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

Walter Dean Myers

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Walter Dean Myers
Age: 76 †
Born: 1937
Born: August 12
Died: 2014
Died: July 1
Novelist
Writer
Martinsburg
West Virginia
Walter Milton Myers
Books
Common
Values
Transmit
Book
Represented
Children
Explore
Message
Messages
Humanity

More quotes by Walter Dean Myers

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How deep is your game?
Walter Dean Myers
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I read a lot of comic books and any kind of thing I could find. One day, a teacher found me. She grabbed my comic book and tore it up. I was really upset, but then she brought in a pile of books from her own library. That was the best thing that ever happened to me.
Walter Dean Myers
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Wherever your heart rests There I will live and be blessed I've tried to line up the things I Needed to say but now my feelings just Tumble from me. I am half foolish, Half drunk with wanting you With wanting to take your hand And leap into the darkness of whatever Life will bring. Love makes me Brave and without love I'm made Nothing.
Walter Dean Myers
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The movie is more real in so many ways than the life I am leading. No, that’s not true. I just desperately wish this was only a movie.
Walter Dean Myers
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The idea of voluntary segregation went against every value I had been taught. What did being born black have to do with excellence?
Walter Dean Myers
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My life is not packaged, Not tidy. There are leftover strands and jagged Edges that cut even my friends.
Walter Dean Myers
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We need to tell kids flat out: reading is not optional.
Walter Dean Myers
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Sometimes I feel like I have walked into the middle of a movie. Maybe I can make my own movie. The film will be the story of my life. No, not my life, but of this experience. I'll call it what the lady who is the prosecutor called me. MONSTER.
Walter Dean Myers
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People told me to give up trying to be special and settle down to a regular life. There ain't nothing wrong with a regular life, and that's the Lord's truth...but it wasn't for me, because I wanted to be something special. I knew how easy it was for a dream to die. I seen that all around me. You could let it die by just looking the other way.
Walter Dean Myers
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As a kid I didn't see black cowboys on the screen. What that said to me was that there were things I couldn't do or be because of my color. What we see others like us do gives us permission to expand our own horizons.
Walter Dean Myers
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Reading is not optional.
Walter Dean Myers
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I joined the army on my seventeenth birthday, full of the romance of war after having read a lot of World War I British poetry and having seen a lot of post-World War II films. I thought the romantic presentations of war influenced my joining and my presentation of war to my younger siblings.
Walter Dean Myers
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The best time to cry is at night, when the lights are out and someone is being beaten up and screaming for help.
Walter Dean Myers
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Each of us is born with a history already in place
Walter Dean Myers
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If you know you don't have a win, then there's no use for you being in the game.
Walter Dean Myers
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When we think of war, the tendency is to picture young soldiers only in their military roles. To a large extent this dehumanizes the soldiers and makes it easier for society to commit them to combat.
Walter Dean Myers
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On the streets of the city They have taken my Who-I-Am As well as my What-I-Was And now I am desperate for them both Again
Walter Dean Myers
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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.
Walter Dean Myers
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Think about all the tomorrows of your life.
Walter Dean Myers
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What did I do? I walked into a drugstore to look for some mints, and then I walked out. What was wrong with that? I didn't kill Mr. Nesbitt.
Walter Dean Myers