Jason Reynolds

Jason R.

Jason Reynolds (born December 6, 1983) is an American author of novels and poetry for young adult and middle grade audiences. Born in Washington, D.C., and raised in neighboring Oxon Hill, Maryland, Reynolds found inspiration in rap and had an early focus on poetry, publishing many poetry collections before his first novel in 2014, When I Was the Greatest, which won the John Steptoe Award for New...

Jason Reynolds (born December 6, 1983) is an American author of novels and poetry for young adult and middle grade audiences. Born in Washington, D.C., and raised in neighboring Oxon Hill, Maryland, Reynolds found inspiration in rap and had an early focus on poetry, publishing many poetry collections before his first novel in 2014, When I Was the Greatest, which won the John Steptoe Award for New Talent. In the next four years, Reynolds wrote eight more novels, most notably the New York Times best-selling Track series — Ghost (2016), Patina (2017), Sunny (2018), Lu (2018) — and As Brave as You (2016). Ghost was a finalist for the National Book Award for Young People's Literature and As Brave as You won the Kirkus Prize, the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work for Youth/Teen, and the Schneider Family Book Award. Reynolds also wrote a Marvel Comics novel called Miles Morales: Spider-Man (2017). In 2017, Reynolds returned to poetry with Long Way Down, a novel in verse that was named a Newbery Honor book, a Michael L. Printz Honor Book, and best young adult work by the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Awards. In 2019, he wrote Look Both Ways, for which he won a Carnegie Medal. From 2020 to 2022, Reynolds was the Library of Congress' National Ambassador for Young People's Literature. In 2023, Reynolds won the Margaret A. Edwards Award. In 2024, Reynolds was named a MacArthur Fellow. Early life, education and influences Reynolds was born on December 6, 1983, in Washington, DC, and grew up in Oxon Hill, a neighborhood where his mother, a special education teacher in a public school, could afford a house with a yard and enough space for Reynolds, his three siblings and other family members. At nine years old, Reynolds began writing poetry after being inspired by Queen Latifah's third album, Black Reign. Queen Latifah and other rappers, like Tupac and Biggie, influenced him and resonated with his childhood experiences in the 1980s and 1990s; he didn't start reading books until he was 17. One of Reynolds's earliest poems dealt with his grandmother's death in 1994 when he was 10. He wrote a few lines in an effort to console his mother, who printed the poem on the program for the funeral, and after that Reynolds wrote poems as each of his grandmother's siblings passed. Moved by these experiences of "the power of language", he continued to pursue poetry through high school, graduating from Bishop McNamara High School in 2000, and college, even after receiving lackluster grades and being discouraged by English professors at the University of Maryland. Nonetheless, he graduated with a BA in English. While an undergraduate, Reynolds began to collaborate with Jason Griffin, who became his roommate, and first heard spoken word and began performing, including eventually solo shows, and published his first book in 2001,, a poetry collection called Let Me Speak. As a college student, Reynolds also worked at a DC bookstore chain called Karibu Books, which specialized in African-American literature. At Karibu he encountered prose that resonated with him for the first time, such as Richard Wright's novel Black Boy. Enthralled with Wright's novel from the first page, Reynolds next began making his way through the great works of African-American literature that he found on the store's shelves, reading James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, and Toni Morrison. At Karibu Books, he encountered street fiction, also known as urban fiction, which is a literary genre Reynolds compares to rap's capacity for being "raw and honest. For some kids, this was their life." Personal life Reynolds moved back to Washington, D.C., from Brooklyn in 2016. He collects items related to African-American literature, including a letter by Langston Hughes, a pre-publication review copy of Claude Brown's Manchild in the Promised Land and an autographed first edition copy of Toni Morrison's Beloved. He appeared on Antiques Roadshow in 2021 to discuss his collecting. Selected works Reynolds does not start with a particular age audience in mind; instead he focuses on trying to write the voice of his characters authentically and lets that dictate whom the book would appeal to. All of his writings feature minority characters, which he sees as a reflection of the modern world. Early works After graduating from college, Reynolds moved to New York with a classmate, Jason Griffin; in 2005, the pair self-published a collaboration, collecting Griffin's visual art and Reynolds's poetry, called SELF. The book earned the pair an agent and then a book contract. Four years later they published My Name Is Jason. Mine Too.: Our Story. Our Way, a memoir about moving to New York to pursue their dreams, expressed through Reynolds's poetry and Griffin's illustrations. They published the book with the HarperTeen imprint of HarperCollins, working with editor Joanna Cotler (after Cotler retired, she referred him to Caitlin Dlouhy, who would become the editor on his next seven books). In the meantime, Reynolds moved home to DC in 2008 after losing his apartment in New York. He worked at a department store—the Lord & Taylor in North Bethesda, Maryland—to pay the bills, going to a Borders bookstore on his lunch break to see his book arrive on the shelf in 2009. Next, he became a caseworker in a mental health clinic his father directed. Eventually, Reynolds returned to New York, again working in retail while he applied to graduate school, unsuccessfully because of his college grades. Nevertheless, he began writing a young adult novel—"often while standing at the cash register when business was slow" at the Rag & Bone store he managed—spurred by his friend Chris Myers, son of Walter Dean Myers and himself an author and illustrator. Reynolds had told Chris he had basically stopped writing, but Chris pointed out that with his father aging (the elder Myers died in 2014), there would soon be a shortage of new works written about young black children, particularly black boys. He suggested Reynolds look at some of his father's old works, and The Young Landlords particularly connected with Reynolds; the work gave Reynolds the confidence to "write in my voice, use my tongue, my language, my style, and write a story. Before that I always felt like I wasn't good enough because I wasn't Baldwin, or Toni Mor, or Richard Wright", but after reading Myers's work, "the floodgates were opened." In 2014, Reynolds published When I Was The Greatest (with the Atheneum Books imprint of Simon & Schuster), a young adult novel set in Reynolds' own neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant. For the work, Reynolds won the 2015 Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe Award for New Talent from the American Library Association. In 2015, Reynolds published The Boy in the Black Suit, about a child grieving the loss of his mother. It won a Coretta Scott King Honor from the American Library Association. All American Boys (2015) Also in 2015, Reynolds published All American Boys, co-authored with Brendan Kiely. The book depicts a black teenager assaulted in a convenience store by a white police officer who wrongly suspects him of stealing. The book is written in two voices, with Reynolds writing from the point of view of the teenaged victim, Rashad Butler, in a hospital bed, while Kiely wrote the character Quinn Collins, a white teenager and family friend of the police officer, who witnessed the violent attack. In a review for The New York Times, Kelka Magoon found both main characters "successfully drawn" and called the novel "a book to be grappled with, challenged by, and discussed. All American Boys represents one voice—even better, two voices—in a national conversation that must continue beyond its pages." The book arose from personal conversations between Reynolds, who is black, and Kiely, who is white. The two met on a Simon & Schuster book tour in 2013, which coincided with the news that George Zimmerman had been acquitted of the murder of Trayvon Martin. Though strangers, Reynolds and Kiely began to share their feelings, each finding the other was "as frustrated as angry and as confused as I was", as Reynolds put it. A friendship developed and the conversations continued with increasing urgency; after a white police officer shot and killed Michael Brown, Kiely reached out to Reynolds to propose they write a book addressing police brutality and racial profiling. The book won the inaugural Walter Dean Myers Award from the We Need Diverse Books organization, as well as a Coretta Scott King Honor. As Brave as You (2016) In 2016, Reynolds published As Brave as You, which won the 2016 Kirkus Prize, the 2017 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work for Youth/Teen, the 2017 Schneider Family Book Award, and the 2017 Coretta Scott King Honor. The book describes two African-American brothers from Brooklyn who are sent to spend the summer with their grandfather in Virginia. In The Washington Post, a reviewer said, "Reynolds deftly blends humor and heart through lively dialogue and spot-on sibling dynamics." Track series (2016–2025) The Track series follows a different protagonist in each novel, all of whom are members of the Defenders, an elite track team. In 2016, Reynolds published Ghost, a National Book Award Finalist for Young People's Literature. Reviewing Ghost in The New York Times, Kate Messner said that in his title character, Reynolds has created a protagonist "whose journey is so genuine that he's worthy of a place alongside Ramona and Joey Pigza on the bookshelves where our most beloved, imperfect characters live." Ghost was published by the Caitlyn Dlouhy imprint of Atheneum on August 30, 2016. Three more books have followed in the series. Patina (2017) depicts another young star runner, Patina "Patty" Jones. Patty feels out of place at her nearly all-white private school. Patty and her younger sister live with their dead father's brother and his white wife because their birth mother is unable to take care of them after losing her legs due to diabetes. Critics noted the deft way the book handles many issues including teamwork and non-traditional family structures. This was the first book Reynolds had written with a female point of view. Reynolds wanted to write about the special burdens some teen girls assume in their families. In his The New York Times review, Tom Rinaldi called the novel "excellent". The book was also well received by other reviewers, earning a starred review in Kirkus Reviews, School Library Journal, The Horn Book Magazine, and Booklist. The third installment in the series, called Sunny, was released on April 10, 2018. Paste magazine named the audiobook, narrated by Guy Lockard, one of the 13 best of 2018 to date, saying, "The whole series is a must-listen, but Sunny is a particular treat" thanks to the Lockard's portrayal of the "lolling, goofball voice" of the novel's first-person protagonist. The fourth installment in the series, called Lu, was released October 23, 2018. The fifth book in the series, Coach, was released on October 14, 2025. Miles Morales: Spider-Man (2017) Reynolds is the author of Miles Morales: Spider-Man (2017), a novel based on the Marvel Comics' Afro-Puerto Rican teen character. Reynolds has described his ambitions for the book as similar to Jordan Peele's approach to Get Out, namely to engage the audience with systemic social issues by "distill[ing] it down to a single family." Speaking to School Library Journal, Reynolds said, "It was a trip to take these issues I care so much about and figure out what they look like as a person. What do they sound like? How do they dress? How do they act? What do they do?" Reviewing the book for the Washington City Paper, Kayla Randall said, "The result...was exceptional." Long Way Down (2017) Reynolds's 2017 book, Long Way Down, is a novel written in verse. It describes a 15-year-old who sees his brother shot to death, drawing on Reynolds's experience of having a friend murdered whe