Walter Dean Myers was born in 1937 in the Great Depression and spent the first few years of his life in a Martinsburg, West Virginia. His family was very poor, and his mother died when he was extremely young. Florence Dean, who had been a friend of his mother’s, adopted him. Florence had taught herself to read, and she then taught Myers by letting him read magazine stories. When he was older, Myers loved to read comic books, but a teacher discovered him with one in class one day. "She grabbed my comic book and tore it up," Myers recalled on a biography that appeared on the Scholastic Web site. "I was really upset, but then she brought in a pile of books from her own library. That was the best thing that ever happened to me." He read incessantly, and checked out books from his local library. However, to avoid teasing, Myers carried the books home in a paper bag.
More books by Walter Dean Myers
Sunrise Over Fallujah, Dope Sick, Shooter, Crystal,
Blues Journey, Jazz, The Blues of Flats Brown,
Street Love, The Righteous Revenge of Artemis Bonner,
The Glory Field, Slam!