When I wrote my first novel, The Skin I’m In, I stood on the shoulders of my family members whose lives and stories whispered to me as I crafted Maleeka Madison’s narrative. I never could have imagined that my debut novel would become a modern classic that would touch the lives of millions. Fast forward two decades to The Life I’m In, the sister novel to The Skin I’m In, where Charlese Jones, the bully, tormented Maleeka Madison. Char now has her own spotlight as she navigates the world as a sixteen-year-old runaway who gets snagged in the web of human trafficking. Twenty three years after introducing dozens of memorable characters to the world, the whispers of my family tree are still with me as I write.

Growing up, I cannot remember a time when I wasn’t surrounded by loving uncles, aunts, and grandparents. These were ordinary, everyday people. Not the sort to win awards or be recognized, unless it were for years of dedicated service to the church or their jobs. Yet, they were my first storytellers. Any award I have ever received for writing should have been given to them, I sometimes think. Though, I am sure they would beg to differ. After all, it was simply kitchen table talk to them. Visits to their home or ours. It was just what families do, they’d most likely say. Yet, without a pen, pencil, or laptop, they helped me understand that we are nothing without our stories. Like blood, stories keep us alive. Regardless of culture, community, or continental divides, stories help us survive and thrive.

Perhaps my family is the reason that I took to Langston Hughes’s stories as a teen. In his novel Simple Speaks His Mind, folk sat around tables eating and conjuring up the day’s troubles and joys. It was my mother’s kitchen table where so much of that happened for us. Back then, the women and the men seemed to separate for long stretches. The guys would watch TV in the living room and sip on beer or something stronger. My grandmother and aunt would be at the table nursing gin, while mom cooked pig feet or tried out an Italian recipe she’d seen on TV. Sweating, always, she lived for those moments. Me too. I always seemed to be on the edges, listening. Not far away, necessarily. Peeking in from the living room at times, seated at the table, or passing through. Perhaps that is how I learned about my grandmother’s aunts who came up from Maryland. Upon arrival to Philadelphia, they each carried a note from their pastor. The notes, a key of sorts, spoke of their good character, and was expected to help open doors to employment or housing.

Some of our family stories showed the inequity that women in general faced, though perhaps not equally. Like the time Grandma Marie was fired for being pregnant. She worked at the TastyKake factory in Philadelphia, making good money, she used to say. But her supervisor discovered she was with child and that was the end of that. This story taught me early that the playing field wasn’t level for women. But I already knew that. Back then, the women cooked, prepared meals, and served them. The men ate. That too was a powerful story.

When my relatives weren’t at our kitchen table, they were at my aunt’s or my grandparent’s tables. Like Simple, in Hughes’s novels, they spoke of Jim Crow and working for white folks, joked about hard times that would make a lesser people cry, and filled the air with witty words and wisdom that still remain in our family today.

My grandfather, paralyzed for years, was at the heart of many stories. A womanizer, he was fond of drink. Yet the tales told about him kept us in awe and had us in stitches for years. Pop-Pop, as we called him, owned a shoe shop, played the sax, and introduced my brother to Frank Sinatra. He could cuss up a storm, impress you with his knowledge of history and scripture, and owned a closet full of books. I think my sister became a voracious reader partly because of him.

The stories I heard growing up shaped my sense of family and community, as well as my place in the world. As a result, I knew early on that America did not love us. Yet, at the same time I knew how much my family respected and revered this country, loved being Black, and believed that nothing, even Jim Crow and his offspring, could ever stop our assent. My family made sure I understood that.

When I left for college, I was armed with my stories. Phoning home, I heard many of them again and again. On breaks and vacations, I could not get home fast enough. Because there they were waiting for me: my family and the stories they had nursed me on. The very stories that helped me to find my own literary voice.

SHARON G. FLAKE exploded onto the literary scene with her novel, The Skin I'm In, in 1998, and was named a Publishers Weekly Flying Start. Since then she has become a multiple Coretta Scott King Author Honor Award winner, and many of her novels have received ALA Notable and Best Books for Young Adults citations from the American Library Association. The Life I’m In, a companion novel to The Skin I’m In, will release January 5, 2021. She lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Please visit Sharon's website at sharongflake.com.

This article is part of the Scholastic Power of Story series. Scholastic’s Power of Story uplifts the stories of historically underrepresented groups specifically related to race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, physical and mental abilities, religion, and culture. Discover more Power of Story author articles on School Library Journal.

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