ‘we got you.’ You can tell us what you’re going through. conversations that are honest and open and allow young people to ask questions and share. So we have to begin to have conversations in our communities. We have to be able to inform our young people, and to educate them about something that impacts so many, not just girls, but transgender and boys. We live in an era where about 40% of trafficking victims are Black women. This book deals with the notion of that second chance. Society as a whole is less willing to be there to catch them and be their safety net. We have less empathy for them, and we have less compassion for them. Studies show that Black girls are considered less innocent and more adult-like than white girls - they’re sexualized more than other girls.

For me, in terms of Floyd, I felt like I had dealt with some of that.Ī: I think redemption and healing is a big part of this book. My community doesn’t understand me, but this is what my mama and my daddy said about me. Physics is just a breeze, so it bothered me last week when you said I should be happy with that C.” That goes for him saying as my teacher, you don’t understand me. I haven’t written about George Floyd but I remember I wrote “You Don’t Even Know Me: Stories and Poems About Boys,” years ago and the lead poem of that book is about a Black boy saying: ‘I sit in your class I play by the rules I’m young I’m fly I’m Black. I was allowed to be who I was on the page. I said it in the way that I write, and I thank God that I had professors who allowed me to stand in that space. We’re still having those same conversations. Because from the first time I started writing, even in college, I was saying Black Lives Matter. How did both of those influence “The Life I’m In?”Ī: Perhaps not in the ways that you might think. Q: The last time we talked for the 20th anniversary of “The Skin I’m In,” it was 2018 and before George Floyd, before the pandemic.

I wanted them to know that those characters were still living and breathing and growing as you are. I was also writing it for people who have grown up on the earlier novel, and wanted to know what happened next. When I wrote this book (“The Life I’m In”) I was writing it for teens who are 14, teens who have read “The Skin I’m In” and ready for this book. And your auntie read this book and it’s been read and taught all over the country. I want to hold up “The Skin I’m In” and say you’re reading this book. Q: Who is the audience for this book? “The Skin I’m In” fans?Ī: I was looking for you all.

The Skin I'm In by Sharon G. Flake