Words matter. These are the best Jewell Parker Rhodes Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
I always wanted to write for children. When I was growing up, we were really poor. My mother had left, and it was all a mess. So I lived in my head a lot, and I would get lots of books for Christmas – from librarians and teachers – and they just fed my imagination.
My mother had abandoned the family, so grandmother raised me. And she was instrumental in that she taught me that the world is a glorious place. She taught me to embrace humanity. And she’d say there’s never an excuse for joy. And to be thankful.
I inhaled books. I loved Classics Illustrated comic books. These were books that I could afford to buy after I turned in pop bottles for change. ‘The Prince and the Pauper,’ ‘Robinson Crusoe,’ ‘A Journey to the Center of the Earth.’ Male narratives filled with adventure and self-discovery.
When a parent says about a book, ‘That’s not my child’s world,’ I remind them of the future. Social fluency will be the new currency of success. Not experiencing diversity challenges our kids’ future in the global work force. It handicaps them from making America and the world more livable and just.
I love historical fiction because there’s a literal truth, and there’s an emotional truth, and what the fiction writer tries to create is that emotional truth.
I would love for there to be a ‘Voodoo Dreams’ movie, especially after seeing the glorious ‘Beasts of the Southern Wild.’ I so admired how the filmmakers captured Louisiana and the magical atmosphere. I cried.
The empathy I found reading ‘Heidi’ and ‘Little Women’ is empathy we have as human beings that can feed all of our souls. We have our differences, but we’re all so similar in our humanness. So those stories about young girls overcoming meant a lot to me and gave me hope.
A grandparent can be simply affirming. A grandparent has been there, done that child-raising stuff, and has the wisdom of experience. And so in some ways, they’re free to love without the anxiety of being the actual parents. They’re free to give.
I grew up feeling ‘less than.’ I was the sad, shy child hiding in the hall closet beneath coats. I’d wait for my grandmother’s voice to call, ‘Jewell, Jewell.’ I was lost, waiting to be found. I thought being found, I’d be happier, better. All the while, I read stories. Stories with both truth and lies.
Diversity in books is a civil rights frontier.
While the books I read as a child lacked diversity in the strict sense, they didn’t lack values. Reading, I didn’t see me externally, but I felt me – my humanity.
I think it’s always natural for children to rebel against their parents and establish their own identity. And also, I think parents get invested in, you know, doing the right thing? And so their anxiety about being good parents might, in a way, affect a relationship negatively.
My grandmother and my upbringing filled me with the spirit of the church and the spirit of the faith brought by Africans to the new land during slavery.
I was born in a ghetto on the North Side of Pittsburgh. I was born as Emmett Till was dying and the civil rights era was being born.
I tried the second season of ‘American Horror Story,’ and it scared me horribly. I guess I prefer my own imagination to a realized visual.
