That’s one thing about the next generation, they never put themselves in a box.

I’m learning to be more open and have more empathy, to evolve. Q: You have a clear message to young people, but conversely what have you learned from them?Ī: I tell them to have a voice, and in telling them that, I’ve found my own voice. If my readers see themselves in him, maybe they can walk away with some kind of hope for their futures. That lit a spark for me to tell Maverick’s story. We would have conversations on the movie set, and him being a Black man there were things he could understand about Maverick that maybe I hadn’t thought about. I have to give credit to Russell Hornsby (the actor who played Maverick in the film “The Hate U Give”). I started wondering the same thing myself. So many people wanted to know how he became the man and the father we see in the movie because we know from the book he once belonged to a gang and sold drugs. I wouldn’t be the writer I am if it weren’t for that.Ī: Maverick is the character in “The Hate U Give” that my readers asked about the most. As someone who’s the product of a neighborhood like Garden Heights, I wanted to show the good that’s there as well. It’s easy to consider all the bad and not the good. Growing up in my neighborhood I heard gunshots regularly, I called them the “birds chirping of the night.” It was a normal part of life for me, but as I got older I realized it wasn’t normal for everybody else.Įven with that, there was so much love in my community, and so many people looked out for us kids.

I talk with them and not to them, and any moments with them fills me as a creator. Q: How’s the Zoom book tour for “Concrete Rose” going?Ī: I miss being on the road and interacting with my young readers, one on one. The author spoke to us from her hometown of Jackson, Miss., and the conversation has been edited for length and clarity. “Everybody knows it it’s one that’s in the news for all the wrong reasons.”

Thomas has just published a brand-new book, “Concrete Rose,” a prequel that tells the coming of age story of Maverick Carter, the father character in “The Hate U Give.” In “Concrete Rose,” he’s a tough 17-year-old involved in a gang who lives in Garden Heights, “a neighborhood that could be anywhere in the world,” Thomas said. They have the ability to change the world, simply by changing the small world that’s right around them,” said Thomas, whose debut was made into a 2018 film and her follow-up is set to film later this year. “I want them to know they have value and a voice, and to use their voice. Novelist Angie Thomas has built a huge readership with her two award-winning, best-selling young adult novels, 2017’s “The Hate U Give” and 2019’s “On The Come Up,” and she has a message for her largely young audience.

Maverick concrete rose