MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
When school is out and parents need a break or cheap long-term babysitting, for generations, kids, especially city kids, have gone to spend time with relatives in the summer. What are those days like away from home? What happens, though, when they're young Black boys who are allowed to roam and explore away from rules and routines, but also away from everything they know? Writer and MacArthur genius Kiese Laymon has some ideas. He has written a stunning new children's book called "City Summer, Country Summer," and he's with us now in our studios in Washington to talk about his version of endless summer days in the South. Thank you so much for joining us. Welcome.
KIESE LAYMON: Thank you for having, Michel. I'm happy to be here with you.
MARTIN: Why a children's book? I think people who know your work know that one of your most well-known books, "Heavy" - it's titled "Heavy" - can be a little heavy (laughter).
LAYMON: Right, right. You know, we talked about "Heavy" when it came out. And one of the things that you said when we talked about that book was, it's just hard in this book. And I wanted to create something that was softer and honest. You know, I think that book was about, like, the origins and the consequences of a lack of safety for children. And so I wanted to really, like, sit in what happens if we really explore a culture and a society and grandmothers that help create safeness in spite of the unsafety of the world.
MARTIN: So tell us about the characters and the storyline in "City Summer, Country Summer."
LAYMON: Yeah, so there's this kid, New York, who comes down from New York to visit his grandmother. And then there's other two kids who come from Jackson, Mississippi. And so for the kid from New York, it doesn't matter that those kids are from Jackson, which is a city. They're country to him. And it doesn't matter for the country kids whether New York is actually from New York or from Rochester or from Albany.
MARTIN: Or New Rochelle.
(LAUGHTER)
LAYMON: Or New Rochelle, right. He's New York to them. And so I just wanted to also create a book that was about, like, the imperative of, like, Black boy softness. I think people a lot of times talk about Black boy joy, but I don't think we talk a lot about the importance of Black boy touch, Black boy play and Black boy experimentation. And I got lucky in that the artist Alexis Franklin came on to create, like, I think, one of the most lush picture books I've ever seen. And we really wanted to get forest and gardens into this space because in my childhood, those were spaces that were, ironically, like, the most safe for us. Those forests and those gardens were where we learned how to touch, where we learned how to accept touch. And even though we didn't use these words, they're also where we learned how to accept love. And that's really what I just wanted to create.
MARTIN: Well, why don't you read us some?
LAYMON: Absolutely.
MARTIN: This is the point in the book where they've been together for a bit.
LAYMON: Yeah, so they're in the woods for the first time, and I'll just start. (Reading) New York wandered away from us and walked closer to the edge of the woods. You good? We asked. I'm ready to go home, he said. Something in those central Mississippi woods reminded New York of the language of home. Being reminded of home so far away from his newborn sister, Cici (ph), so far away from the bodegas, the fire hydrants and the city blocks, terrified or satisfied New York. Whether it was absolute fear or exquisite satisfaction, wandering through those cool spots in those Mississippi woods was too much for New York's body. We didn't speak this, New York didn't speak this, but our bodies knew.
MARTIN: That is lovely, and it's poignant. And it does so many things, because one of the things that it made me think of is how, not just Black boys, but maybe particularly Black boys, we sometimes don't give them enough credit for having a depth of feeling.
LAYMON: That's true. That's true.
MARTIN: I mean, so much of the literature, it seems to me, around Black boyhood is about being hard or being cool.
LAYMON: Right.
MARTIN: But just the ordinary feeling of missing your baby sister.
LAYMON: Yeah.
MARTIN: And being homesick.
LAYMON: And being lost. You know, and I want to create art and read art where Black children are allowed to be lost because being lost is a kind of experimentation. I just wanted to explore that sensibility of being somewhere new and missing somewhere old and longing for touch.
MARTIN: There's another passage I wanted you to read where you talk about that healing power. Would you read that for us, please?
LAYMON: Absolutely. So at this point, they've been looking for New York in the garden. They've been playing Marco Polo, and they can't find him.
MARTIN: Well, hold on. Do people just - I don't know, does everybody know what Marco Polo is? It's like a game a lot of times you play in the...
LAYMON: Right.
MARTIN: ...In the pool.
LAYMON: So when I came up North, I found out that people play Marco Polo in the pool because we played Marco Polo in the garden.
MARTIN: Oh, OK.
LAYMON: Because we didn't have pools, right?
MARTIN: Oh, OK.
LAYMON: So at this point, New York has found the boys and the boys have found New York. (Reading) In the middle of the garden, we felt a forceful wind getting closer to us. And when we turned around, New York tackled us and tumbled upon a row of my grandmama's butter beans. On the ground of that garden, covered in vegetables and dirt, coated in so much laughter, I want to say that the Mississippi and New York in our Black boy bodies were indistinguishable from each other. That would be a lie. We absolutely contrasted. But the sights, tastes and smells of our contrast felt like safeness, not safety, safeness. And safeness sounded like love.
MARTIN: Do you want to say more about that? What is the difference between safeness and safety?
LAYMON: Yeah, for me, I think, you know, growing up in Mississippi, you know, my grandmother worked in a chicken plant factory. She grew up in 1929. She knew segregation in ways I would never knew. She knew unsafety. And I grew up in the '80s and '90s, which were sort of unsafe times for a lot of Black children. But even in those unsafe spaces and times, I think there was, like, a bodily, psychological, emotional feeling of safeness when I was at my grandmother's house and my grandmother's, like, touch when she could see me. And so I'm trying to encourage us to, one, realize that every child on this Earth deserves safety. But also, I think as parental figures, there's, like, a psychological, physical, spiritual safeness that we have to ensure that I think our children have. And it's hard to do that when we don't have it ourselves.
MARTIN: And creating a sense that this is important, acknowledging that it's important.
LAYMON: Absolutely.
MARTIN: I'm feeling like this book isn't just about sort of calling out something that's wrong. This book is about celebrating what could be right.
LAYMON: I wish I had that sentence when we were putting the book out. But it is absolutely about celebrating something that could be right. And that something that can be right, we have to remind ourselves, can be our bodies. I think a lot of us move through this space and the world - I did as a young Black boy - thinking that my body was necessarily unsafe because of the way adults treated me, the way police treated me. But I was never treated unsafe by my grandmother.
MARTIN: And I wonder if maybe in a way this book is meant to be healing for adults, too.
LAYMON: Absolutely. You know, before kids can read letters, they can read faces. And so my hope is that, like, you know, people who read to, you know, 5-year-olds or fourth graders can share those facial expressions with young people who you know are in need of safety, but who are also in need of seeing that their fathers' and their mothers' and their uncles' and their aunties' faces contort with a kind of joy that I think only children's books can bring.
MARTIN: Kiese Laymon is the author of the new children's book "City Summer, Country Summer." Kiese Laymon, thank you so much for talking to us.
LAYMON: I'm so thankful to be here. Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF JIMBO MATHUS AND ANDREW BIRD SONG, "BEAT STILL MY HEART") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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