Penguin Random House’s Post

Transcript

This book for me as a neurodivergent and LGBT Q plus kid and teenager made me feel seen at a time where I felt weird and alone. A Wrinkle in Time and the flawed characters have their differences are represented as a positive thing and set up a negative thing is something that even in the 6th grade help myself confidence in the tiniest of ways. My name gifted from Pepper and Spice was not my name. Because you found it nice. But in a flick of a moment I compromise because I don't want you to think twice. Where I lived, darkness was not taught, only implied in the grandparent's house and the awkward aura we collectively embodied when we witnessed blinding brightness or rainbows. Little did I know there was glistening gleam and glare in my blood, in my veins, in my heart, and every breath I took echoing outward from glowing lungs. Every Saturday, Seal and I would sit eagerly by your side with our little legs hanging to half the length of yours. Our goggles would be down and our tongues out, both with the job of catching the soft snowflakes that fell on the sugar around at Mountain Creek. I would look below me to the pink goggles tinted snow and swing my legs side to side so that my tiny skies would wave to those below me. We would be about halfway off the chair lift when you had finished telling us one of your stories. The kitchen of my brain is always cooking up thoughts about school tests, college thoughts I don't want to hear worries speaking in the back of my mind for hours on end until they come out charred and black. Representation in any book for any community is so important, especially for youth and marginalized communities. Each syllable a symbol for ancestors gone through trouble, for a history so terrible for we can rise. From rubble, I caught a glimpse of illumination sitting in a lump on my tongue. I shut my mouth tight and tried to forget that there was any light at all in any part of the world, But I could not fall asleep, not with luminescence searing the inside of my mouth like hot Stew. I let myself believe that he did do it on purpose, that he had queued up our song just as I had on those car rides. But as I looked back at his old photos, he was doing the Just Dance choreography in the kitchen. That he remembered everything. And Barry White continued to sing to Dad's dance. You're all I'm living for. Your love I'll keep forever more. You're the first, you're the last, my everything. I know the day will come where my fridge becomes too full and all of those slots will explode out of it, ripping through the Saran wrap. Then we'll be able to hold them in. But for now, my anxious and worrisome thoughts are secure and surround rap deep in the fridge at the corner of my mind.