Walter Dean Myers Children Quotations

Within the black community, roughly 60 percent of children are born to single moms. Moms don't have the emotional wherewithal to deal with their children. Their English is atrocious. Their speaking is atrocious. The dropout rate is horrendous.

I am very much interested in getting parents to read to children, and trying to get people mentoring children. If I can do both I'll be happy.

Children have adopted a consumerist attitude - I dare you to entertain me.

As a child I wanted to be a professional athlete or lawyer.

Fifty percent of all meaningful education takes place in the home. What do you share with your child? You share your interests. I was a book person. I read with my son. My wife is an artist. She dragged his little butt around to museums. He's an illustrator of children's books.

As a young man, I saw families prosper without reading because there were always sufficient opportunities for willing workers who could follow simple instructions. This is no longer the case. Children who don't read are, in the main, destined for lesser lives. I feel a deep sense of responsibility to change this.

I had seen the ballet of Swan Lake as a child but it was as an adult, when I saw a production featuring Erik Bruhn, that I first noticed how significant a part the ever-present threat of violence played. This juxtaposition of great beauty and grace with a backdrop of pure evil stayed with me for years.

There have been two areas identified as being vital to reading - and that's for very young children between the ages of one month and five years and for teenagers. I've been trying to find ways of approaching both groups.

People still try to sell books that way - as 'books can take you to foreign lands.' We've given children this idea that reading and books are a nice option, if you want that kind of thing. I hope we can get over that idea.

Thinking back to boyhood days, I remember the bright sun on Harlem streets, the easy rhythms of black and brown bodies, the sounds of children streaming in and out of red brick tenements.

Books transmit values. They explore our common humanity. What is the message when some children are not represented in those books?