The New York Times #1 bestselling author Renée Watson got her inspiration for her series in high school The Ryan Hart books, from a variety of sources, including the young people she worked with as a creative writing teacher and mentor, Beverly Cleary’s headstrong protagonist Ramona Quimby, and Watson’s own godson. “One day she was playing and cooking, coming up with recipes and making me taste all these fake dishes she was making,” Watson, 45, recalls to PEOPLE. “And I loved her joy. I loved her sweetness and just being a little girl who can play and love her little sister… I thought a lot about her and wanted her to have a book.” These books are now favorites among young readers and have been recommended by book lovers like Jenna Bush Hager. The last book in Ryan Hart series, Ways of building dreamsis available today from Bloomsbury Publishing.
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“It’s bittersweet,” Watson says of the show’s end. “I think a lot [on] which meant publishing a book about joy and perseverance, and being intentional about creating sunshine in the midst of everything we’ve been through in these last three, four years.”
‘Ways to Build Dreams’ by Renée Watson.
Bloomsbury Publishing
Watson, whose books have sold more than a million copies, writes across genres and topics for young readers. Her novel for young adults from 2017 Piecing Me Together received a Newbery Honor and a Coretta Scott King Author Award and her other titles, including a picture book Project 1619: Born on water and fictional biography Betty Before X, written in collaboration with Malcom X and Betty Shabazz’s daughter Ilyasah Shabazz, they depict prominent moments and figures in black history.
“I want to share stories, and however they come to me, that’s how I want to give them to the world,” says Watson. “Sometimes it comes as a picture book, and sometimes as a novel.” She also considers poetry her “first love”; writers like Nikki Giovanni, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Langston Hughes, among others, inspired her and the poems she would write in her journals as she grew up.
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Watson published the first book in Ryan Hart series, Ways to create the sun2020. After completing the book tour for Piecing Me Togetherthe author, also influenced by the conversations she had with educators, parents and readers, wanted to write a story about how “a little black girl could just play, and have fun, and be in her own skin without an apology or explanation.”
In the four books of the series, Ryan faces various childhood obstacles: his first time at sleep-away camp, dealing with teasing by his classmates, and performing in a fourth-grade talent show. The stories are also cemented in family love. Each book, for example, contains a moment in which her grandmother does Ryan’s hair – scenes that particularly struck the author while she was writing. “Those are the scenes that are so meaningful in every book, where Grandma gives some kind of wisdom for Ryan, helping her process what’s going on in her life,” says Watson.
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Renee Watson.
Shawnta Sims
Watson also notes that Ryan taught her to allow characters to “be flawed and normal and human,” and to exist beyond just a message for readers. It’s a theme she wants to see extend beyond her books. “Having dark-skinned black girls with natural hair on the cover is pretty revolutionary in children’s literature,” says Watson. “I just want more nuanced stories. We deserve to be in every genre, not just realistic fiction…we deserve love stories and thrillers, mysteries, all of it. We are multifaceted people, so I want to see all kinds of stories written about us.”
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Watson, who is also a teaching artist and founder of the collective I, Too Arts, has no plans to stop writing after Ryan Hart the series ends. She will soon publish a new novel for high school students, as well as a picture book coming out in 2024 about a young girl enjoying the first day of summer. The author’s aspirations for her readers will certainly follow these stories.
“I’m thinking how [I can] we hope that it will inspire them, encourage them, encourage them to go beyond what we have already done with this world and continue to make it better,” she says. “All this is with me while I write.”Ways of building dreams it is now available where books are sold.
Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education