Hey, humans. How's it going?
Susan Ruth here. Thanks for listening to another
episode
of Hey Human podcast.
This is episode 431,
and my guest is John Hsu.
John is an author of best selling children's
books. He's the children's librarian
for Bookalicious.
He's a part time lecturer at Rutgers University
and has served as the ambassador of school
libraries for scholastic book fairs
for almost 6 years.
He's also recovered from childhood anorexia and is
a champion and advocate for kids everywhere.
His novel in verse, Louder Than Hunger, is
a powerful story that stands up against that
voice in our head that lies to us
and tells us we're not worthy to take
up space.
It is a
groundbreaking book, and I believe it has helped
people all over the planet to face their
sense of worthlessness
and stand up against it and shine light
in dark places.
I met John through our mutual friend,
Molly O'Neil, and John and Molly worked together.
And I asked Molly, hey. You know a
lot of really interesting writers,
and I would love to be able to
talk to some of them. So she connected
us, and I think you're gonna enjoy this
one. John's a really sweet guy. Check out
heyhumanpodcast.com
for links and to learn more about my
guests and the show,
susanruth.com
to learn more about me and my other
artistic endeavors.
Hey Human Podcast is now on YouTube under
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Rate, review, and subscribe to Hey Human Podcast
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and thank you for listening. Be well.
Be kind.
Be love.
Please, be love.
Here we go.
John Hsu, welcome to Hey Human.
Thank you. I am so honored to be
here. My my friend Molly O'Neil once told
me about you, and said that one day
we must connect and today is our day
to connect.
Love Molly so much. She is the best.
We actually she and I met at a
conference called Story.
So, She's she's amazing. Like, she's the best
person to talk about stories with and she
minds stories out of your heart and soul.
She's so kind and so welcoming and loves,
loves, loves books.
Let's jump into you. Tell me about your
upbringing. Where'd you grow up?
And how did your family
shape you? Right now, I'm in Naperville, Illinois,
which is a suburb of Chicago.
And I grew up in a south suburb
of Chicago called Tinley Park.
And I was mostly raised by my grandparents
though. My grandma had just retired and my
mom was working full time. And so my
grandma became my babysitter, but then my grandma
also became my best friend.
And when I was in 1st grade, we
moved 30 miles away from my grandma, and
that was really, really hard for me. And
Monday through Thursday, I often didn't feel as
though I could breathe because I always felt
like I was my best self when I
was with my grandma, but I always knew
on Friday when I arrived home that my
grandma's red car would be in the driveway,
and that I get to go to her
house for 3 days. And so I think
a lot of my of who I am
and and how I love stories, and why
I became a teacher and a librarian and
a writer,
is is because of my grandmother who's who
surrounded me with love and stories and authenticity.
Do you think that she saw you more
than anyone else saw you, or do you
think it was just the idea of grandma
from a kid's perspective?
Yeah. Oh, that's so interesting because I I
have a book that that came out in
2024
called Louder Than Hunger, and it's a fictionalized
account of of my life. I changed my
name from John to Jake, but when I
was writing that book, grandma became one of
the the the main characters. And and I
explored a lot about, like, why was grandma,
like, my person? And I do think it
is that she was just so loving and
patient and and calm. And my mom was
going through a lot of mental health issues
herself. And my mom had become a mom
at the age of 17, and I don't
think she was quite ready to become a
mom yet. And she had 2 kids by
the time she was 20 years old. And
so, you know, you don't I didn't understand
at the time, but now as an adult,
I understand, like, that's a lot that that
she was that was, you know, brought into
her own life and and having mental health
challenges as well. And I think at my
grandma's house, there was more oxygen
in the rooms than in my in the
home in which I lived Monday through Thursday.
That's a great way to put it. You
were able to actually
move around in your space and not I
think for a lot of us as children,
especially those of us who grew up in
disordered homes that it it was hard to
be seen. You didn't wanna take up too
much space. So there was that weird juxtaposition
of I want you to see me, but
I don't want you to see me. Because
if you see me, I get hurt. Yeah.
Yeah. That's so interesting because that's what really
Louder Than Hunger is about is trying not
to take up space in the world, and
trying to become smaller and smaller, and and
almost invisible. And and the way that Jake
in the book does that is by taking
away food from himself.
And for a long time, grandma's house is
the place where the voice, the voice meaning
that inner saboteur in your head that tells
you that you're worthless and tells you that
you're a miserable person and you don't deserve
to be on this planet,
is super loud when he's with his mom
and dad, when I was with my mom
and dad. But It was a little bit
quieter when I was with my grandma.
But eventually, even at grandma's house, the voice
is there, and the voice is loud. And
in in my one safe space,
is no longer safe because the voice comes
with it comes with me rather.
Does that voice sound like your voice or
does it sound like somebody completely different?
Yeah. As a in the beginning, I didn't
know it was my own voice. Right? I
thought it was somebody else talking to me
because the voice starts off quiet and then
it gets louder and louder and louder and
then all of a sudden it's taking over
your entire brain. And and in my own
therapy and and in the book Louder Than
Hunger, Jake has this moment of wait, this
is actually me. I'm the person who's sabotaging
myself
and I can actually talk back to that
voice in my life
adolescence. That voice was always a capital V.
And I always tell kids now like I
worked
hard to turn that capital v voice into
a lowercase v voice
and have strategies and skills in place to
never allow it. Well, hopefully, to never allow
it to become capitalized again because that's when
you don't often realize it's actually you. But
I think lowercase v, we often know. That's
us. That's our own saboteur.
That's present in all of us, I think.
Well, I guess there's a few people I
I have heard of a few people out
there that don't have
an external monologue,
an internal external I call it the external
monologue even though it's internal because it feels
like it's separate than myself. But that that's
what's so important, I think, about doing therapy,
especially therapy that focuses on our childhood when
you're an adult because you do have the
perspective.
And the truth of the matter is we
are the onion. We are the layers of
all the people we have been throughout our
life, and that little kid is still in
there, still going. Yeah. I don't know what
that voice is. That voice is scary, and
the adult us has to go back and
gently
love them through whatever moment they they've experienced.
That's what was so interesting about writing Louder
Than Hunger is that the book opens in,
1996,
and I love saying it's historical fiction, which
kids don't laugh at that, but certain people
are like, oh, my childhood is historical fiction.
And so it opens in 1996, and in
the first act, like, he's spiraling out of
control because that voice is getting louder and
louder and louder. And then in the second
act of the book, he's hospitalized in a
facility called Whispering Pines.
And right away, they can diagnose him with
anorexia nervosa
based on the DSM at the time. But
as Jake starts to refeed,
he and I started to refeed, he's diagnosed,
I was diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder, depression,
and anxiety.
And once Jake starts to refeed,
a lot of the story is told in
flashback, where you go back to 1986,
You go back to 1987.
And so many of the things that I
write about in the book, I had forgotten.
I didn't remember that those things happened. But
because the book is poetry, poetry always allows
me to be more vulnerable
and to tell more of the truth.
And I would write these poems and then
go, oh, my goodness. I I haven't thought
about this in 30 years. But writing those
things down healed my adult self. I didn't
realize that I was holding on to so
many of those those things and that they
were still affecting my present day self. And
disordered eating is such a fascinating
disorder because I feel like there is
one one part of the psyche that says,
I know this is not right. I know
this is killing me.
I know that it's unhealthy.
But then on the other side,
we are constantly
bombarded by messaging
that says,
the thinner you are, the better you are.
Yeah. Yeah. It's a really confusing space to
live in and especially to heal for you
experiencing
at the time again with they they've changed
the language over the years, but at the
time, it would have considered anorexia.
Firstly,
relatively rare in males. Yeah. But and I
think people
maybe don't necessarily
people who have experienced in their lives understand
this but for those who who are listening
that don't know,
it's really not about
the food per se. No. It's about the
control,
the feeling of being able to control this
one thing.
I can control what goes into my body
or not.
Yeah. Yeah. And for yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And
for me and in the story for Jake,
that's what it is. It feels like it's
a best friend because he doesn't have any
friends other than his grandma. Well, he does
have a friend named Emily Dickinson, but she,
of course, doesn't know that he exists. And
And she could be a real downer.
No. But he does. He and I did
too. Like, I used to talk to Emily
Dickinson all of the time. And and so
he has Emily, and he has his his
grandma, and he has he loves Sondheim. He
loves musicals, musicals as do I. So for
me, it was it was my way of
controlling, like, everything going around me that I
couldn't, but I could control what was going
in my body and and always, like, I'm
so grateful you said, it really has nothing
to do with food. It's like manifestations
of something else and you've got to figure
out why are you doing this to yourself.
Were your parents
at this time noticing
this aspect of you?
Yeah. I well, my parents in the book,
Jake's parents are not going through a divorce,
but in my own life, they were.
And so they my mom was very, you
know, preoccupied,
and my mom was having a midlife crisis.
And, you know, I wasn't with my dad,
and my grandma was going through a lot
of the time as well. And so it
was really easy to hide. Just like during
COVID,
when kids weren't in person school,
peep like guidance counselors and social workers weren't
recognizing a lot of behaviors, and everybody was
just trying to stay alive in the home,
that it was easier to hide. And I've
met with a lot of people who either
on the phone, who are currently hospitalized, who
are 21, 22, where their eating disorder started,
you know, in high school. And and all
of them tell me it was because it
was so much easier to hide during that
time.
I grew up in an era too where
it was really prevalent. I don't know. I
haven't kept up with the statistics,
but I imagine it's still
pretty major.
It's a pretty major issue. Yeah. Well, and
in males, because you mentioned males, it's it's
10%. 10 at least that's the stack that's
usually used. 10% of people with eating disorders
are
are are men or males. Yeah. Mhmm.
And it's been, you know, a lot of
boys during,
experiences at middle schools will come up to
me when they know nobody is around and
share with me that they were hospitalized for
anorexia or bulimia or disordered eating, and and
and they they feel more seen. Because in
my I spent 2 years in the hospital.
In the book, Louder Than Hunger, Jake spends
a year, and I was never with another
male that entire time. So in the 2
years in the experience of being in the
hospital,
were
where did you begin to have this love
of,
obviously, if Emily Dickinson is somebody you're talking
to, it sounds like you already began the
process of loving reading.
But how did were books coming in and
being your friends while you're in the hospital?
Yes. So not so much in the beginning
in the hospital because for me, I wasn't
able to concentrate very much. School was becoming
really challenging where it had never been challenging
in my life. I always did well in
school, but when you're not feeding your brain,
it's hard to focus and it's hard to
do work and it's hard to be present.
And so once I started to repeat again
story,
and then music and poetry
became a big part of my life. And
I always tell kids that I'm living, walking
proof that music and theater can save you.
And I'm known for children's literature, but but
for me, the thing that is most important
in my daily life is music and theater,
that constantly allows me to stay well. It's
good being here in Chicago or near Chicago.
Yeah. Yeah. I'm not here much because I
travel every week, but yes. I I do
I do all my writing in New York
City. You know, lots and lots of plays
and musicals. So I would say, like, I
I as long as I meet my writing
goal for the day, I can see a
musical. So it's good. It's good encouragement.
How did you convince yourself to refeed, to
start eating again? What what was that stepping
stone?
Yeah. For me, it was eventually, I just
got so tired of being sick and so
tired of missing school. I'd I'd missed 2
years of school.
I've been in 2 different programs.
I was in a program called Linden Oaks,
which was a mental health facility,
for 7 months. Then after 7 months, they
essentially kicked me out because they said, like,
you've you're you keep starting over the program.
Like, you've been here the longest. Like, you're
doing the same exercises again.
There's truly nothing else we can do for
you because you're not helping yourself.
And you you you need to start doing
what we're asking you to do. But I
was very, very stubborn. And so they kicked
me out of that one. And then I
went to a much more of a medical
facility, where there weren't as many people with
eating disorders,
and I think that was the right program
for me.
Because as you probably know, people with eating
disorders are very competitive,
and they want to be the best at
their disorder.
And unfortunately,
so many people learn from each other how
to be better at their eating disorder,
and they manipulate each other. And and I
was very competitive, and I was very manipulative.
So for me to be in a program
that didn't have
as many others with eating disorders was really
good for me, and and and I think
that type of environment allowed me to actually
start doing the work. For me, I always
remember when I was in the 7th grade,
I was pretty sure I had an eating
disorder, and I'd go to the public library
all the time. The library was my my
safe space as well, just like grandma's house.
And I vividly remember finding an isolated library
carol,
and typing into the old, probably, Apple 2e
terms like anorexia
and bulimia and eating disorder, and it led
me to such toxic things. It led me
to so many articles about Tracy Gold. This
Tracy Gold from Growing Pains is in the
news a lot then. I discovered Karen Carpenter,
and I discovered
so many books that I would never name
because those books served as how to manuals.
And I remember I I I would read
a chapter, and then I would just do
exactly what was in that book.
And so many people like me work to
report books like that and to report websites,
and not as censorship,
but to say these are these are materials
that are are not good for for people
who are vulnerable,
for eating disorders. It's not good for anybody
because it glorifies it glorifies the eating disorder
or disordered eating in so many ways. Well,
that's kind of what I was speaking to
also in the beginning of our conversation is
that we live in a society that does
glorify it. It's getting I grew up in
the modeling world. I hit 6 foot at
14.
They're not exactly encouraging you to have snacks
in that world, you know? Yeah. And
to your point, it does become very competitive
with the other people around you, and then
you're shown images and you're expected to look
like these images.
Yeah. It's Yeah. It's
it it's very influential.
Yeah. Yeah. And with Instagram and with I
mean, all social media. I mean, my book
is, I said, to explain to 96 when
it happened to me. I couldn't write about
that. I think the experience now it's it's
so different from from what I went through.
There's also the language at home. I remember
my mother struggled with her weight. She was
overweight for a lot of my childhood.
My father had been overweight before he married
my mother and then
decided that he was fat and and lost
a ton of weight. And in my humble
opinion,
I think he's had body dysmorphia ever since.
He's incredibly thin. So I grew up in
this house where there was the one voice,
my father's voice saying, oh, that's so fattening.
That's that's got so many calories. And my
mother sneaking and hiding food.
And those messages
being so that's little kids pick up on
all of that conversation.
Yeah. So interesting. I I just remembered something
I haven't thought about in a long time.
When I was at Linden Oaks, again, I
was there so long, that I was hospitalized
with somebody who was 16,
and then later with that person's mother.
And it was so interesting because I heard
everything
from the 16 year old about her mom
and how her mom, she thought, really helped
create her eating disorder. And then to be
with the mother and to hear what the
mother said about her daughter, I felt like
like I shouldn't be there. I shouldn't have
been able to hear these 2 different conversations.
But, yeah, that's when I truly realized at
a young age that a lot of people
with eating disorders, it is because of the
messaging in the home and and and and
how food is is seen and talked about
or protected. Yeah. And we think of of
disordered eating, I think a lot. And as
a society as, oh, this person is starving,
but there's also the other side where people
are hiding by putting
weight on. I have known individuals who
that's their way of staying invisible in the
world is they just keep Yeah. Feeding themselves
so that they would be considered quote unquote
undesirable
to the world at large. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
And I even have to liaise with people
like like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's just
it's so important to get those conversations
out into the zeitgeist because
the it's they're weirdly
there's so much stigma around it still.
There's and the stigma goes both ways. It's
the both again, like, we talked about this
weird badge of honor Yeah. In the community
itself and then this sort of, oh, not
my child or, oh, I'm I'm not hearing
the messaging going on. So I'm I'm glad
that we kind of got to cover that.
Moving from that,
tell me about when you started to get
what you were feeling inside and the stories
you wanted to come out. How did what
was that process?
Like, when did I, like, say to myself,
I'm gonna start writing stories? Yes. Yes. Yeah.
I love telling this story.
So,
I was let me go through my my
background. So I was a 3rd grade teacher
for 3 years, and I loved being a
3rd grade teacher. I thought I'd always be
a 3rd grade teacher. And then I became
a 4th grade teacher, and I loved teaching
4th grade actually more than 3rd grade because
I looped with my students. And I had
the same students for 2 years, and that
was magical because on the first day, I
knew everything about their reading lives and their
writing lives, and they knew me, and the
community had already been established, and we got
busy right away. And then I went to
library school to learn how to be a
librarian,
and I transitioned from being a classroom teacher
in the school where I'd been a homeroom
teacher to the school librarian.
And that was magical because you got to
follow kids from kindergarten through grade 5. And
I did that for 9 years, and then
I left, and I became the ambassador of
school libraries. And I used to travel all
over the country advocating for libraries and librarians
and was was speaking 200 days a year
and was talking about books nonstop and other
people's stories, which I is is really, really
important to me. But someone named Molly O'Neil
had been seeing my presentations,
and she kept saying, John, I think that
you're a writer, and I think you have
stories inside of you. And I kept saying,
no, Molly, I don't.
I'm not a writer. And I kept, like,
having Molly check-in with me every few months.
And then in 2017,
Amy Krause Rosenthal,
who is one of my favorite authors,
she wrote books for adults and books for
kids and did lots of social experiments in
the city of Chicago. And John,
John she was John Green's mentor.
And in 2017,
she shared with the world that she had
terminal cancer, and she'd been keeping that private
for a long time.
And 2 weeks after she shared that on
Instagram, that she had cancer, the New York
Times ran a piece that she wrote in
which she was looking for a new wife
for her husband
before she died. I remember this. And it
was real Yeah. It was really sad, and
it went viral. And there was lots of
white space at the end of the piece
because the story wasn't over yet. And then
approximately 2 weeks later, Amy passed away, and
StoryCorps
had been holding on to a conversation
between her then 19 year old daughter, Paris
Rosenthal, and Amy. And in it, Amy Kraus
Rosenthal said, make the most of your time
here. And when I heard that, make the
most of your time here, I, one, started
sobbing. I always tell people, don't listen to
that interview when you're driving. Like, listen to
it, like, in a in a private place.
And when I heard that I truly wrote
Molly O'Neil, and at that time she was
an agent and I said, Molly, I am
ready to start writing stories now, which is
why the first book that I wrote called
This Is the Story is dedicated to Amy
Krause Rosenthal.
And I wish Amy Krauss Rosenthal were still
here.
She had so many more stories to tell.
But she continues to inspire people, and I've
shared that story on NPR, and I then
got connected with her family, and her sister-in-law
is a teacher, and and I send her
sister-in-law
copies of my books when they come out
to give away. So, yeah, it's because of
Amy Kress Rosenthal
and because of of Molly O'Neil,
who saw something in me that I didn't
see in myself.
And at the time, I didn't realize that
I had to write many books in order
to finally write Louder Than Hunger, which was
the story that, like, I think only I
could tell. And that people were really surprised
that I wrote
because my book, This is a Story, is
all about libraries and my love of story,
and people know that, who know me. And
my book, This is a School, is about
my love of school. People know that.
But people didn't know that all of the
mental health challenges that I went through, helped
speak helped me become the person I am
today.
Yeah. I love what a beautiful story. And
in my belief system, she is she does
know and she is there and she has
read it and she she is a part
of it because she's part of all things
now. Yeah. Yeah. I agree.
Yeah. For sure.
You write,
do you have a,
tendency to write in a verse style?
Yeah. Like, it's it's only Molly Molly. It's
like I keep talking about Molly, because Molly
is always with me when I'm writing. Like,
she's not physically with me, but she's there
emotionally. And sometimes she's with me when I'm
writing. But she said, John, you didn't realize
you were a poet. We I don't think
we realized, but everything comes out of you
in poet tree, and and that goes back
to, I think, something I said earlier, which
is that poetry allows me to be brave
and allows me to be vulnerable,
and and I love how you can play
with the page.
Louder Than Hunger, it's like 528
pages.
Some editors would have gotten it down to
200 pages because they are it's it's a
novel in verse, so they're they're all poems.
But I needed I needed to take up
space on the page, and I needed to
play with the page. And Jake and
I have a had a really hard time
at one time taking up space on the
page. I mean, it's taking up space in
the world, but not on the page.
Yeah. I love playing I love playing with
the page. It's a beautiful juxtaposition
of a person who
was trying so hard not to be seen
and then now you get to be seen
all over the place. Yeah.
I actually really enjoy books like that. It's
what drove me to do you know the
author, Sark?
I do I do not.
But I'm writing I'm writing it down.
Very colorful. Takes up every little
every little corner, every little space, you know,
just
no rules.
It speaks to our inner child.
Yeah. It really does. Yeah. Yeah.
Let's talk about libraries for a second. I'd
love to.
For me, libraries were incredibly important as not
only a refuge from my home,
I could walk to the library in my
neighborhood
which was awesome.
Librarians
are so helpful.
When I changed schools my senior year, I
spent I was so terrified. I spent the
1st 2 weeks in the library eating my
lunch.
Mhmm. Until the librarian
came up to it makes me wanna cry.
Came up to me and said,
you know, you can't spend sorry. I don't
know why I'm getting emotional about it.
No. No. Please. No. Do. Because that's what
libraries do.
Can't do. Up to me and she said,
you can't spend your life in here.
You have to go be you have to
go be in in your life down with
all the kids and stuff. Yeah. And
and so I did it, and I was
so scared. And it was the best thing
ever. I sat down. I just sort of
picked a place to sit amongst all these
people that were chattering and who had grown
up together. I I ended up in a
school where the kids had grown ups in
2nd grade together, basically. And here I was,
you know, a senior. It was I was
brand new. I didn't know anyone, and they
all knew each other. And I just
feline, sat down in a space,
and the people around me were so lovely.
And in fact, one of those women is
my friend to this day.
Jen. Shout out, Jen.
And and it's just if it weren't for
that librarian seeing me and sort of pushing
me out of the nest,
so I I already have a soft spot
for them.
Yeah. Yeah. And that librarian knew that you
would be okay out there. I think in
some situations, librarian would have let you stay
knowing, like, this may not have been a
safe space for you to leave. Right? But
she knew. She could see that you're you're
gonna be okay. There's gonna be people down
there who are going to accept you and
love you, and you'll end up knowing them
all these years later still.
Yeah. She knew her students better than I
did because I was new, but she knew
for you know, the the type of kids
in them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's
beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. Oh, yeah.
I got very much so about it. I
don't know. I guess it's still that little
kid, you know, even though I was what,
I would have been 17.
That's still a kid.
That is. Yeah. It's hard. It's a hard
time. Yeah. For sure. Well, let's talk about
your being a librarian and,
let's talk about Bookalicious a little bit. Let's
all of that. So Bookalicious is a is
a is a startup,
out of California,
in the San Francisco area. And I ended
up joining Bookalicious
because of the founder.
Her name is Leanne Borders.
And when I was in high school, 17,
like you just mentioned,
I would go to the library a lot,
but I started to transition to actually going
to bookstores more.
And where I lived, you had two choices.
You had Barnes and Noble, and you had
Borders.
And when I was in one mood, I
would go to Barnes and Noble. In another
mood, I would go to Borders. And I
realized now as an adult, I loved going
to Borders when I was in a certain
type of mood because it was more like
an independent bookshop feel. It felt more indie,
and there's lots of music and records, and
it wasn't it was kind of more messy,
I thought.
Lianne Borders is of the Borders family that
founded Borders.
Her husband is Lewis Borders, And so I
just love that she was taking a lot
of the philosophy,
of the borders that I loved when I
was in high school. And I do all
of my speaking and school visits through Bookalicious.
It's just it's a really beautiful match. Are
you concerned about the state of libraries
and the peril that librarians face? Yeah. Yeah.
Always. I mean, it's it's hard.
Books are being challenged. People are being challenged.
I think that kids' lifelines are being challenged,
is is what I always say to people.
It's that, like, when we ban something that
could save a child,
we're we're removing maybe the only lifeline in
their lives. And through talking about loud when
I talk about Louder Than Hunger, it's even
easier and I think more powerful,
to make those connections.
That books truly can be the perfect prescription
to let us know we're going to be
okay, that they they can save us. I
mean, for for me, it was it was
the musical Rent that that really saved me,
but I think, like, stories e e equally,
but but Rent is what I always point
to. And when I do, visits with middle
schoolers, I do this entire segment on Adena
Minzel, and it makes my 17 year old
self so happy.
That's great. Because, you know, Adena Minzel was
in the original Broadway cast of Rent. Rent
is fantastic. The books have always been banned
historically. That is nothing new. But the ferocity
with which they are being banned now
is, to me, terrifying.
I I cannot believe
that people don't see that in the history
of the world, being on the side of
the people that banned books is not the
right side in history.
No. Not at all. No. And I think
we would learn that from history.
Yeah. We would be able to, yeah, make
but it but I always remind people, it's
actually a small group of people. It's a
small group of people who have made it,
like, their full time job to report books.
They often don't even live in the community.
Or read the books. They don't read that's
the thing. Like, you know, as a librarian,
thanks as a school librarian,
thankfully, I never had a book challenged.
But when I would talk to kids about
why I didn't have certain books in our
libraries
in our library,
they would be surprised of the reason. So
a good example I always use with people
is the Hunger Games is popular now, but
when it first came out, it was very,
very popular. And my students didn't understand why
we didn't have Hunger Games. And I'd say
to them, you can go to the public
library and get it. You can go to
the bookstore.
I know you have a sibling at the
junior high. They can check ask your sibling
to check it out for you. But then
I would say to them, I have something
called a selection policy.
And according to all of these reviews,
that book, Hunger Games, is for grades 9
and up. And I said, if your mom
or your dad or your grandma were to
challenge it, I would lose that challenge. And
they would then understand it, but they'd be
like, nobody, whatever. My parents would never do
that. But I say, well, okay. But I
I I am I'm going by the policy
that I have, you know, and we have
to have that in place. But the first
thing on the pot on the on the
form is, did you read the book?
And so often, the answer is no. I
did not read the book. Yeah. Exactly.
I think Molly would agree with both of
us in in this as well is that
I get frustrated though by the
what age
range is listed on a book because
I was reading at an at an early
age,
much higher level.
And because of
that, you know, I was open to worlds
Yeah. Opened up to worlds that were fantastical.
My family,
really all about sci fi and fantasy
and and and poetry. Those were kinda the
big ones in my house.
And so I got to read things that
had I paid attention to the sticker Yeah.
May not have picked up. And and I
don't like the limitation of that, but I
understand why it's there, but I just it's
like, why do we have to always put
this caveat on things? Like, oh,
you're not you're not smart enough or you're
not articulated enough to to be able to
grasp this. It's like, let's give somebody a
chance. Yeah. No. I agree with that because
I was let's say to my students, like,
you know what makes you uncomfortable.
If this is making you uncomfortable,
stop reading it. But but the person sitting
next to you, they they're fine with it.
Right? Or kids run over and say, mister
Shue, look at this word. It's in this
book. And, oh my goodness, how can this
word be in this book? And I say,
well, then don't read it. If you but
they weren't upset. They just wanted to tattle
on the book. Right. That's a great lesson
in life. If you don't like it, don't
do it. If you don't wanna read it,
don't read it. If you don't wanna watch
it, don't watch it. If you don't wanna
sleep with that person, don't sleep with it.
If you don't wanna have an abortion, don't
have an abortion. It's so easy.
Yeah. That's my philosophy.
Yeah. So here's a here's a hot question.
If you're reading a book
and you don't like it,
will you stop reading it or will you
power it through? Yes. Oh, I love that
question. So I used to have this rule
that I so disagree with now, which is
I will read if it's a novel or
if it has more than 50 pages, I
will read at least 50 pages. And if
I make the decision that I still am
not enjoying it after 50 pages, you have
permission to abandon the book. And now I'll
abandon on the first sentence, the first page,
in the middle of the first chapter.
But I'm also a mood reader.
And so if there's a book that I've
abandoned after the first page, but then everyone
is talking about it, I'll give it a
second chance, but I'm usually right.
Yeah. I don't finish a book if I'm
not into it. There's so many books that
I would be into. Why waste my time?
Yeah. But so many people will, though. Like,
my my best friend that I actually met
in the hospital,
when I was hospitalized for
for for disordered eating, will always finish a
book even if she's miserable.
Like, stop. Life is too short. Life is
too short. There are so many great books
out there. Yeah. What's your opinion on Audible
type books?
Oh, I love I love when people read
with their ears. It's real reading.
I struggle though because I don't have a
great attention span, and I find that my
brain is going all over the place, and
and then I'll have to, like, go back
a few chapters. But something that that used
to help me, I no longer have a
commute like I used to, but I would
always listen to audio books, but I would
going back and forth to school, but I'd
always have the physical book on the passenger
seat. And I would like move the bookmark
at stoplights,
and that would help me stay focused. Oh,
I love that. That was a strategy. But
my book Louder Than Hunger has an audiobook.
Oh, it does? Okay.
It's so well done. Jeff Ebner reads it.
I read the dedications
and my author's note,
and I didn't think I'd be able to
listen to the audiobook.
But I'm so grateful I did. And I
had a catharsis listening to it. I sobbed.
The story felt as real as it's ever
felt while listening to somebody read me my
story.
He reads it almost like a play. It's
really, really good.
What was it like
when you discovered you were a New York
Times best selling author? How surreal
was that moment?
Oh, thank you for asking that. I was
in El Paso,
doing a week of school visits,
and,
the the day that that I became a
New York Times bestselling author, I'd spent the
day with 6th and 7th graders,
and I decided to turn off my phone
all day because I'd been hoping for it.
And I'd been putting it out into the
universe, but I was feeling guilty for hoping
for it. But it's something that I just,
I felt like this was the book that
I thought I had the best chance for.
And so I finally turned on my phone
as I was coming out of the school,
and I spotted this child who looked really
lonely
and really upset, and I went over to
them and I chatted with them, and I
ended up giving them a pen out of
my
pouch,
and I signed the pen for them and
encouraged them to write down their feelings,
and had this good moment, but I was
really worried about them
and had thought I gotta email their their
librarian once I get back to the hotel
and say, can you check-in on this student
tomorrow? So anyway, as soon as I left
that child is when I saw that I'd
become a New York Times best selling author.
So it just felt like the right moment.
I just had an interaction with a child.
I sat in my car and I cried.
And then I decided not to tell anyone
for an hour because I just wanted to
carry it with me and just let it
be my own private thing.
I love that. Well, congratulations.
Yeah. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Yeah. It's
such a it's a beautiful
it's a beautiful acknowledgement
for somebody who I think
speaking with you for this short amount of
time,
it's clear that your passion and your love
for writing and being present in the world
and being there for decades, it's all there.
So it's lovely to be recognized.
No. It's the biggest honor. Like, I I
love school visits more than anything.
I feel like I'm still a school librarian
just without my own library. I get to
do my favorite part about being a being
a school librarian, which is connecting with kids
and seeing them.
And I think,
really, a lot of my presentations
could be called a cautionary tale, how to
look for the Jakes of the world. Jake
is is the main character of Louder Than
Hunger. I used to not admit it, but
I I have this ability just to look
out and see which kid needs a little
boost and which kid needs somebody just to
come over and talk with them and and
see them and to see inside of their
hearts.
And after presentations,
the librarians and teachers and principals will come
and say, did somebody, like, plant that? Did
you know? Like, that kid just lost their
mom or that kid is having a really
hard time adjusting because they've only been here
for a month and they don't know anybody.
They know I don't, but I can I
can see it?
Yeah. I just think it's being open. But
but for me, really, it it what helps
me is, again, rent,
is before I go into a school or
before I go into a presentation,
I always listen to No Day But Today,
which is what Adena Minzel calls her version
No Day But Today, but it's the song
Another Day in Rent. And I always say
to myself, No Day But Today, no moment
but right now. Just be fully present and
don't worry about everything else that's going on.
And and we can get back to that
when you leave this school, but that's that's
how I stay grounded.
Yeah. I think,
likely, the reason why you have that magical
ability is because you learned
that your own pain was worth
helping. You know? You learned that you were
worthwhile
enough to be heard because you have to
hear yourself too as a kid. You have
to
decide
that you're worth sticking around for. It's a
Yeah. It's a tricky little line to cross.
Yeah. I didn't want to.
I end my presentations
with the 7th 8th graders by reading aloud
a poem that I wrote for adults in
which there is no Jay. It's all John.
As you've seen, it's hard for me, like,
I go back and forth between saying myself
and Jake, but we're we're all 1. And
in that poem, I share with kids that
when I was 14, I went on the
Oprah Winfrey Show. And a lot of them
don't know who Oprah is, but I I
know I I tell them in a moment
as much as I can about Oprah, mostly
focusing on Oprah Winfrey loves books, and she
has a book club. And I told Oprah
that I never wanted to get better because
I didn't think I could ever get better.
And a lot of kids, when I read
that part, say, woah.
Like, that I that I that I said
that out loud, that I didn't think I
would ever be able to to turn off
that voice. But for them to be able
to see there is a way through, and
there is a path through, and that there
is a way to find joy again in
your life. And I tie it then back
to that it's musicals and music and theater
and story.
So Yeah. And whatever that sense. Yeah. It
did. And whatever that but I really believe
you again, you have to walk through a
fire so you see other people walking through
their fire.
This is like everyone has a battle.
Every single human being, no matter how together
they might seem,
is going through something.
Yeah. It's such an important message. And you
have a new book coming out. I do.
So I have a a book coming out.
It's very different from Louder Than Hunger. Yeah.
I'll I'll I know your, listeners won't be
able to see it, but it's called Ruthie
Rose's Big Idea.
And it's about a little girl named Ruthie
Rose who wakes up with this big, bright,
beautiful idea.
And her big, bright, beautiful idea, I didn't
know for a long time. But this little
girl kept telling me she had this big,
bright, beautiful idea. So I had to write
the book in order to figure out what
it is, and I'll spoil it and share.
Her big, bright, beautiful idea is to create
a poetry
place within her school, which is a space
for kids to come together and share their
passions and interests
and to connect through poetry. I love the
illustrations.
Oh, aren't they wonderful? Yeah. Holly Haddam is
the illustrator.
They're they're so vibrant.
They, like, jump off the page.
Yeah. Really beautiful.
How is that as a as somebody who
writes books that oh, god. They're gorgeous. Who
write books that have images in them? What
is that kind of process in finding an
illustrator like? Yeah. It's that's the, like, most
exciting part of the process.
It's different for different publishing houses, different contracts,
but the way that I do it with
my editor is when we're done with a
manuscript, we say, okay, this is the final.
I go away, and I create, like, a
portfolio
in some ways of people's art,
and I share it with her and the
justification
for why I think each of those artists
would be good for the book. And then
she does the same. And almost every time
there's one person we both have picked,
and then we hope that person says yes.
So, yeah, I've been I've been very lucky.
All the illustrators of each book are are
are magical and wonderful.
Yeah. I love it. Why do you go
to New York to write? Why there? Yeah.
Well, it it it's really because of the
Bethesda Fountain
in Central Park.
I learned about the Bethesda Fountain from Tony
Kushner's Angels in America.
Not through everything Well, I've now seen the
play,
on stage, but through the miniseries that had
Meryl Streep and lots of other actors like,
Emma Thompson. I was just fascinated
with the opening sequence
that always ended with the angel's face, and
then the angel turns and looks at you
in this really interesting way.
And I would, like, watch that on repeat.
And I had never been to New York
before at the time, but remember saying, one
day, I'm gonna go to New York, and
I'm gonna visit this statue. But I didn't
know that that statue would end up being
like a muse for me.
And whenever I'm stuck, I go there and
I talk to that statue, and I do
a lot of prewriting
sitting next to the statue. The walk from
where I stay in in Manhattan, I would
stay at 46th in Broadway.
The walk from there to Bethesda Fountain, I'm,
like, clearing my brain and opening my heart,
I always tell kids.
But then I spent so much time with
Bethesda when I was working on Louder Than
Hunger that Bethesda becomes the character
in Louder Than Hunger, but I had to
change the name from Bethesda to Frieden because
I do not live in New York City.
Weird. Like, I walk in the park here
and all that, and it's lovely, and there's
dogs, and it's fun and all that. But
there is something maybe it's because so many
riders have
walked that park and their energy is there
or something. Yeah. But there is something
extra about walking through Central Park as far
as it eliciting
this creative
being
of
just existence.
Especially in October when the leaves are changing.
That that's my favorite. You're wearing a coat.
I don't like it as much when it's
a 100 degrees. No. It's not fun when
it's hot.
Right? It's very hot in California right now.
It's hot. So very hot. No. The fall
I mean, the fall is the best everywhere.
Yeah. I love fall. Chicago
Chicago spring though is perfection.
Chicago's It's become shorter and shorter, but, yeah,
I do love it. Tell people how they
might find you or how they can get
you know, you've written a ton of books
now, and you you do the touring and
you talk, and you've got all this stuff
going on. What's the best way for people
to follow you? Yeah. So the best way
is, my name, johnshu,
j o h n s c h u
dot com. And then that has links to
all the ways to to connect.
Yeah. I'll put stuff on heyhumanpodcast.com
on their links page as well. There, it's
mine. I mean, I don't know who they
are. It's just
me.
All the people in my mind will put
that for you. They will do it for
you. Yeah. This is such a lovely conversation.
I'm Oh, thank you. Yeah. I'm really glad
you're out in the world doing this work.
I think it's incredibly
important.
Yeah. Thank you. And you too. I love
I love all I I I looked I
listened to a lot of episodes, but I
looked I read through every single description, which
I think is like a 194.
And I I love that you bring in
so many different types of people,
and I love that, like, I didn't know
what we were gonna talk about. That's my
favorite my favorite way to enter a conversation.
Mine too. I jot down a couple little
things that I wanna make sure I hit,
but I don't have questions. I don't yeah.
For me, it's important to just be present
in the conversation. Yeah.
Yeah. No day but today. No day but
today. Exactly.
And actually, it's 423
episodes. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I was
way off. No. It's okay. I think that
I the the iTunes one only shows you
a certain amount
at a time, but no. There's I've been
doing it 8 years. There's a ton. That's
amazing. It's a little bonkers.
Yeah. So and thank you, Molly. And Yes,
all. Thank you, Molly. Great. I wish you
so much success. And thank you for seeing
kids because it's so necessary.
Yeah. Like, I what you were saying about
being 17 in the library,
I I would have like, that really that
really spoke to my heart that the librarian
knew to to not allow you just to
like a lot of times he would. You'd
say no. I want this kid to stay
here. They need more time to adjust. This
is the safe haven right now. And then
we'll take baby steps to get them out
of here, but she knew she knew you'd
be okay.
Yeah. And she gave me 2 weeks to
wallow in my fear and and then was
like, okay. That's good. Good. You'll be fine.
Let's do it. Yeah. Oh, and I'm glad
you worked. Yeah. But thank you. This is
so much fun. Absolutely. And thank you for
listening, everybody, and thank you, John. Thank you.
Thank you, everyone. This is fantastic. Thank you.
Rate, review, and subscribe to Hey Human Podcast
on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts.
Thanks. Bye.