Secret Saturdays - Hardcover

Torrey Maldonado

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0399251588 ISBN 13: 9780399251580

Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers, 2010

Synopsis

Read Torrey Maldonado's posts on the Penguin Blog and the new Penguin Community.

A poignant look into one fatherless twelve-year-old’s struggles with friendship and trust.

Sean is Justin’s best friend, at least Justin thought he was. But lately Sean has been acting differently. Sean’s been telling lies, getting into trouble at school, and hanging out with a tougher crowd, even getting into fights. This isn’t like Sean at all.

When Justin finally discovers that Sean’s been secretly going to visit his father in prison and is dealing with the shame of that, Justin wants to do something to help before his friend spirals further out of control. But what if confronting Sean means Justin loses his very best friend? In the end, he decides it doesn’t matter; he’s got to man up.

Set in one of New York’s most dangerous neighborhoods, Secret Saturdays is an affecting read highlighted by strong characters and an authentic, heartening voice.

About this title

From the Author

Q & A with Author Torrey Maldonado

Q: How did Secret Saturdays go from idea to a novel in bookstores? into their curricula.
 
A: I've been teaching for almost ten years. Years ago, I supervised an after-school program for disruptive boys who were heading toward dropping out. They loved me and joked, "Mr. T, you're my father, right?" or "We're related, right?" I grew close with them too and they shared stuff that they'd never tell other staff-members. One day, a seventh grader visited my classroom and asked, "You free?" I waved him in and he did something unforgettable. He stepped away from the doors so no one could see him and he started crying the way a baby does when it needs real comforting. I jumped up, asking, "What happened?" He sobbed, "My father's gone!" Around that time I was writing a magazine article about how the warped messages about manhood that my friends and how it created a "boy crisis" in us. It handicapped my childhood, schoolwork, friendships, and family-life. I was holding back a lot of emotions during my article-writing process. When my student cried, his tears were like a tidal wave knocking my emotions out. That summer I stretched my article into Secret Saturdays.
 
Q: When was Torrey Maldonado, the writer, born?
 
A: If it's true that we absorb what our mothers do while we're in their bellies, my writer-journey began in my Mom's stomach. She read books out loud to me while rubbing her stomach. As long as I can remember, she's treated books and writers as special. I worshiped her and wanted to be special to her so it makes sense I became a writer, yes? No. Not with the rough realities of my upbringing. A lot of relatives and people in my housing-projects pressured me to stop writing. They felt writing equaled school and boys who were academic equaled soft. So how did I stay on my writing-journey while in one of NYC's most violent housing projects with crime, drugs, and people around me trying to knock me off-track? Comic books and the village of people that supported my writing. I got hooked on comics in the third grade. Two years later, I told myself, "I will write books too, someday". I look back and see that the fifth grade "me" made a promise that the adult "me" kept.
 
Q: If you can be any comic book character, you would be...
 
A: By age fourteen, I had almost two hundred comics. I also had a cat named Snow White who peed on and scratched my collection down to fifty. So I'd like a power to freeze pets during mid-pee to prevent us from losing things we love. I'm an Afro-Latino American like Soledad O'Brien from CNN. People think I'm straight African American and I embrace that compliment. Hancock is Black and almost my skin-color. Ironman has my Puerto Rican American heritage (many don't know Tony Starks is Latino). So as a hero, I'd be a mix of Hancock and Ironman (with the bonus power of redirecting pets to pee in the right places).
 
Q: What was your biggest challenge when writing about Sean's life?
 
A: His struggles were my childhood struggles yet I had to be careful not to write my life-story. My family likes to keep "family business" private. I also wanted to show all sides of Sean when we know that males hide so much. Sean's a Hip Hop fan and he's the man at free-styling so he sometimes wears that rapper front. I love Hip Hop yet a lot of the music encourages our boys to wear masks or show the worst sides of people--usually that includes cursing and dehumanizing themselves and females. So did I show both the public and real Seans? The reviews from book experts, parents, kids, and schools say yes so that's one reward. Plus, I kept the book curse-free and sex-free and that thrills me. What type of teacher would I be if I had a potty-mouth that needed to be cleaned out with Orbit?
 
Q: I really enjoyed the voices of the narrator and his friends--young, blunt, and true. Were they easy to capture?
 
A: Eighty per cent of Justin's voice is how I spoke with my friends during my pre-teen and teen years. What makes up the other twenty percent? Today's youth-slang. Years before Secret Saturdays, I visited a Literacy teacher-friend for lunch. I kept grabbing titles from her shelves and I was shocked at how many sounded fake. I picked up a famous writer's novel and told her, "Does this ssound real to you?" I read the book out loud and my friend laughed, "No! You know our students don't even talk like that!" So, being playful, I reread those lines how our students sound. The Literacy teacher said, "Torrey. I'm not kidding. You should write a novel. Kids need to see and hear themselves in books. Plus, you can write." So, I wrote Secret Saturdays and kids find it so real that they memorize parts.
 
Q: Saturdays has resilient and inspiring characters. I'm particularly struck by their families, environments, and the male-influence and male-absence in their lives. How autobiographical is Secret Saturdays?
 
A: From my birth to the 1980s, I felt like nearly everyone in my Red Hook projects was my family. People looked out for each other and I was protected. Then drugs ripped Red Hook apart and, by 1988, Life magazine did a nine-page photo spread calling Red Hook the "crack capital" of the U.S.A and "One of the Ten Worst Neighborhoods in NY". It didn't happen all the time but violence erupted too much. I remember being a twelve-year-old just getting back from visiting a relative in jail and a gun-shootout started outside the store where I bought groceries. Right there, I did something that built my will to survive and succeed. Yogis say, "Ohmmm" repeatedly. I remember feeling and thinking, "Someday life will be different for me." You might say I was praying to get strength. I did that a lot. Then my prayer became "I'm going to make it, come back here, and get others out." That part of me who almost didn't "make it" still lives in me and he's amazed that the adult-me is now using Secret Saturdays to hook youth to books to evolve them to do better in life.
 
Q: What is one reaction to Secret Saturdays from your readers that rocked your world?
 
A: During a school-trip, two students who hate to read approached me. One boy said, "Mr. T, I know one of the raps from your book by heart." Not believing him, I said, "Let me hear it." He looked into the air and said a Black Bald's rhymes so perfect that you'd think he was reading the rhyme off a cloud or streetlight. The other got competitive. "That's nothing. Mr. T, listen to this." Then he rapped a verse from Killah Kid. It rocks my world when students that teachers and parents think don't enjoy reading love Secret Saturdays so much that they memorize parts of it.
 
Q: Will there be a sequel? Are you currently working on another book?
 
A: I'm told the writing business is "supply and demand". Readers "demand" it, I'm told to "supply" it. The book must become wildly popular for that to happen.  I'm hoping:

* Will Smith sees how Secret Saturdays is The Pursuit of Happyness for his son's, Jayden's, generation (Jayden's perfect as Justin), or
* Tyler Perry or Spike Lee turns it into a film, or
* President Obama realizes my book is the tool The White House is looking for to help youth pick up their pants and fully grab "The American Dream". I sometimes daydream and hear him on TV saying, "Secret Saturdays will bring 'change' we need for our males", or maybe
* Oprah sees how her mission and Secret Saturdays is the same: evolve people into better humans.
 
Until then, I'm finishing my next novel, which Secret Saturdays fans will LOVE. Second, I'll continue enjoying my author-tour in New York and other states where administrators and teachers from 5th grade to colleges have built Secret Saturdays into their curricula.

About the Author

Torrey Maldonado is ateacher born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, where hestill lives. Secret Saturdays is inspired by his life and theexperiences of his students.

About this edition

• Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0399251588
• ISBN 13: 9780399251580
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 208