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Learning to Speak Again
SPEAK: The Graphic Novel by Laurie Halse Anderson and Emily Carroll
It’s no secret that, if you ask me to list my favorite, most life-changing books, Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak would appear somewhere near the top.
Part of that of that was just the formative time that I read the book — I found it in my middle school library during the seventh grade. As someone who spent a lot of time in the fantastical worlds of Jo Rowling, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Christopher Paolini, it was strange for me to connect so quickly to a story set in the real world.
But connect I did. Not only did I want to read more books like this, I also knew, as soon as I finished, that I wanted to write them. At the time, I was writing (an abjectly terrible, of course) portal fantasy about a girl named Kymber who, ultimately, chose not to go back to the real world. It showed me that we don’t have to escape to reclaim our power. We can stand up. We can shout.
Speak was unlike anything else I’d ever read. It met me in the silence and grief and confusion and depression of where I lived. And, helped by my first real, life-changing mentor, it showed me a way forward.
