Jason Reynolds
When I Was the Greatest, published in 2014, was Jason Reynolds's debut novel and won the John Steptoe Award for New Talent.
Reynolds was born on December 6, 1983, in Washington, D.C., and was raised in Oxon Hill, Maryland. He attended Bishop McNamara High School before going on to study within the University System of Maryland. His path toward writing was shaped in part by an early focus on poetry and by an engagement with rap as a source of inspiration. A citizen of the United States, Reynolds works in English as a poet, novelist, and children's and young adult author, writing across both novels and poetry for young adult and middle grade audiences.
Reynolds has received recognition across a range of awards throughout his career. He was named a recipient of the MacArthur Fellows Program and has received the Carnegie Medal, the Coretta Scott King Award, the Premio Letteratura Ragazzi di Cento, the Edgar Awards, and a Newbery Honor. His debut novel's recognition with the John Steptoe Award for New Talent provided an early marker of his standing as a writer for younger audiences.
The breadth of awards Reynolds has accumulated — spanning the MacArthur Fellows Program, the Carnegie Medal, and a Newbery Honor, among others — reflects the range of his output as both a poet and a writer of novels for young adult and middle grade readers. His debut, When I Was the Greatest, and its receipt of the John Steptoe Award for New Talent, remains the concrete foundation from which his subsequent work as a writer and poet has extended.
Quotes by Jason Reynolds
Jason Reynolds's insights on:
If a kid is reading a book about someone who looks like them but doesn't talk like them, we stunt their growth by dissing them.
I would go to the store, I would buy cassette tapes, and I would read the liner notes and sort of subconsciously creating the connections between the rappers that I was reading and the poets that they were teaching us in school.
I read 'The Young Landlords' and felt almost a chemical change. What I realized while reading that book was that I could write in my voice, use my tongue, my language, my style, and write a story.
I wanted to be a poet. I fell in love with poetry around eight years old, but not through literature. Instead, it came through hip-hop lyrics and my obsession with reading liner notes. Queen Latifah's 'Black Reign' is the album that stands out the most.
The people who know me do not ask me about the next book or how it's going. They ask, 'Jason, are you sleeping?' because they know my brain will not shut down.
