While the novel A Good Kind of Trouble has pretty much been dubbed the junior high school version of The Hate U Give, also a Balzer + Bray title, it is a book that had been more than 20 years in the making. It is based on the author, Lisa Moore Ramée’s experiences in elementary and middle school as well as her daughter’s, who is now in college. It shows that books like Trouble and Give are still timely and with each generation, young audiences are becoming educated and/or enlightened about race.
“My hope with my book was that it would be definitely there for young black girls in particular, but at the same time for non-black people,” Ramée tells So Booking Cool. “That they would be able to find those similar messages of ‘what is Black Lives Matter? Why is that important? And why does it mean something other than what I assumed?’”
According to Ramée, her book has indeed enabled others to better understand these messages and receive the answers to their questions. Young readers have reached out to the author, expressing their appreciation for Trouble. Ramée admits she can understand the confusion and why some youth may not initially comprehend the Black Lives Matter movement.
“It takes either being in that [black] community or someone kind of sitting you down saying, ‘wait a second, this is what we’re really saying.’ We are saying that we matter too.”
In part one of our conversation with the California-based author, Ramée discusses why it can be “horrible” as an author selecting a literary agent, her pleasant publishing experience with agent Brenda Bowen and co-publisher and editor Alessandra Balzer, her thoughts on The Hate U Give, and more–check out Part 2! For more information, check out the official website.