Love That Writer: A Tribute to Walter Dean Myers

Yesterday's residency programming featured a tribute to Walter Dean Myers. We remembered him with anecdotes and readings from his work. Walter Dean Myers first touched my life when I shared Sharon Creech's novel in verse, Love That Dog, with my fourth grade class while student teaching a poetry unit. In the novel, a boy is inspired to write poetry in part by the first stanza of Myers's poem entitled “Love That Boy.”

At the end of my student teaching, a mother of a boy in my class came to me and presented me with a gift of poetry books to use with my future classes. “I don't know what you did with my son,” the mother said, “but now he wants to go to the library all the time and he checks out stacks of poetry books.” Myers's words had woven their way from him to Sharon Creech, from Sharon Creech to me, and from me to my students and their parents.

Thank you, Walter Dean Myers, for the many lives that have been inspired by your work and for leaving us a library.