Author Kyandreia Jones kicks off an exciting new Choose Your Own Adventure SPIES middle grade series featuring historical figures with her tale of James Armistead Lafayette, a hero who fought for marginalized peoples and who played an instrumental role in helping America win the Revolutionary War.

When asked to write a Choose Your Own Adventure book about real spies from American history, I was particularly captivated by James Armistead Lafayette’s story because it was a tale that I would have loved as a child. I did not know that there were real-life heroes whose stories teach children and adults alike about loyalty, about liberty and, most importantly, about empathy.

I would have been thrilled to learn about James, a former enslaved person turned spy, who helped America win its independence while his fellow brothers and sisters remained in bondage. As a writer, I was interested in the fact that there isn’t a lot of information about who James truly was. I had to—in part—imagine that James had a very unique role in American history, which inspired me to understand U.S. history from a new, more empathetic perspective. If everyone was cruel, how was it possible for the real James to strike up a deal with General Marquis de Lafayette, allowing James to fight for his own freedom and for his country’s? If James did not make a genuine connection with Lafayette, why did the two embrace when they were reunited after the war? If James was not an important historical figure, why was I inspired to honor his legacy and to educate my readers about his existence? The real James’ relationship with history made me wonder what history would look like if we were able to see it from multiple angles and from different perspectives.

In creating the character of James, some questions that launched his development were: What is loyalty to a slave? What is loyalty to a spy? Is it possible for these two identities to agree in the definition of loyalty, or do these identities allow the reader to constantly redefine what it means to be loyal to one’s mission, to one’s country and to one’s self? In the threads of the book, James must choose between war and freedom, duty and loyalty as well as self and country.

Through these choices, he demonstrates the ways in which his past as an enslaved person contributes to both the richness of his character and the internal struggle he endures. By incorporating these crucial questions and ideas, James becomes a positive example of how to lead with empathy, considering his own feelings and that of those who are different from him. In the book, this also leads James to advocate for Native Americans and to ask his white counterparts to treat him with kindness, respect and consideration as they fight side-by-side in the Revolutionary War.

Throughout the writing process, I connected with James’ courage, his compassion and his clumsiness. (I would definitely concuss myself while trying to be a hero.) Writing, and essentially becoming, James meant facing the hard choices and trusting myself to respectfully depict a real American hero. Thankfully, James has a really strong voice; I learned early on that all I had to do was follow it. Still, it is safe to wonder what I offer James as a black woman that’s different from what a black man would have offered James. I cannot speak to what could have been, but I will say that I offered James a combination of empathy and vulnerability that makes him, I hope, more compelling.

Although I was writing a fictional account of a real American hero, I wanted to write about history in a manner that excited and inspired middle grade readers. In Choose Your Own Adventure SPIES: James Armistead Lafayette, readers decide how James navigates impossible choices with a levity that prompts laughter and quick thinking while also being reminded about the horrors of slavery. It is not easy walking in someone else’s shoes. It is even harder to walk in that of a former enslaved person. However, it is important to recognize that history is often ugly and that American history has had its fair share of ugliness. Some of us may forget this truth because we focus on America’s glorious beginnings. Nonetheless, to shy away from or to ignore this ugliness is unacceptable. Kids have always learned about how Europeans conquered the land we now call America and made it their own. But what about the lives they took? What about the stories they cut off mid-sentence?

I feel that the power of telling James’ story is that it allows us to look at history from a unique point of view—from that of the forgotten, the overlooked, the ignored—and to choose how we would like our version of history to be remembered. That is what I believe is most important for middle grade readers today, who will be thrilled to add James Armistead Lafayette to their list of American heroes.

When I was in middle school, my body changed earlier than many of my classmates’ bodies did.

Suddenly, I was “developed,” as grown-ups put it.

Suddenly, my off-white ribbed turtleneck—the same one several of my friends had, too, because we went to a school with a strict dress code and only had so many options—fit differently than it had before. It fit differently than my friends’ identical shirts did. It clung to brand-new curves and made me feel attractive and mature.

I wasn’t used to being noticed for how I looked. I had a close friend who was the beautiful one people always had crushes on; I was the one boys talked to when they wanted to find out if she liked them back. But when I wore that ribbed turtleneck, I got the dizzying sense that I was becoming a more exciting version of myself.

I wore that shirt once a week, and, honestly, I would have worn it more if I’d thought I could get away with it.

One time when I was wearing the shirt, I noticed the letters “BBC” scrawled on a notebook inside my desk. A couple of other girls found the same letters written on their stuff, too. A sweet, mortified boy who was in love with my beautiful friend confessed what the letters meant: “Big Boob Club.”

I was pretty sure I was supposed to feel embarrassed and angry when he told us that, but I was flattered. I was in awe of this body of mine that had showed up out of nowhere—this body that I now got to integrate into my understanding of what it meant to be me. I was giddy knowing that these boys who’d never paid attention to me were noticing me now, and I was happy that my beautiful friend was still flat-chested, so none of her things had been touched.

But then something else happened, and that same kind of attention had a very different impact.

I was in 8th grade, and my class went on an outdoor education trip. We did all sorts of bonding activities on the trip, but the big thing—the thing everyone had been talking about for days ahead of time—was rappelling. We all took turns getting hooked into a harness that was clipped onto a rope, and then we had to make our way down a tall vertical wall, trusting that the rope and the person holding it would keep us safe, while our supportive classmates cheered us on from below.

I didn’t want to do it. The year before, on the 7th-grade outdoor education trip, I’d panicked on the ropes course. I’d cried because I was scared to be up so high, and then I’d fallen off a skinny, wobbly bridge. I’d landed in a safety net and hadn’t been hurt, but I’d felt humiliated. No one else in my group had gotten that worked up. No one else had lost their balance.

So I was already terrified that I might humiliate myself again. And then as I stood there at the bottom of the rappelling wall, calling out encouraging things to my classmates and dreading my turn, something became clear.

A bunch of the boys were rating the girls’ butts as the girls rappelled down. They were doling out 2’s and 4’s and 7’s and 9’s.

They were judging this intimate part of each girl’s body that was on display because of the vulnerable, awkward position we had to take coming down that wall. They were using some inscrutable criteria to pass judgment on our bodies.

I had to take my turn when my name was called. I had to make my way down that terrifying wall, battling my anxiety about looking like a wimp again and my worry about what these boys would see when they looked at my body from that angle—whether they would judge me favorably or not.

Before, I’d felt powerful to know that people were looking at my body; now, I was powerless. I felt sick, but I didn’t think I was supposed to. Everybody else seemed to find the situation funny.

My new middle grade novel Up for Air is about a 13-year-old girl named Annabelle who is a star swimmer, a struggling student, a conscientious friend and an “early bloomer.”

During the summer before 8th grade, Annabelle is asked to join the high school swim team. And when she wears a flattering new racing suit, she gets positive attention because of the way her body has developed. That attention thrills her, especially when it comes from Connor, an older boy she has a crush on. Especially because she’s coming off a school year that made her feel terrible about herself.

But that same attention also sets her up for some situations she’s not quite ready to handle—situations that leave her feeling powerless and embarrassed for doing things “wrong.”

It’s complicated, what happens when a middle school girl’s body changes and people treat her in a new way. I know that from my own life, and I know that because I taught 6th, 7th and 8th grades for 10 years and watched many girls navigate similar experiences.

But it isn’t easy to find novels that address this reality. Goodbye Stranger by Rebecca Stead is a wonderful exception, and my students and I were tremendously grateful for that book and the conversations it helped us have.

But if, by and large, middle grade novels don’t explore the intense, confusing feelings and situations that come along with puberty, what message are we sending to adolescents about which topics are important and how they should behave?

I wrote Up for Air in part because I don’t want kids to have that sense I had—that there were certain things I wasn’t supposed to feel or talk about. I don’t want kids to internalize the message that girls’ physical development is embarrassing and somehow “inappropriate” to discuss. I don’t want them to believe that girls should feel shame if they don’t handle sexualized attention “right.”

In Up for Air, Annabelle gets caught up in the way other people see her—as I did, and as all of us do at times. There is a power imbalance between Annabelle and Connor, and readers will likely recognize it before she does. Annabelle messes up a lot—with Connor, with her friends and with her family. She is vulnerable and she is strong.

Annabelle is not strong in spite of the mistakes she makes and the ways she misunderstands Connor’s intentions. She is strong because she endures these experiences, learns from them and ultimately claims her own kind of power that’s more about how she sees herself than how other people see her.

I hope the kids who read this book will feel Annabelle’s joy, despair, embarrassment and triumph right alongside her.

I hope it will help readers think about how they can claim their own power on their own terms and how they can make sure they don’t act in ways that take power away from someone else at a time when so many things feel intense and new and embarrassing.

Up for Air is a book I wanted to read when I was in middle school and wanted to give to many of the students I taught. I hope Annabelle’s story will send the message that we can talk about the social and emotional changes that accompany the physical changes of puberty. We have to because they are thrilling and empowering and isolating and scary.

I hope it provides an opening for those conversations.

I never intended to write Fighting Words, except, of course, that I always did.

In the fall of 2018, I finished the third draft of a historical novel and sent it to my editor. I planned to rest while she read it, because I wanted to come at the next draft with fresh eyes. It’s what I usually do.

Then I watched some news on television. When I tell this story, I no longer share which exact news report tipped me over the edge into rage, because I’ve found it derails the discussion into whether my rage was justified or whether the report was real. It doesn’t matter. Something happened in the world, and I’d. Had. It. I felt angrier than I’d ever allowed myself to feel.

The next morning, still on fire, I sat down to my computer and opened a new document. I typed a furious one-word title: WHATEVER. By. Kimberly. Brubaker. Bradley. 

And then I let loose. I didn’t think. I wrote. As fast as I could, without pause, making absolutely everything up as I went along. 

My new tattoo is covered by a Band-Aid, but halfway through recess, the Band-Aid falls off.

That’s the first sentence I wrote that day. It remains the opening line of Fighting Words. Della’s voice, pure Appalachia, tough and wise, came from a place I’d never accessed before.

Rage.

Children who have been abused often can’t allow themselves to feel anger.

That day, I did.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our starred review of Fighting Words.

I wrote 19 pages (for me, a remarkable output would be 10 pages). The next day I wrote another 20 pages, and by evening, I’d actually completed a narrative arc—beginning, middle, end—though what I was writing was not entirely clear. 

It had no chapter breaks. There wasn’t much plot. Anytime I didn’t know what happened next, I skipped a line and started a scene I did know. I littered the pages with XXXX, which is what I type when I’m missing facts.

Please understand that the contents of those 39 pages were not in any way a novel. Nor was it an outline. It was a hot mess.

Still furious, I emailed what I had written to my editor and to my agent. 

Twenty years ago, when my debut novel had just been accepted by a young editor at Random House named Lauri Hornik (now president of my publisher, Dial, always my champion and trusted friend), I sent her the nearly finished draft of a second book. It was about childhood sexual abuse. She responded thoughtfully: “You’re not ready to write this story yet. Try again in five years.”

It took me 20.

So, on some level, the story was always in my mind. But on every other level, Della caught me entirely by surprise. I did not expect her story, not that day, not ever.

I loved her. I knew before the end of my second writing day that I’d fight for Della even more fiercely than I’d fought for Ada Smith, the heroine of The War That Saved My Life, who was born with a clubfoot. I felt the sort of protectiveness for Della and Ada that one feels toward one’s own abused and neglected inner child.

In fighting for Della, I fought for myself. The story of Fighting Words is informed by my own personal experiences, which is all I’m going to say publicly about that. Forever. 

I gave everything I had to this book—not just in the opening salvo, but in the seven-and-a-half full drafts I wrote over the next 10 months. It was the hardest and fastest I’ve ever worked on a novel. 

After Jessica Garrison, my beloved editor, read those first pages (which she’d later describe as “lightning in a paper bag”), she called, excited, and asked, “What the hell is this?”

I answered, “I swear I can make it into a novel. I swear I will do the work.”

She said, “We’re in.”

I pushed her a little bit. Could I keep the suicide attempt? The meth explosion? The word “snow” substituting for profanity 86 times? THE TATTOO? Because if I couldn’t—

“Yes, yes,” Jessica said impatiently. Then she held me to my word and made me do the work and held my hand while I was doing it. And she worked alongside me just as hard.

I gave everything I had to this book—not just in the opening salvo, but in the seven-and-a-half full drafts I wrote over the next 10 months. It was the hardest and fastest I’ve ever worked on a novel. 

I told the folks at Dial that I hope they like me, because after this book I will never leave them. They are stuck with me now.

I told friends when I sent them copies so they could consider writing blurbs of recommendation that this book is the hill I’m willing to die on.

This book means the world to me. 

It is—and I say this without a smidgen of exaggeration—the book I was meant to write. The work I was put on this earth to do.

I’m hanging my winter coat on the hook in our fourth grade classroom when my teacher, Ms. Davonte, gasps. “Della,” she says, “Is that a real tattoo?”

It’s so real it still hurts.

Della, like Ada, is more than a survivor. Della, like Ada, manages to bloom. Both characters are uniquely themselves, and though as a child I was not like them, they all understand each other well, Della and Ada and my long-ago self, and when they’re together they laugh and dance and run.

Fighting Words was the hill I was willing to die on, but I didn’t die. I bloomed. 

Author photo  © Amy MacMurray