Author Brendan Kiely speaks on young adult storytelling
‘I want to write books with a listening heart that asks us as we read to open up our listening hearts.’
Author Brendan Kiely speaks on young adult storytelling
New York Times Best-Selling Author Brendan Kiely ’99 shared his experiences and advice with students about young adult storytelling on campus. His visit was a part of the Western College Legacy Seminars.
Kiely is known for “All American Boys” (with Jason Reynolds), “Tradition,” “The Last True Love Story,” and “The Gospel of Winter.”
Kiely explained that the idea for his first book, “The Gospel of Winter,” came from growing up in his hometown of Boston. Coming from an Irish Catholic family, he remembers the reaction of his community after The Boston Globe ran a story on the sexual abuse scandals in the Catholic Church.
“It absolutely destroyed and tore apart my world,” Kiely said. “I recognized how it began to affect so many people in the community I grew up in. I really wanted to tell the story.”
Kiely spoke on his fears of showing his grandmother, who he calls “the matriarch of our Irish Catholic family,” his first book. Her reaction to the “Gospel of Winter” was a reminder of “Solomon asking God for a listening heart.”
It was in those words where Kiely had found his mission as an author.
“I want to write books with a listening heart that asks us as we read to open up our listening hearts,” he said.
On the road for his book tour, Kiely met fellow author Jason Reynolds. Upon spending time together, they became fast friends, but Kiely began to notice the different experiences they would have while traveling. Kiely, who is white, was given easy access to all locations and assumed to be the visiting writer. Reynolds, who is Black, did not have this same experience and was often ignored.
Kiely told his audience that he asked Reynolds if he was mad. Reynolds had replied, “If I got mad every single time something like that happened to me, I’d be mad all day long.”
“We were the living embodiment of what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke about,” Kiely said. “Two Americas living side by side. Two separate realities coexisting in America at the same time.”
Kiely and Reynolds wrote “All American Boys” together and published it in 2016. Kiely described this book as a “race conscious novel” about one white kid and one Black kid who live in the same town. The young Black kid is a victim of police brutality, while the white kid witnesses it and knows the police officer as a longtime father figure.
“All American Boys” won the Walter Dean Myers Award for Outstanding Children's Literature and is a 2016 Coretta Scott King Author Honor book. The book was also banned in many school districts across America. It was the third most banned book in America from 2021-2023.
Kiely’s next two books are also on the list of banned books. “Tradition” is a fiction book that tackles sexual assault and male privilege. “The Other Talk: Reckoning with Our White Privilege” is Kiely’s first non-fiction book and is an introduction to having a conversation for white kids on how to understand their white privilege and their role as an ally in the world.
Kiely commented on banned books in America today. His novels are just three of the 10,000 banned instances in the 2023-2024 school year. Much of the reasoning behind banning “All American Boys” is profanity and underage drinking, but Kiely described it as “a mask for ‘we don’t want to have the conversations in this community.’”
“Why is it a threat to allow people to speak with dignity about their own lives? Why is it a threat for us to write books that reflect those lived experiences?” Kiely said. “I don’t think it should be, and instead I wish and will continue to write books and ask us to open up our listening hearts.”
Kiely closed the evening by offering a glimpse into his next book, “Sole Survivor” co-written with Norman Ollestad, which was published Oct. 28. The book is the true story of Ollestad, who was the only survivor of a plane crash when he was 11 years old.
“Our message to young folks is no matter how insurmountable the odds may seem, or the circumstances of your life may seem, there is always hope,” Kiely said.
