ERIKETA COST
Staff Writer
Seventh grade can be a challenging year when it comes to finding a voice and accepting who you are.
Sometimes, it’s the voice of someone else that inspires us to find our own.
Author Sharon Flake started to feel inspired after reading some poems that spoke of African- American culture, lifestyle and sweet potato pie.
The words talked of food and experiences she could identify with.
Those poems were works of Langston Hughes, an author that had immense pride for his culture.
Hughes was one of the many influences in Flake’s life that inspired her to write.
He made her realize that in a world that is constantly judging, it was perfectly okay to be different.
Flake came to Fredonia last Friday, Oct. 19, for a lecture and reception open to the public.
The English Education committee has been working together to organize Flake’s visit to campus.
The group is comprised of Professors Ann Siegle Drege, Melinda Wendell, Susan Spangler, KimMarie Cole, Heather McEntarfer and Scott Johnston.
She talked about her books “The Skin I’m In” and “You Don’t Even Know Me” along with offering insight into her own personal journey.
The event marked the 20th anniversary of “The Skin I’m In” which won a Coretta Scott King award, YALSA Best Book for Young Adult award and had been named a New York Public Library Top Ten Book for teenagers.
Her characters feature young African- Americans growing up in urban settings that exhibit several different adversities and journeys.
“Kids read my books and ask me how I know about it all, the stories and experiences they go through,” said Flake. “My job is to get kids to wonder how I do it. That way they’re going to read it more, sit with it longer, live it more and unpack it in some kind of way.”
Some of her knowledge and insight into children’s lives also comes from a job working in a foster care home.
“I worked for eight years in a foster care house. You may be there if you were a runaway, or if you were sexually abused. I was like a house mother with teen years. I would wake them up and get them off to school, make sure they stay out of trouble,” said Flake.
The experiences in her journey motivate her writing and stories.
“I was writing on and off during that time. In college, I had a few journals, too. I’d write what my day was like and notes to God,” Flake said.
Flake’s work has reached out to children in many unique ways.
She said, “One girl made a board game based on ‘The Skin I’m In’ for her friends to help with self-esteem. Some kids have formed clubs after reading them, or used them in their college essays.”
Like Hughes, she strives to communicate to children that even though they may have grown up differently than others, they should embrace those cultural differences and use them to build confidence and to find a voice.
The event was sponsored by the Black Student Union, FSA and Sigma Tau Delta, the English Honor Society.
Member of Black Student Union Monica Manney said, “I first read ‘The Skin I’m In’ when I was in 8th grade for a reading assignment. I was in the majority at my middle school and hadn’t had any problems with colorism that I was aware of. But when I went to high school, where there were only two people of color in my class, it gave me the confidence that I needed to know who I was and who I was not. It gave me one of my first encounters with celebrating blackness.”
Manney has passed the book down to her younger cousin.
“I bought her a copy for us to read together. Flake’s work is timeless. It addresses everything that little Black girls go through,” she said.
Flake’s lecture on Oct. 19, was part of the 2018- 2019 convocation series and is also a Department of English Marie Louise White lecture.
To learn more about the Marie Louise White lecture series, visit http://www.fredonia.edu/ english/mlw-events.