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Velshi Banned Book Club 'All My Rage' by Sabaa Tahir · THE DAILY BRIEF

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Today's meeting at the Velshyband Book Club is officially underway.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Today I'm joined by Saba ta Hear, the best selling
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  Speaker 1: author of many young adult novels, including today's feature, the
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  Speaker 1: twenty twenty two National Book Award for Young People's Literature
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  Speaker 1: winner All My Rage.
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  Speaker 2: Saba, Welcome to the Velshiyband Book Club. Thank you for
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  Speaker 2: having me.
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  Speaker 3: I'm really happy to be here.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: One of the themes explored in All My Rage is grief.
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  Speaker 1: I want to read a short passage. It says it
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  Speaker 1: doesn't take me long to get back to my street,
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  Speaker 1: and when the motel comes into view, I stop because
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  Speaker 1: when I walk inside.
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  Speaker 2: It won't be home. Ama won't be waiting for me.
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  Speaker 1: I sit down in the middle of the road and
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  Speaker 1: the wave slams into me, pouring out of my.
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  Speaker 2: Eyes so fast that I can't see.
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  Speaker 1: I thought I would eventually write about today, order my thoughts,
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  Speaker 1: put my pain into words.
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  Speaker 2: Now I realize that I won't. I can't.
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  Speaker 1: Today is a poltergeist I'll chain to the back of
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  Speaker 1: my brain, one forever, link to freezing desert, wind and
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  Speaker 1: dirty asphalt and a loneliness so deep that it shouldn't
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  Speaker 1: belong to this world end quote. That is one remarkable
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  Speaker 1: explanation of grief. I mean, a lot of our books
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  Speaker 1: talk about grief. Talk to me about this intensity of
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: grief in the novel.
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  Speaker 3: So yeah, the book is to some degree a meditation
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  Speaker 3: and an exploration of grief, long lasting grief. But it's
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  Speaker 3: not just about you know, loved ones lost, right my parents.
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  Speaker 3: You know my family. We have lost loved ones parents,
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  Speaker 3: you know, a niece's nephews, you know, aunts, uncles, And
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  Speaker 3: there's this really specific isolation that comes from experiencing these
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  Speaker 3: losses when you're so far away from anyone who really understands.
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  Speaker 3: So it is really grieving not just the loss of
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  Speaker 3: a person, but of a culture and a community and
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  Speaker 3: a family. And the book is equally about grieving the
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  Speaker 3: loss of friendship, of trust, of illusions and dreams, like
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  Speaker 3: the loss of childhood. But beyond that, it's very much
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  Speaker 3: about what can happen after such losses and about what
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  Speaker 3: it means to survive grief.
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  Speaker 1: And ultimately it's also an immigrant story that you write about.
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  Speaker 1: It grapples with prejudice and abuse and bullying and as
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  Speaker 1: you just mentioned, the feelings of not belonging, which a
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  Speaker 1: lot of immigrants and immigrant teenagers face right off the page.
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  Speaker 2: All my Rage was written just three years ago.
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  Speaker 1: Given where we are different than when you wrote this,
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  Speaker 1: does the book take on a different weight as you're
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  Speaker 1: relating to immigrant stories, you know, I.
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  Speaker 3: Think that that part of the book is universal. Immigration
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  Speaker 3: can be a very lonely experience. It requires incredible courage
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  Speaker 3: to immigrate, and it can incite such rage, not just
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  Speaker 3: in people you know who don't want you here, but
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  Speaker 3: in the immigrants who are going through it because to
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  Speaker 3: be hated simply because of who you are, because you're
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  Speaker 3: seeking a better life, when you're doing nothing wrong, when
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  Speaker 3: you're helping to sustain the foundations of a nation, and
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  Speaker 3: you're met with disdain, that is painful, And whether we
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  Speaker 3: like it or not, that is part of the American dream,
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  Speaker 3: and I definitely wanted to focus on that in the book.
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  Speaker 1: One of the most relatable and sympathetic parts of the
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  Speaker 1: book is when newer experiences college rejections.
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  Speaker 2: I'll rate from the.
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  Speaker 1: Book quote, we regret to inform you, while your grades
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  Speaker 1: and scores were impressive, unfortunately, after reviewing your application, we
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  Speaker 1: have made the difficult decision. The letters come hard and fast,
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  Speaker 1: like the gunshots and MIA's paper planes bang bang bang, Yale, Columbia,
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  Speaker 1: Cornell rejected, rejected, rejected, five rejections out of seven. Meanwhile,
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  Speaker 1: Jamie's informed all of Juniper that she got into Princeton,
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  Speaker 1: and she won't stop asking me if I've heard anything.
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  Speaker 1: Yet part of me wants to tell her I got
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  Speaker 1: rejected from five schools. The two I haven't heard from
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  Speaker 1: are UCLA and Northwestern, So I'm screwed.
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  Speaker 2: You won. Congratulations. End quote.
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  Speaker 1: There's a poignant mundanity to this that takes on new
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  Speaker 1: meaning when you couple it with the others crises that
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  Speaker 1: she's dealing with, which makes this feel incredibly universal.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, look like when college is your only way out
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  Speaker 3: of a place or situation, it takes over the whole horizon, right,
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  Speaker 3: But even when you have other options, college is built
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  Speaker 3: up through high school as being this hugely momentous part
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  Speaker 3: of your life. It's going to you know, it's gonna
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  Speaker 3: make or break your future. And hundreds of thousands of
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  Speaker 3: our kids are going through that every year, and it's
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  Speaker 3: quite heavy. And I remember that feeling, and I wanted
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  Speaker 3: to give both this challenge to surmount and also this
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  Speaker 3: this goal to work toward and I also wanted to
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  Speaker 3: highlight how difficult it is for a kid who has
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  Speaker 3: no relatives in college, you know, for a kid who
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  Speaker 3: has no guidance in that area, how difficult it is
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  Speaker 3: for them to navigate what is really a very opaque process.
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  Speaker 1: One of the other themes of the story music. It's
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  Speaker 1: not a theme, but it's central to the story. I'm
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  Speaker 1: not going to I'm try not to give anything away.
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  Speaker 1: I do want to read a scene towards the end
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  Speaker 1: of the book quote, I have a song I've been
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  Speaker 1: saving for today.
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  Speaker 2: Newer's voice is hoarse, almost a whisper. Do you want
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  Speaker 2: to hear?
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  Speaker 1: I nod, but don't turn because I'm afraid that, like
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  Speaker 1: a dream, she'll disappear. The second I look closely, I
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  Speaker 1: feel her breath light on my neck, and then the
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  Speaker 1: cool plastic of an earbud. A guitarist drums, a man sings.
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  Speaker 1: And it's not a Norse song. It's not a Saloudin
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  Speaker 1: song either. It's an US song about brightness and beginnings
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  Speaker 1: and love and hope and everything else.
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  Speaker 2: I used to think I didn't deserve tell me about
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  Speaker 2: the role that music plays in this book.
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  Speaker 3: Well, I was one of those teenagers with a Wachman
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  Speaker 3: I'm dating myself and headphones in my ears. Basically from
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  Speaker 3: the age of thirteen, music made me feel really seen,
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  Speaker 3: you know, like there was somebody out there that understood
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  Speaker 3: this storm of emotions in me. And music, I think
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  Speaker 3: is still very much the way that young people make
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  Speaker 3: sense of the world. It's certainly the way that what
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  Speaker 3: makes sense of the world. So all of the songs
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  Speaker 3: that these characters listen to that are meaningful to them,
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  Speaker 3: they are all songs that I connected to, you know,
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  Speaker 3: songs that seem to understand me when no one else did,
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  Speaker 3: you know, songs that felt like they saved my life.
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  Speaker 3: And so I wanted to kind of honor that, honor,
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  Speaker 3: you know, all these artists who have met so much
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  Speaker 3: to me. And this was my way of saying, you know,
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  Speaker 3: honestly offering like a love letter to these artists and saying,
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  Speaker 3: you know, thank you for what you did for me.
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  Speaker 1: Saba, we appreciate your time this morning and so much
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  Speaker 1: more of the book. Obviously we just have a short segment,
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  Speaker 1: but thank you for being the newest member of the
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  Speaker 1: velshet Banned Book Club. Saba ta here the award winning
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  Speaker 1: athor books, including today's feature All the Rage