Jewell Parker Rhodes, PARADISE ON FIRE
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[2:04]The title of Parker Rhodes is the author of Paradise on Fire and is also the author of Ninth Ward, the winner of the credit scout cake honor, sugar, which was the winner of the Jane Adams Children's Book Award, and the New York Times bestselling ghost voice.
[2:19]Also, Bayou Magic, Towers Falling, Black Brother, Black Brother, and now Paradise on Fire.
[2:25]She's written many other award winning novels for adults, including Magic City, a novel about the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, and others for young adults.
[2:33]Jewel is the Virginia G. Piper, a down chair creative writing at Arizona State University.
[2:38]And she has been on my podcast, many times at this point, and contributed to my anthology.
[2:43]Welcome, Jewel. Welcome back on mom's turn of time to read books.
[2:47]I should say, I feel like what? Second and third time? I don't know. I taught you all the time. This is amazing.
[2:51]I know. I know.
[2:53]And whenever I think about you, you bring such a smile to my face, and I'm just so happy and so proud of the work that you're doing in the publishing industry.
[3:03]And of course, you know, moms don't have time to read is such an important message.
[3:08]But actually, I want to tell you, I had time to read on Monday.
[3:12]And I just started a book, oh, William, by Elizabeth Stout.
[3:16]Yeah.
[3:17]And literally, I had so much other work to do, but I read the book all day long, and it just so refreshed my soul.
[3:24]So yeah, so what you're doing, you know, cocaine moms, let's go for it.
[3:28]It's so important. Thank you. And it's so nice. You know, I actually bought a copy of a William in bookhampton over Thanksgiving.
[3:37]And then I ended up giving it as a gift to somebody who was sick. And now I haven't gone out and gotten another one.
[3:42]So I should just get in touch with the publicist. But anyway, it's always less.
[3:45]You should get it. You should get another copy. And you know how, you know, mothers and daughters, sometimes in mothers and sons have special relationships.
[3:53]As soon as I finished the book, I said to my daughter, Kelly, he's also been in moms don't have to under read the first anthology.
[4:00]And I said, Kelly, you have to read this book. And she says, Oh, mom, I just bought it.
[4:05]So we're playing a lunch day where we can discuss it together. So one of the things about being an author. I love what I do. And I love the stories that I write.
[4:14]But I too have never stopped loving reading.
[4:18]And I read widely, politically, I read, you know, children's literature for classes of a teach ethnic literature and just books that you recommend, you know, so it really makes my quality of life so rich.
[4:33]I'm just thrilled. You know, so I'm thanks to all those elementary school teachers. You taught me how to read.
[4:40]Oh, you gave me a good idea. What if maybe we should start a mother daughter book club because I was just thinking when you said that. Oh, my mother and I should read. Oh, William, because I bet she hasn't read it yet. And I bet she should and she would want to.
[4:51]There should be like a mother daughter book club.
[4:53]I think I think it would be wonderful. And I'm not going to give away the ending, but there are ways which I think it will resonate with your soul and your moms and my daughters.
[5:04]And it's sort of like one of these novels. It's really encapsulates being an artist being, you know, a wife, you know, being a mom.
[5:13]And it's sort of this multi generational thing and it's beautiful.
[5:17]Yes, let's do that. Yes, maybe there's a man out there. We can join. So we don't have to do all the work.
[5:23]Oh, or, or, but now as Kelly, we can ask her to do it. No, but how about mom's daughters and also grandchildren.
[5:34]But you know, I once did a book club with my son. He's like 31 32 years old. And he has, you know, gave her friends all over the world.
[5:43]And we decided to do a book club and that was the best book club I have ever been in. We read everything from philosophy to science fiction, you know, to, you know, best sellers and, you know, more commercial novels.
[5:57]And it was so interesting. These young men taught me so, so much. I was privileged to do it. That was amazing.
[6:06]Cool. I just like literally forgot we were even doing a podcast.
[6:10]I thought we were just like to do it. I could like sit here. I do all day. I should probably ask you.
[6:18]She probably asked you about your book. Oh my gosh.
[6:21]Oh, paradise on fire. Thank you very much. And paradise on fire.
[6:27]And isn't that a gorgeous cover? It is a beautiful young black girl. And her name is Addie, which actually in my jury and her proper name is adago.
[6:37]And that means daughter of the Eagles. And that's why we have the eagle here.
[6:42]And Addie actually has the gift of aerial perception that she can think in 3D.
[6:48]And so she's really good at maps, mazes, cartography, topography.
[6:53]And she goes to wilderness camp that her grandmother sends her to along with five other inner city black kids from Billy New York, you know, and they fly to California and Addie learns about nature.
[7:08]She learns about herself. She forms friendships, but they get caught in a wildfire. So it's a real survival story of how Addie has to step up to say herself as well as her friends.
[7:22]One of the things that I love is get what Gary Paulson and it was such a loss when he died a couple weeks ago. And his hatchet in particular, you know, as a survival story really stirred me.
[7:35]And that's why she's a young white boy who survives in the wilderness, you know, but there aren't many stories of young girls, or young girls of color, or boys of color, who also survive in the wilderness.
[7:51]And she actually tried to channel the great Gary Paulson to write paradise on fire and also to write my other survival story 9th Ward, you know, but it is interesting because Addie unlike Brian and hatchet takes her community with her that she forms, you know,
[8:11]And it's really I think having to do with her gender that she cannot survive alone and have just an interior change, but she is a young girl has an interior change and then she takes her village with her. So I really, really like that.
[8:27]Well, I have to say I started by reading this out loud to my son, my other son, not the one sitting next to me now, who is seven. And I started reading it and then I realized that some of the characters were not going to make it.
[8:39]And I was like, Oh, I was like, I don't know if I should really read this to him because I was in the letter that came with the book.
[8:48]But anyways, I stopped reading, he went to bed, but I kept reading all night. So I read the whole thing and I was like, Oh my gosh, I can't believe all the stuff. So when he woke up the next morning, he was like, can we finish reading the book and I said, well, I don't know. I think it might be a little dark. I actually finished the book. Maybe it's not quite right for you at age seven.
[9:01]And he was so mad. So anyway, he got into it right away. I kind of summarized it for him. But I mean, there's loss. There's loss and stress. I mean, the fire and the escape and the injuries.
[9:14]I mean, it's very visual. I feel like I watched the movie of it by reading. You know, it was like so clear. All of the obstacles and Addie's resilience and her obviously her skills, but also like how she feels so out of place at times.
[9:28]And then even your letter at the end or where there was something at the end. I feel like when you were talking about like how how few people of color underprivileged children get exposure to the outdoors or visit.
[9:40]And then you know, there's no mistakes about visiting parks and like the national parks and all of that, which blew my mind. I had no idea.
[9:47]You know, it's really interesting because I write from my life and also then weird things that happened to me in my life.
[9:55]And one strange thing was that as an inner city Pittsburgh kid, you know, I did not know that landscapes like.
[10:00]California, Washington state or Oregon existed.
[10:05]And I came out here when I was in my early 20s on Book Tour,
[10:08]you know, to Elliott Bay books, right?
[10:10]And it was like, whoa, you know, nature.
[10:14]And my whole life has been about getting to that landscape
[10:19]where I immediately felt at home.
[10:21]So right now, I live in Seattle,
[10:24]you know, that I finally made it after many, many decades.
[10:29]And then it occurred to me how, you know, so many of my friends,
[10:33]so many of my family members.
[10:35]We didn't know about hiking.
[10:36]We didn't know about swimming.
[10:37]We didn't know about, you know, nature bathing, you know,
[10:40]and fourth fading, none of that.
[10:42]It was just sort of out of our tin.
[10:44]So I wanted my daughter to be a girl scout.
[10:47]And she became a girl scout so that she could go out
[10:50]and experience hiking and rafting
[10:53]that experiential learning of what, you know,
[10:56]this planet of ours has gifted us with.
[10:59]And then about a decade ago,
[11:02]I was in Wyoming for a writer's conference.
[11:05]And I had gone there several times before
[11:07]and the audiences were always all white, you know,
[11:10]which is fine.
[11:11]But this one time there was a row of black kids.
[11:14]And it was like, whoa, I have to go talk to them.
[11:17]And they belong to an organization called City Kids.
[11:21]And it's in DC and they take six graders through 12 graders
[11:26]and they mentor them and they send them out to Wyoming every summer.
[11:30]And they learn about wild and wilderness
[11:34]and they build skills and they have a terrific high school
[11:38]and college placement rate.
[11:40]And so it's all came together that I needed to write about this
[11:45]because how do you get kids to care for the planet,
[11:49]care about climate change if they don't experience the wonders
[11:54]of being in the natural environment?
[11:56]And also kids who are poor or of color right now
[12:01]they're going to be even more impacted by climate change
[12:05]because they live neighborhoods where there aren't trees
[12:08]where there isn't a playground.
[12:10]So they don't have as much CO2 taken out of the air.
[12:13]Out of the air, they don't have shame.
[12:15]So when the heat rises, they're going to have more heat
[12:17]and more heat-related deaths.
[12:19]And also because of the lack of trees,
[12:21]they have more asthma, more lung problems.
[12:24]And this is for babies all the way to the elderly.
[12:28]And the World Health Organization has noted
[12:31]for the very first time a death by pollution.
[12:35]And it was a nine-year-old black British girl
[12:39]who lived in the city.
[12:41]And she died basically as a result of climate change.
[12:46]So it really is an emergency.
[12:49]And just yesterday, I was watching PBS NewsHour
[12:53]and they had a crew of African Americans
[12:56]who were going to try to scale Mount Everest.
[12:59]And they spoke about how they never knew people who hiked
[13:03]or climbed mountains.
[13:05]And yet they found in that world a community
[13:08]that they started of hikers
[13:11]and rock climbers of color.
[13:13]And now they're going to try to do something which, you know,
[13:16]very few people get a chance to do climb Everest.
[13:19]So nature, our planet, it's good for our soul.
[13:22]It's good for our mental health.
[13:25]You know, it's good for expanding our horizons.
[13:28]And it's good for reminding us that we have to be agents, you know,
[13:33]fostering a better environment,
[13:35]particularly for your kids, my kids, everybody's kids.
[13:39]You're so right.
[13:40]You know, it's funny to say that
[13:42]that because it's December, mid-December in New York City.
[13:46]And today, for whatever reason, it's 60 degrees.
[13:49]And I was like, why?
[13:51]And my assistant Diana, it's like a cross from you,
[13:55]just said in a very matter-of-fact way,
[13:57]because the earth is dying.
[13:59]And we all kind of laughed like,
[14:04]wait, it brings us all down, Diana.
[14:06]But it was very depressing.
[14:08]And we laugh too because we're uncomfortable with it.
[14:12]But our spirits recognize that there's a truth to that, you know,
[14:16]and it really is depressing.
[14:18]So, you know, that was one of the reasons why I wrote Paradise and Fire,
[14:22]you know, encouraging, you know, kids of color,
[14:25]you know, to try to get out into nature.
[14:27]And right now, the National Park Service, less than 5% of the people
[14:31]who visit our national parks, our nation's parks,
[14:35]our people of color.
[14:36]And that has to change every child you have access
[14:40]to our national parks.
[14:42]But, you know, I wanted to say that when I was thinking of Addie,
[14:45]and she just popped in my head,
[14:47]I was looking for an African name,
[14:49]because I wanted her to be African and African-American,
[14:52]because in all my novels, I try to do different ethnic groups,
[14:55]Vietnamese, Creole, you know, Native American,
[14:58]because I'm trying to mirror everybody that I can in a book.
[15:01]And I went down the list of Nigerian names,
[15:04]and I came upon a doggo, daughter of the Eagles.
[15:08]But one thing that you won't know from reading the book is that in Nigeria,
[15:13]they used to have a festival of the Eagles.
[15:16]The brown eagle is one of their nation's, you know, most prized bird.
[15:21]And because of climate change,
[15:23]they no longer have a festival,
[15:25]because the Eagles no longer come.
[15:28]And so I like that connection, the climate change is affecting, you know,
[15:32]Nigeria affecting the world,
[15:34]and then connecting it to the West in America's bold eagle.
[15:37]So that was the global connection that I knew that I wanted to make,
[15:41]but doesn't come out in the book.
[15:43]But yes, it's a problem.
[15:46]It's a problem.
[15:48]Yes, you know, coming from New York City myself,
[15:51]I've never been entirely comfortable with hiking or mountains,
[15:54]or any of that.
[15:55]You know, I once tried to hike with my husband Kyle,
[15:58]and we like started walking,
[16:01]and we passed a man, and my husband's like,
[16:03]oh, hey, how are you?
[16:04]And he's like, all right, you know,
[16:06]it's rattlers around today.
[16:08]So just make sure you pull this stick down like this
[16:11]and bang it on the ground.
[16:12]And I was like, OK, and he walked by us.
[16:14]And I looked at him.
[16:15]I was like, turn around, turn around right now.
[16:17]And we walked all the way.
[16:19]I was like, I'm not doing this.
[16:20]I'm happy to walk up a hill on a sidewalk.
[16:22]But, you know, that's it.
[16:24]I see the value.
[16:26]OK, no, I understand.
[16:28]And actually, Zibi, I am still the same way.
[16:31]You know, I will kayak, but I'm not like that outdoor person
[16:35]in terms of hiking and doing all of that stuff either.
[16:38]And so it was sort of like my husband laughed because I said,
[16:41]I'm doing a book about this.
[16:42]He says, are you kidding me?
[16:43]You know, so I had to learn all of that stuff.
[16:46]But I married a man who is at home in nature.
[16:50]And I remember when he said, OK, let's go camping, you know.
[16:54]And I said, sure.
[16:55]The Ritz Carlson.
[16:56]Yeah.
[16:57]But I did ask him, you know, teach our kids this, you know,
[17:03]and it made a difference.
[17:04]And so when the Girl Scouts had their overnight camping trip,
[17:07]dad went, you know, rather than mom.
[17:10]Because I'm still uncomfortable.
[17:11]And I still can't even swim Zibi, you know,
[17:14]because I have to learn when I was a child.
[17:16]And, you know, so when I get in the water now,
[17:18]I have to have my life best.
[17:19]Even though I've taken lots of classes,
[17:21]I have to hold my husband's hand.
[17:23]And I still get panic attacks.
[17:25]But my kids are wilderness kids.
[17:28]But, you know, I was watching people lead Miami on the highway,
[17:32]trying to get away from a hurricane that was coming.
[17:35]And the cars were just stuck in traffic.
[17:38]And one of the things that Kelly said was, you know what?
[17:42]I just strapped my baby to my back and we would hike out of there.
[17:46]That's the, I mean, that's the Girl Scout.
[17:49]That's the wilderness person.
[17:51]It would never occur to me to hike out of there, you know.
[17:56]And yet that sense of experiential learning is so important
[18:00]to all kids.
[18:01]So in schools, like, like I'm sure like for your children,
[18:04]they do, they assess math, they assess language.
[18:08]But there actually are kids who have other skills,
[18:11]such as, you know, thinking and 3D that they can use
[18:14]in more experiential learning.
[18:17]And we don't talk about that as genius.
[18:19]And actually, that's what Eddie had.
[18:21]She is a genius at visualizing.
[18:24]So she should be an engineer,
[18:26]a climatologist, a topographer.
[18:28]She's just absolutely amazing.
[18:30]And one other thing about the story.
[18:32]She has a secret that she,
[18:34]she doesn't know the answer to when she was four years old.
[18:38]Her parents died in a house fire and somehow she survived.
[18:42]So she's haunted by that memory because she can't figure out how
[18:45]she escaped.
[18:46]But she nonetheless draws maps and mazes.
[18:50]And she's always looking away out.
[18:53]And then that becomes a real superpower for her.
[18:56]But the novel starts with her on the airplane
[18:58]and she's trying to draw a map for how she could get off the plane
[19:01]and case it falls.
[19:02]And the kid next to her, Jay says,
[19:04]well, you know, you don't survive a plane crash.
[19:07]And Eddie says, I will.
[19:10]Is that about her?
[19:12]Yes.
[19:13]I know.
[19:14]That was also like a very harrowing memory
[19:16]that kept coming back to her that drama that fire
[19:19]and then being in the fire and smelling the smoke.
[19:22]Oh, my gosh.
[19:23]There was a lot.
[19:24]But this is beautiful.
[19:25]I mean, it brought up so many issues
[19:26]and covered just so many emotions.
[19:29]And again, it was like such an immersive experience to read this book.
[19:33]And so different from Black brother, Black brother.
[19:36]I mean, that was so much more.
[19:37]I mean, I don't know.
[19:38]They were both.
[19:39]And it's like loving reading your stuff.
[19:40]It's really.
[19:41]You know, one of the things when I write,
[19:44]I really write experience.
[19:46]Different lives.
[19:48]And they guide me.
[19:49]And so I write.
[19:50]Like, I don't sense either.
[19:51]But I wrote about fencing and Black brother, Black brother.
[19:54]And it's just really.
[20:00]amazing. So as a writer, I feel as though my life is getting bigger, that through my characters,
[20:05]I'm leading all these different lives. And also, I think, you know, that I started as a drama
[20:11]student. So I went to Carnegie Mellon for drama. So I literally act out all the parts. And because
[20:18]we're all human, we can act and imagine anything. So I've enjoyed writing different books,
[20:24]but it's like when you talk to actors, I think, or other artists that they don't want to do the
[20:29]same thing over and over again. There are things that I do that are in my wheelhouse that are
[20:34]familiar to me, but I like choosing other topics. But I do seem to fall within environmental stewardship
[20:41]novels or social justice novels so far. But right now, I'm working on an adventure, a real adventure,
[20:49]and a retelling of a children's classic, which I can't tell you about what it's what it's going
[20:55]but they're hoping to make a book and a film out of it. And it's really different. So I will tell you
[21:01]one clue, skateboards. And I don't skateboard either. All I think of when you say that is back to the
[21:09]future. Oh, that's true. But yeah, and I was in New York dorm research for New York and skateboards.
[21:14]Oh, wow. Okay. Well, I'm going to put my thinking cap on and try to figure it out.
[21:19]This time me out next year and we'll talk about it, talk about it then. But that whole idea,
[21:26]we live in such a great moment of so many writer's voices are being opened up and shared with the
[21:32]world. So I feel very lucky that I'm where I am in my life right now. Because when I was a little
[21:39]girl, I didn't have any books by people of color. I didn't even know people of color wrote books.
[21:45]And it wasn't until I was to junior in college. So I think of the work that you do, the work that
[21:51]I now do, the work that our teachers and librarians do, that we are making a different society by
[21:57]giving our kids an adult access to a wider variety of books. I love that. I just love it.
[22:05]And then think about all the writing that comes out of that as a result of the reading. It's even
[22:08]better. Yes. Yes. It's absolutely fantastic. But you know, there is this movement now and children's
[22:15]literature of the upper middle grade novel. And technically speaking, I would call my book paradise
[22:22]and fire an upper middle grade novel simply because of what you said about the intensity of it
[22:28]that it does get very real, you know, and very, very frightening. And so the characters are 14.
[22:36]So I actually have advocated us saying, you know, it really is for an older, older group,
[22:42]you know, rather than the, you know, the fifth grader that might normally read my work.
[22:46]But well, don't tell anyone that I read, but I read it to my first writer. Anyway, I like,
[22:52]you know, bad mom, a word of the night. But I like it, when I do things like that,
[22:59]I like, I do what you do, you summarize well. I was like, I have time to stop.
[23:05]I have found that reading any of the books I'm doing for my podcast, especially the ones just
[23:10]for grownups, put my Sunday sleep faster than anything else. Not yours though, I'd have the
[23:15]opposite effect. So, well, my best wishes and you should let me send you sugar, because sugar is
[23:23]about a 10 year old. And it's right about the era after slavery where some people still stayed on
[23:28]a plantation and worked and how Louisiana and Mississippi brought in Chinese workers to work the
[23:34]plantations. And that Chinese workers were treated as if they were slaves. So, it's about a
[23:41]white kid, a black girl, and a Chinese guy who come together to form, you know, harmony in the
[23:48]breakdowns of stereotypes, discrimination, you know, it's funny, it's a trickster, and like, little
[23:56]characters try out those jokes, rare rabbit, you know, in these tails. So, he might like that one,
[24:03]but there's a fire at the end. Okay. All right. Nobody knows. Nobody knows. Okay. All right.
[24:10]Sugar is now on my list as a more age-appropriate book. However, this was great. And anyway,
[24:16]it's always such a pleasure. Thank you for coming back on. And I can't wait to see what else
[24:20]comes out of you. All right. Well, I adore you too. I need a success and thank you for having me
[24:30]and for supporting my work. It means, it means the world to me. And next time I'm in New York,
[24:36]I'm going to come see you. I can't wait. I'm excited. All right. Happy holidays. Thank you. Okay. Bye-bye.
[24:47]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Don't forget to
[24:51]follow me on Instagram at ZB Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Also sign up for my
[24:57]newsletter at ZB Owens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on Zoom
[25:02]every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan in fact, Texture Sound for the Sound Editing.
[25:07]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.