Sometimes, when I’m sitting at my desk for long hours and nothing’s coming to me, I remember my fifth grade teacher, the way her eyes lit up when she said “This is really good.” The way, I - the skinny girl in the back of the classroom who was always getting into trouble for talking or missed homework assignments - sat up a little straighter, folded my hands on the desks, smiled and began to believe in me.Īnother critical darling that didn't impress me. Lots and lots of books later, I am still surprised when I walk into a bookstore and see my name on a book’s binder. A lie on the page meant lots of independent time to create your stories and the freedom to sit hunched over the pages of your notebook without people thinking you were strange. So by the time the story rolled around and the words “This is really good” came out of the otherwise down-turned lips of my fifth grade teacher, I was well on my way to understanding that a lie on the page was a whole different animal - one that won you prizes and got surly teachers to smile. After lots of brouhaha, it was believed finally that I had indeed penned the poem which went on to win me a Scrabble game and local acclaim. That year, I wrote a story and my teacher said “This is really good.” Before that I had written a poem about Martin Luther King that was, I guess, so good no one believed I wrote it.

Of course I got in trouble for lying but I didn’t stop until fifth grade. I loved lying and getting away with it! There was something about telling the lie-story and seeing your friends’ eyes grow wide with wonder. Not “Once upon a time” stories but basically, outright lies. I loved and still love watching words flower into sentences and sentences blossom into stories. I chalked stories across sidewalks and penciled tiny tales in notebook margins. (It was not pretty for me when my mother found out.) I wrote on paper bags and my shoes and denim binders. I remember my uncle catching me writing my name in graffiti on the side of a building. And they remind us that sometimes, when we reach out and begin to share our story, others will be happy to meet us halfway.I used to say I’d be a teacher or a lawyer or a hairdresser when I grew up but even as I said these things, I knew what made me happiest was writing. Jacqueline Woodson's lyrical text and Rafael López's dazzling art celebrate the bravery it takes to go forth even when you feel like an outsider. Whatever it is, it's not easy to take those first steps into a place where nobody knows you, but somehow you do it.

Maybe it's what you eat or something just as random. Maybe it's how you look or talk, or where you're from. There are lots of reasons to feel different.

There will be times when you walk ainto a room and no one there is quite like you.

Other students laugh when Rigoberto, an immigrant from Venezuela, introduces himself but later, he meets Angelina and discovers that he is not the only one who feels like an outsider

The day you begin story