The support she gives
‘On the Come Up' novelist Angie Thomas wants young people to know she gets them
Novelist Angie Thomas has built a huge readership with her two awardwinning, bestselling 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.
“I want them to know they have value and a voice, and to use their voice. 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; its followup is set to film later this year.
Thomas has just published “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. “Everybody knows it; it’s one that’s in the news for all the wrong reasons.”
The author spoke to us from her hometown of Jackson, Mississippi, and the conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Q
How’s the Zoom book tour for “Concrete Rose” going? A I miss being on the road and interacting with my young readers, one on one. I talk with them and not to them, and any moments with them fills me as a creator. Q Did you grow up in a neighborhood like Garden Heights?
A
I wrote Garden
Heights with every city in mind. I wanted to show that this neighborhood could be anywhere.
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.
Even with that, there was so much love in my community, and so many peo