When I was a kid, if you asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, the answer was easy - the next Lisa Leslie.

Literature plays a huge role in examining difficult real-life issues.

I knew there were calls for diversity in children's lit, but you always wonder as a person of color, how diverse is too diverse?

A lot of people involved in the Black Lives Matter movement are actually sticking up for those other lives. They are turning out for their Muslim brothers and sisters who are now being targeted.

I wanted to write a book like a rapper would write it - I didn't want to hold back. Rappers catch a lot of slack; I'm not going to be cursing up a storm, but when I look at Nas... his first album is one of my favorites. I want to tell stories like that.

I wrote 'The Hate U Give' as a short story while I was in college at a mostly white school in conservative Mississippi.

Michael Brown - when he lost his life, there was more focus on what he had done sometimes than what was done to him.

I'm not sure I could ever write for adults. That's not to throw shade or anything, but I feel like teenagers are much more open-minded and willing to listen sometimes.

A lot of people are quick to say that saying 'black lives matter' makes you anti-cop. All lives should indeed matter, but we have a systemic problem in this country in which black lives do not matter enough.

Literature births activists.