![]() Some African-Americans struggled with it: It's a powerful book that details racism, extreme poverty and brutal violence. Myers also discovered Richard Wright, whose memoir, Black Boy, told of a troubled childhood in Natchez, Miss. "He didn't look to me like a writer because he wasn't white," remembers Myers, now 70 years old. ![]() Then one day in the 1950s, he met Langston Hughes in Harlem. The only problem was that all the authors Myers read in school were white and British. But he was also bookish, and he knew he wanted to be a writer. He got into his share of fights and run-ins with the law. He was tall, with a speech impediment that elicited teasing. ![]() Growing up, Myers lived with his adopted family in Harlem, not far from this Bronx detention center. Myers' books tell stories that many in the audience are all too familiar with - stories about being insecure for lack of a dad, being scared to walk in your neighborhood, being viewed as a criminal monster. Though the audience members walk in wearing prison jumpsuits and sit slumped in their chairs, don't be fooled by the attitude: These kids have read some of Myers' dozens of books and are here because they want to meet the author. Myers amassed a collection of aviation photographs while preparing to write The Brown Condor, the story of a pilot in the Italian-Ethiopian conflict of 1935.Īuthor Walter Dean Myers meets some of his young fans in a classroom at a juvenile detention center in the South Bronx. ![]()
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