Neri, Greg
Greg Neri and the Gateway to Reading
Greg Neri keeps his eyes and ears open because he never knows when he may stumble across a story. “Real life is far more interesting than anything I can make up—my one talent is my ability to spot a great story.” Consider just a few years ago when the actor Philip Seymour Hoffman died. Like many fans, Neri sought out his work. As he watched Capote, “I became fascinated by the idea that two of our greatest writers grew up together in the middle of nowhere.” So when he started to dip into their early lives, “what popped up was entertaining, outrageous, and poignant.” He could not believe that no one had written about young Truman Capote and Nelle Harper Lee before, especially for young people. That was the idea that sparked Neri’s critically-acclaimed middle grade novel, Tru & Nelle
A project that had a much longer gestation period was Neri’s picture book biography Hello, I’m Johnny Cash. “Each project has its own voice and flavor,” notes Neri, and he likes to “bounce back and forth between novels, and graphic novels and free verse and poetry. Just like Johnny’s songs about epic folk heroes, Neri wanted to tell the singer’s story in a way that honored his voice. It took Neri ten years to figure out just how to do the story.
Many books have a life of their own and Ghetto Cowboy is Neri’s book that “everyone wants to hear about.” The true story of inner-city kids and the horses they love and care for inspired Neri’s novel. As he talks to kids about Ghetto Cowboy, Neri revels in how they respond to the story behind the story. “I talk about how this is a real place, that these things actually happened.” He did not know when he wrote the book that the Philadelphia program that intrigued him can be found all over the country including St. Louis, Houston, Brooklyn, and even Los Angeles.
Neri’s books are often the gateway books for kids who don’t want to read. An inspired librarian handed a copy of Chess Rumble to reluctant-reader, trouble-prone fifth-grade Raquon. After a time, he picked up the book and realized it had cool pictures. And the free verse text was something he could read and respond to. “Not only did he read it, but he understood it and liked it,” recalls Neri. Soon, he had finished the book and asked the librarian for another book like that. He kept going until he had read all the library’s poetry section. “Then, he asked the librarian if she had any books by that guy Shakesperry,” Neri remembers. The librarian learned that Raquon was writing his own poetry, and urged him to share it with his teachers. From that time on, “Raquon became a person, not a problem” as the teachers grew to understand him. When Raquon auditioned for the creative arts magnet school, the first person he told about his acceptance was G. Neri. He just graduated and is now heading to college—a path that opened to him when a thoughtful librarian handed him a G. Neri book. “My books are more than just stories—there’s a possibility that it might open someone’s head.”
For dozens of other author interviews go to www.btsbcom and look under the Library Corner – Featured Author tab. Interviewed by Ellen Myrick, July 2016
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