One Word at a Time, His Voice Changes the World
New York Times bestselling author Kwame Alexander, recipient of the 2015 John Newbery Medal for the Most Distinguished Contribution to American Literature for Children, visited Brunswick to speak to Lower and Middle School boys on Wednesday, October 18.
Alexander — who writes using a unique style and voice, with a “mix-tape” of free verse, acrostics, hip-hop poetry, haiku, and prose — performed poetic and musical renditions from a handful of his 24 books, including The Crossover, Brunswick’s seventh-grade summer-reading selection; Booked; Solo; Surf’s Up; and The Playbook: 52 Rules to Aim, Shoot, and Score in This Game Called Life.
He was accompanied on guitar by musician Randy Preston.
Alexander also relived the day he (unwillingly) joined his father, also his school’s headmaster, and hundreds more in a march across the Brooklyn Bridge to protest police brutality. It’s an experience he’ll never forget.
“I remember facing policemen on horses, with dogs and riot gear, in the front of the line, and fearing for my life,” Alexander said.
“And then all of a sudden, people started singing a song — ‘We’re fired up, we can’t take no more. We’re fired up, we can’t take no more.’
“And then all of a sudden, people started singing a song — ‘We’re fired up, we can’t take no more. We’re fired up, we can’t take no more.’
“In that moment, as a 10-year-old boy growing up in Brooklyn during the 1970s and 80s, I found my voice and joined in the singing,” he said. “I realized how important it is to have a voice about something you care about and to raise it for the things you believe in. I decided on that day I wanted to use my voice to change the world, one word at a time.”
Alexander, too, admitted to hating books as a young boy, until reading (by choice) Muhammad Ali’s The Greatest: My Own Story, when he was 14 years old. He couldn’t put it down.
“It wasn’t until then that I found my love of books,” he said. “It’s important for kids to choose their own books sometimes to inspire that passion,” he said.
The award-winning author, educator, and poet concluded his 40-minute presentation with a fitting musical send-off for his Lower and Middle School audiences.
“When I say ‘get,’ you say ‘books.’”
“When I say ‘out of,’ you say ‘wonder.’”
“When I say ‘be a,’ you say ‘star.’”
“When I say ‘thank you,’ you say ‘Brunswick.’”
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