Yesterday Veronica Roth signed Allegiant posters for fans. Today Veronica Roth was a speaker at the Children’s Breakfast at Book Expo America today in New York. The speech that Veronica gave was very very inspirational.
Thanks to Divergent Examiner, we have the full speech transcribed.
Below are a few quotes from what she said:
The very act of studying books in school leads to humility because we’re taught from a very early age that the world is vast an unknown, that we will spend at least kindergarten through high school and hopefully beyond learning about the world and that one of the best places to do that is in books. And then we learned that books in themselves are mysterious. We can search them up, down and sideways for deeper meaning, and even when we read them for the first time, we don’t always understand everything that’s in them … which is why we write so many papers about them.
There’s nothing wrong with liking great feats of Classic Literature. Or with challenging yourself as a reader. But because I refused to read the books that got me really excited and enthusiastic about reading, I didn’t have any motivation left to challenge myself. I stopped reading completely.
Young readers are here to learn, and they are eager to be moved and engaged by a story, and when they like something, it’s generally not because it’s widely respected by academia – though it might be respected anyway – it’s because, pure and simple, they have discovered something that has moved and engaged them. And they aren’t dissuaded from loving it just because other people don’t.
Young readers can tell when an author is trying to force them to have a meaningful experience through preaching or manipulation. They can tell when a character doesn’t feel real or when a plot is contrived. Or when writing is clumsy. It’s important for everyone to learn how to spot those things, actually, and how to critique books.
And my favorite quote from her today:
Humility in reading and in writing really means freedom, freedom to love things with unbridled enthusiasm. Freedom to critique things thoughtfully, freedom to write about topics you aren’t that familiar with, freedom to admit to your mistakes and learn from them. Humility is freedom.
CLICK HERE to view the full video and hear everything that she said today.
Divergent Faction 