SECRET SATURDAYS
by Torrey Maldonado
Young Adult
www.TorreyMaldonado.com
3 Signed Copies will be given away on Friday, November 4, 2011!
About the Book:
Sean is Justin's best friend or at least Justin thought he was. They used to share everything but lately Sean is hanging with a tougher crowd, bullying, and messing up in school. Justin doesn’t know what’s happening with him. When he finally discovers Sean’s secret, he wants to help before Justin spins completely out of control. But what if confronting Sean means losing his very best friend?
Check out our Exclusive Interview with the Author here:
1) How do you keep the content and story fresh? For you and your readers?
I whip out two handy questions to see if my content is fresh. I ask myself, “Did I write lines people didn't want to skip? Did I write what people feel?” My bulls-eye target is to nail the voice and lives of Young Adults and middle school youth. I’m a teacher so as I wrote Secret Saturdays I read chapters to the High and Middle school students where I’ve taught for the last ten years. Then I double-checked with Literacy (English/ Language Arts) teachers if I got everything right. When young people said, “This book is hot!” I knew the story was fresh. When a veteran teacher who is now a college professor assigned my book as required reading next to the classic The Outsiders in her class for seasoned and new teachers, I did a football touchdown dance in my living-room. When Booklist said my book is “infectiously readable”, I went to the mirror and high-fived myself. What finally skyrocketed me onto Cloud Nine is when I visited different states and found kids felt Secret Saturdays was so real that they memorized parts of my book. So my two above questions help keep my content fresh.
2) If Oprah invited you onto her show to talk about your book, what would the theme of the show be?
Is it true that “Seeing is believing”? People already think they saw me on Oprah. Someone phoned me from Florida and said, "Turn on Oprah. You're on TV". I did and saw Wes Moore who wrote The Other Wes Moore. Ask yourself if this says him and I look alike. A few months after he was on Oprah, we both were speakers at the Harlem Book Festival. Conference-goers passed by and snapped pictures of me. Some shouted, “I love your book.” After a little while, I heard someone point at me say, “He’s Wes Moore.” So, I can picture myself with Oprah because Wes Moore and I met and he agreed that I can be the other other Wes Moore. Life's funny because we pass for brothers and my book is the YA curse-free, sex-free fiction-brother of his book. Secret Saturdays asks the question, “What if both Wes Moores were best friends as one Wes spun out of control and the other had the chance to save him?” So let’s imagine me on Oprah. She’d introduce me by saying, “Here on OWN our mission is to help people evolve. Today we have an author who shares OWN's mission. He has spent the last thirteen years working with young people and he’s so passionate about it that he authored what reviewers call an ‘unforgettable story’ of friendship that shows life is about choices. I guarantee you--you’ll finish this book in a day or two and there is no way you can finish this book without being a better human.” In the middle of our interview, Oprah would say, “I have a friend that some people may know. His name is President Obama. Well, he and I spoke about how we need more youth to pick up their pants and fully grab The American Dream. Your life is proof that if we want better men, we must get more boys reading—period—and your book is what we feel the White House could use to help create better men.” As Oprah says that, she stares over my shoulder and the crowd claps. So, I glance where Oprah's eyes went and on strolls—oh my freaking goodness—President Obama! I lose it and that all happens on Oprah’s show about ordinary people doing extraordinary things.
3) If you could have one super power what would it be?
During my upbringing, a lot of relatives and people in my housing projects pressured me to stop writing because they felt writing equaled school and boys who were into school equaled soft. So how did I stay on my writing-journey while growing up in one of New York’s most violent housing projects with crime, drugs, and people around me trying to knock me off-track? Comic books. I got hooked on comic books in the third grade. By age fourteen, I had almost two hundred comics. I also had a cat named Snow White and she peed on and scratched my collection down to fifty comics. So maybe I would have a super power that freezes pets during mid-pee to prevent us from losing things we love. I’m like the NBA star Carmelo Anthony, the baseball phenom Alex Rodriguez, and the CNN anchor Soledad O’Brien because they and I are Afro-Latino Americans. People think I’m straight African American and that’s a compliment I embrace. Hancock is Black and almost my skin-color. Ironman has my Puerto Rican American heritage. A lot of people don’t know Tony Starks is Latino. So as a hero, I’d be a mix of Hancock and Ironman with the bonus super power of pausing and redirecting pets to pee in the right places.
4) Your characters seem so alive and real...what's your secret?
My characters are alive because they are inspired by my life and the lives of young people I worked with for over a decade. I had to be careful not to write my life-story. My family likes to keep “family business” private. I also set the goal to show all sides of Sean when we know that males hide so much. Sean’s a music and Hip Hop fan and he’s the man at free-styling so he sometimes wears that “celebrity swagger” front. He’s an athlete so he also sports the "athlete persona". I love popular music yet a lot of it encourages our young people to wear masks or show the worst sides of people—usually that includes males cursing and valuing themselves, females, and people only for their bodies or bling. So I had to make Sean real by showing both the public and real Seans. Did I show what he absorbs from his media, school, and friends while showing his innocence, purity, and respect that so many young adults hide? The reviews from book experts, parents, kids, and schools say I went beyond meeting those goals so that’s a huge reward.
5) What's up next for you?
I feel like that song “Been around the world and I I I…” I just returned to NYC after being asked to address one of the biggest Young Adult Author conferences in the country: the Anderson Conference in Chicago. I'm lucky because I was sort of "The Little Engine That Could". Yes, my book made the American Library Association Quick Pick List and Kansas and Pennsylvania have chosen Secret Saturdays for their Middle and High School Reading Circles. Yes, my book was selected as this past August 2nd's National Night Out Against Violence official book. Yet, thus far, I've published one book. In Chicago, I spent the weekend on panels alongside multi-book, powerhouse authors with international critical acclaim and their books have been optioned for movies. How lucky am I? Getting these rare opportunities motivates me to continue to live the Spiderman quote “With great power, comes great responsibility”; therefore, I'm finishing my second novel (it's something Secret Saturdays fans will love). I just was a guest-author at Columbia University in New York. Last week, CNN interviewed me. I'm speaking in a week at a citywide Librarian Conference. Schools and colleges where professors and educators have built my novel into their curricula and organizations have invited me to visit. Also, I'll be at a few upcoming Book Fairs. Annie sings "The Sun will come up tomorrow" and I'm lucky to have some very bright days on my horizon.Torrey Maldonado is a veteran teacher and author of the critically acclaimed novel Secret Saturdays (Penguin). It has been spotlighted by NBC and more, is an American Library Association's Quick Pick, and has been adopted into Kansas's and Pennsylvania's High and Middle School Reading Circles. Raised in Brooklyn’s Red Hook projects, Maldonado overcame hardship to graduate Vassar and earn his MSEd in Administration from Baruch. His debut novel is inspired by his and his students’ struggles with being their true selves, friendships, family, and bullying. Visit the author online at: www.TorreyMaldonado.com.
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