VIDEO: YA Urban Fiction Featured on FOX News in Chicago

Urban Fiction gets African American teens excited about reading
: The story and characters don't have to be familiar for a reader to get lost in a good book, but everyone likes to see their experiences in a story.

(Part 1 of 3) Making Literacy Connections Via Street Lit: One Scholar's Incredible Work

Meet Joseph B. Richardson, Jr., Ph.D., who is an Assistant Professor of African American Studies at the University of Maryland - College Park. Dr. Richardson is a Philadelphia native whose research focuses on learning the various effects of urban poverty on inner-city teen boys' lives. In one aspect of his research, Dr. Richardson made literary connections with the boys he was working with: he gave them books to read and in turn, they told him what they wanted to read in books, and see in films. Their reading interests illustrated that they were more engaged with reading and improving their literacy practices when they had access to reading stories they could relate to. 

StreetLiterature.com interviewed Dr. Richardson so that we all can be introduced to his work and how reading urban-based stories can become a major component for literacy engagement and improvements among inner-city youth. This interview will be presented as a three-part series. Below is Part I. Parts II and III will be released each Friday, December 2012.

StreetLiterature.com: Could you please share a short biography of your personal background and professional work with adolescent city young adult males. Basically, who are you to do the work that you do?

I was born and raised in Philadelphia in the Germantown and Mt. Airy neighborhoods of Philadelphia. I received by BA in African-American Studies from the University of Virginia and my MA and PhD in Criminology and Criminal Justice from Rutgers University (NJ). 

As a Black male growing up in Philadelphia, although I lived in a relatively safe neighborhood, as the rapper Common mentioned in an interview, the hood was all around me. I lived in what sociologists would call a buffer neighborhood, which is defined as a neighborhood which buffers impoverished neighborhoods from middle class and affluent neighborhoods. I think that my infatuation with crime and the criminal mind, started from living in a neighborhood with a lot of guys that were criminals. They were always really fascinating to me - the way they thought, they were so real, funny and human, but incredibly complex.

StreetLiterature.com: How did your research involve inner-city youth? 

In my first research study of adolescent inner-city youth in Harlem, some of the boys in my study were members of the Bloods and Crips gangs and were involved in violence, beatings, stabbings and shootings. How the boys and girls (there were auxiliary gangs for girls called the Bloodettes and Crippettes) negotiated violence in this context framed my study. I had formed really tight relationships with three boys who were members of gangs, one was a Blood (Slyvester), another was a Crip (Manny), and another (Ali) was in a gang affiliated with his projects. His gang, the Valley, had an on-going feud with both Blood and Crip sets. In fact, he was involved in a shootout with the Bloods. His best friend shot a Blood. Because Ali was best friends with this kid, he was guilty by association. 

At his school, the principal allowed Ali to leave school early every day, because the Bloods had a contract to kill him. They would wait for him every day after-school, but they had no idea that he would leave before dismissal, this strategy probably saved his life. I would drive him from school to his home so he would not have to walk through the neighborhood. Every time he exited my car, I would always wonder whether I would ever see him again alive because kids were dying every day due to gang violence.

StreetLiterature.com: In your research, you work with incarcerated young adult males to enact positive change in their identities and approach to education. How does your research affect the literacy practices of teen readers?

First, I want to make sure we address them as children because we are really quick to call Black boys ‘young men’ or ‘young adults’ and they are not. These are children who have been adjudicated as adults but they are still children nonetheless. The great work of Dr.Lawrence Steinberg at Temple University indicates that the criminal justice system should not treat children as adults because their brains are still forming and not fully developed which impacts their decision-making capability and culpability.

Many of these children live in governmentally neglected communities, attend under-resourced schools and are products of really unstable households. Many adolescents in adult jails read on a 4^th grade reading level. Fourth grade reading levels are predictive of school dropout and school dropout is predictive of criminal justice involvement. So if we really want to address criminal justice involvement among young black males, we need to start with literacy practices, very early on, well before the 4^th grade.

We need to be addressing literacy practices pre-K, even while a child is in his mother’s womb, a mother should be reading to her child. But that also means we must address the educational needs and parenting practices of parents as well. 

StreetLiterature.com: How does literature play a role in your research?

To engage the boys in establishing consistent reading practices, I try to introduce street literature that adolescent males may be interested in. For example, I use Monster: The Autobiographyof an LA Gang Member as one of my texts. This book was a NY Times bestseller and it was written by a Crip, Sanyika Shakur aka Monster, who had minimal formal education. Much of the book was written while he was incarcerated. The kids were really interested in this book. 

I’ve also used texts such as Manchild in the Promised Land by Claude Brown and the Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X and Alex Haley. What I’ve found is that if the book is interesting, kids will work their way through it whether they are proficient readers or not because in adult jail, kids have a lot of solitary time on their hands where they often sit in their cells for 23 hours a day. So reading often becomes a form of entertainment for them and a way for them to pass the time. Some kids are voracious readers. For example, I had one kid, Miguel, who had almost thirty books in his cell; I mean all kinds of books too, like The Hobbit. Miguel had books that most people would not think a kid in jail would be interested in reading - but he was. 

--- Stay tuned for next week's installment in this interview series with Dr. Joseph B. Richardson, Jr., where he discusses ways in which Street Lit/Urban Fiction has impacted the reading practices of the youth he works with. --

VIDEO: The Stories Are Real & Worthy To Be Told

VIDEO: Connecting Street Lit in the Classroom

Library Media Specialist, K.C. Boyd, from Chicago, IL, published a student-run video newsletter for her school, Wendell Phillips Academy High School. In this installment, there is a segment that shows how street lit is used successfully in the classroom. Time: 07:23 //

"Behind the Paws" - S1 E1 from WPAHS Video Page on Vimeo.

Think About It #1

K'wan's Masterpiece: Animal (2012)

K'wan. 2012. Animal. NY: Cash Money Content / Simon and Schuster. ISBN-13: 978-1936399253. $14.99 US. Paperback.

K'wan is the author of over a dozen books, and upon reading his latest release, Animal, you start to realize that all the stories K'wan's told up to this point, was to prepare you for the story of Animal.

Animal is a redemption song. Animal is a love story: love rediscovered between lovers ... friends ... and family ... in the hood.

We first meet Animal in K'wan's Hood Rat series as a ruthless killer who extinguishes people with no remorse. Animal is a vigilante of sorts who metes out justice in ways that garner him as a force not just to be reckoned with; but to be deathly feared. The equalizing factor to his dark existence is his love for his woman, Gucci. Gucci loves Animal just as he is. In a series of stories they go through many ups and downs. In this story, Animal's story, they may have finally come to peace with one another, if Gucci can survive the war on the streets. In Animal's own story, here in this novel, we learn more about why Animal is the lonely soul that no one seems to be able to fully understand, but everyone fully fears. His redemption comes as a surprise to even Animal himself, but the redemption is a prodigal journey that has the potential to soothe the infamous assassin, once and for all.

A must-read for all street lit fans. This is street lit at its best. Add Animal to the pantheon of class street lit titles like The Coldest Winter Ever, True to the Game, Flyy Girl, A Street Girl Named Desire, and now ... Animal. Do not let the 400 pages deter you. Street Lit / Urban Fiction readers will read this novel as it is fast-paced action that doesn't stop. Buy multiple copies for your library as some of those copies will not be coming back. School library media specialists: this novel is appropriate for high schoolers.

In this video, K'wan explains his characterization of Animal:

K'wan is on social media at:
Twitter: #TEAMANIMAL

Facebook: #TEAMANIMAL

Facebook Group: K'wan's Readers 

Clarifying Street Lit (Again?)

Photo Credit: Vanessa Irvin Morris, 2012.

Greetings. I have been a bit quiet with blogging about street lit for the past few months because I been thinking about my evolving stance on the genre. To me, it seems that street lit is changing, and this is not a bad thing. Many authors are evolving into offering their stories as eBooks and have been very successful with this approach. I really like how authors offer chapters at a time in electronic format for their readers to read and give feedback. I feel that the major strength of street lit is its ongoing dialogue between authors and readers. I see major authors in constant communication with their readers via social media; asking questions about what readers want to see in their books, fielding questions that readers ask, even hosting online book talks, readings, and book clubs. Make no mistake about it; street lit has a very loyal reader base and these readers are prolifically sophisticated in their approach to the genre.

However, I do feel that I need to offer some clarification on what I believe street lit is and what it is not. As the contemporary iteration of the genre is entering its 14th year in 2013, I believe street lit has outgrown some things, but at the same time, it has not become "everything". Let me explain.

In my book, The Readers' Advisory Guide to Street Literature (ALA Editions, 2011) I define the genre as being location-specific ... stories specifically set in lower income urban settings. I still believe this to be true. However, I now believe there is an added element to this definition: the element of risk. The reason risk is an important consideration for street lit is because every urban story ain't street lit, but every street lit story IS decidedly urban. Essentially, street lit stories are urban stories that communicate a level of ill: illegality, illicitness, ill-will, and/or immorality.

In other words, these narratives illustrate characters who risk being subversively productive in an underground society in order to create productivity for themselves, by any means necessary. To me, this means that there are some events, activities, behaviors, and social codes that are specific and unique to hood living. The pimp's story lives in street lit, the prostitute's story lives in street lit. Additionally, strippers, drug dealers, drug addicts, street urchins (children who live on the streets), urban gangs, and even the homeless - their stories are decidedly street lit stories, because it's about people literally living (and sometimes thriving) on the streets.

These kinds of stories convey how human beings risk their safety, sanity, morality, and often their very lives, in a quest to conquer the streets. Indeed, in my book I also talk about "the street" as an antagonistic character that has life and pulsation that drives behaviors and events. I see the street as a stage upon which people act out their inner and outer battles to survive the streets, which means that to survive, there is rarely time or room for redemption or for crime to even pay off. That - to me - is what defines street lit as a uniquely and specifically defined literary genre: street living that survives and perhaps overcomes poverty in drastically raw ways.

This means that human stories that can be transferred across the boundaries of space, time, access, culture, and/or socio-economics, are not necessarily nor automatically street lit. These kinds of stories include unfortunate realities that humanity contends with regardless of socio-economic status, culture, or geographic location. Bad relationships, domestic violence, various crimes, prison experiences, and overcoming the odds happen everywhere, not just in low income urban neighborhoods. Although in street lit, we do see how poverty can fuel survivalist behaviors.

I do not believe that street lit narratives are necessarily rags to riches stories. I do not believe that street lit is necessarily redemptive (in fact, I groaned when some street lit authors succumbed to industry pressure to clean up the stories). I do not believe that street lit is necessarily Black, African American, or Latino stories. I've said it once and I'll say it again: EVERYBODY is in the hood. EV-VER-REE-BOD-DEE. And everybody who's doing street shit in the hood are people coming from all over the world.

I do believe that street lit gives us an angle to street living that we may not have considered before. Street lit can teach readers about everyday realities that we didn't know before when connections are made between what's happening on the streets and what's happening in the broader world. Street Lit holds a tremendous power for illuminating the universal law of "as above, so below." In the tradition of Daniel Defoe, Charles Dickens, Richard Wright, Ann Petry, and Chester Himes, contemporary authors like Ashley & JaQuavis, K'wan, Treasure E. Blue, Wahida Clark, Kiki Swinson, and Teri Woods consistently bring us stories that do this.

Street Lit is not just about bitches and hoes, niggas and OGs. If you see street lit like that, then you are looking at it myopically. Sharpen your focus and peer closer. Street Lit is about the stories behind the stories about bitches and hoes, niggas and OGs. Street Lit reminds us that bitches and hoes, niggas and OGs are PEOPLE who were once babies, and have mothers and fathers, and reasons for why they live the way they live.

Let's not box every woman who's angry into street lit; yes, there's angry women in the hood, but there's angry women all over the planet, and for good reason. Let's not box every man who is an OG into street lit. The biggest OGs in the world right now are in Mexico and they are doing some serious street shit. So it's not just about poor black people in the hood acting out their poverty-ridden frustrations. Street Lit is more nuanced and complicated than that; street lit involves deep and oftentimes dark lifestyles that carry unusually high levels of risk in order to live out a capitalistic need, desire, goal or dream (i.e. making money).

In sum, what I am saying is that street lit doesn't need to be cleaned up, moralized, nor editorially grade A approved in order to be considered an acceptable literary genre; at least not in my book. I really want educators and other stakeholders in this genre to accept the genre as it is, as it's always been: a no holds barred, raw, gritty, fuck-you-it-you-can't-take-a-joke genre that keeps it real about the risky realities out here in these streets. That's how street stories have always been and will continue to be, until ... well: until.

And these stories have a place on our bookshelves and in our libraries. They have a place in students' backpacks and back pockets. They have a place in literary tradition that includes stories of lumpen-proletariat from all cultural locations, all over the world. We must deal with street lit as it is and stop trying to make it something "packaged", something "acceptable", or something "palatable" for mainstream sensitivities. That's the whole point of street lit, it is not easily packaged, it is not easily acceptable, and it is not easily palatable for mainstream sensitivities. With street lit's sheer oppositional stance as mainstream's polar reflection, the genre in effect, boldly tells mainstream society's story too, by showing what mainstream society is ... on the other side of itself.