Becky Calzada and John Schu Discuss Louder Than Hunger and Libraries

Becky Calzada: Hello, John! I’m so grateful for the opportunity to visit with you to discuss your first middle-grade book, Louder Than Hunger. I read the ARC I received back in early November 2023, and I was immediately immersed and personally invested in Jake and his personal struggles with anorexia. 

John Schu: Oh, Becky! I’m such a fan of you and your work. Thank you for everything you do for readers, libraries, and librarians. Your kind words mean the world to me. I’m grateful Jake’s story resonated with your compassionate heart.  

Becky Calzada: Thank you, John! I love sharing stories about libraries, the librarians that work in them and the students who are impacted by their work and the stories they read which have been carefully selected.

You do an incredible job in how you execute words on the page—each word, its placement on the page and the font size of each letter, convey emotions that allow readers to understand what Jake is going through. Can you provide some insights with librarians on how you worked through that? 

John Schu: Thank you for pointing out how Jake plays with the page. The Voice tells him he’s repulsive and unworthy of taking up space in the world, but he’s very comfortable taking up a lot of space on the page. He loves poetry and playing around with the placement of words. I think the different font sizes help the reader feel and see Jake’s anxiety. I think this technique helps us better hear Jake’s voice and heart. 

I usually read with a highlighter. I look forward to seeing which lines and poems resonate the most with readers. I’m curious if there’s a particular poem or line you find yourself still thinking about. 

Becky Calzada: Gosh it’s so hard to select one poem. I love the pages that highlight the relationship between Jake and his Grandma. 

John Schu: I had a feeling you would say Jake’s relationship with his grandma. My grandma was my best friend. I write this in the book’s dedication: 

For Grandma Ruth, 

who always reminded me to slow down. 

Jake’s scenes with his grandma filled me with a lot of joy and sadness. 

Becky Calzada: The letters between Grandma and Jake are so special and bittersweet. Readers will feel the strong bond between the two of them. There’s the letter just over midway through the book where Grandma wants to be profound; we read about her memories, hopes, dreams and life. Life has lots of downs and disappointments, but the faces of love ease hurt and give you the courage to fulfill your dreams. It made me cry. I felt the deep love and helplessness she was experiencing. Grandma wanted to share the promises all of life had to offer Jake with her words via this letter. 

John Schu: I love writing letters. I find words flow out of me faster and often more poetically when I write a letter. I’m trying really hard not to spoil anything that happens in the book, but the letter you quoted is based on a real letter my grandma wrote.

A letter that confused me for a long time.

A letter I carried with me for many years. 

A letter I searched and searched and searched for as I revised Louder Than Hunger. 

Maybe I’ll find it one day. 

I believe I’m the reader I am today because of my grandma. She read to me. She bought me books. She took me to the library. A lot of my childhood was spent in libraries. It is one of the reasons I became a teacher-librarian. 

Becky Calzada: I totally understand. I don’t want us to spoil any parts of the book for anyone either. What a beautiful relationship to have with a loved one. So many treasured memories that also happened to inspire your writing! 

John Schu: Yes, my grandma inspires me to write. Libraries always inspire me to write, too. I think you’re about to start your term as president of the American Association of School Librarians (AASL). What’s one of your goals during your tenure?  

Becky Calzada: Thank you for asking about my AASL term John. I begin my term as President in July 2024. One of my goals during my tenure will be focused around celebrating and sharing the impact school librarians have on students. Many librarians have experienced very challenging times recently in the areas of intellectual freedom, the reduction of librarian jobs or budget cuts. While those topics remain an important focus, sharing how librarians transform teaching and learning can be powerful ways to connect and change minds. Showcasing how school librarians impact learners via the personal stories shared can be a window into our world many may not know about. Libraries have come a long way since we were both in school! 

John Schu: What an important and necessary goal! Thank you for advocating for libraries and librarians. 

As you know, I love when people finish my sentences on my blog. Please finish the following sentence starters. 

*Louder Than Hunger is . . . such an incredibly emotional and powerful book written in verse. Readers will learn from Jake, have empathy for Jake and cheer for Jake every step of the way.

John, you have written a story that will tug at our heartstrings and might cause readers to shed a tear. Louder Than Hunger is an important story that can change the lives of readers and build an understanding of self-acceptance and love. 

*I’ve been a long-time fan of . . . Renée Watson. I recently read and listened to Black Girl You Are Atlas, a February release. It’s an incredible collection of semi-autobiographical poems; she also narrates her audiobook which adds an additional personal perspective. Renée uses a variety of poetic forms to share about her personal life, the Black girl experience, offers a charge to all Black girls to step into their own personal power and more. It’s illustrated beautifully by celebrated artist, Ekua Holmes, whose work I also admire. 

John Schu: I’m such a HUGE FAN of their books. I’ll add Black Girl You Are Atlas to the top of my to-read mountain! 

Becky Calzada: Wonderful! I would love for you to finish these two sentence starters I wrote for you.

My wish for readers of Louder Than Hunger is … that it shows them that it is possible to muffle the negative voices inside our heads. 

A book I’d love to share with librarians is . . . Nana in the Country, written and illustrated by Lauren Castillo. It is the follow-up to her 2010 Caldecott Honor book, Nana in the City. It beautifully shows the bond between a grandma and a grandchild. And, as we already talked about, my grandma played an important and special role in my life. 

Please buy a copy of Nana in the Country for you and a friend! 

Becky Calzada: Done! And so true; bonds between grandparents and grandchildren are very, very special. I get to live that with my grandchildren every day.

Thanks so much for sharing your book and your heart with all of us, John!

John Schu: Thank you, Becky! I hope we’ll celebrate stories together in person one day soon! 

Meet the authors

Becky Calzada is the District Library Coordinator in Leander, Texas, a co-founding member of Texas #FReadom Fighters and is the 24/25 AASL President-Elect. She was selected for the 4th ALA Policy Corp Cohort, works as a member of the ALA Policy Corp Proactive Advocacy on Book Banning cadre and is a member of the ALA Intellectual Freedom Committee. She is the recipient of several intellectual freedom awards and was honored by People Magazine in their 2023 Women Changing the World portfolio. 

John Schu is the author of the acclaimed picture books This Is a School, illustrated by Veronica Miller Jamison, and This Is a Story, illustrated by Caldecott Honoree Lauren Castillo. He also wrote the adult study The Gift of Story: Exploring the Affective Side of the Reading Life. He’s the children’s librarian for Bookelicious, part-time lecturer at Rutgers University, and former Ambassador of School Libraries for Scholastic Book Fairs, Mr. Schu—as he is affectionately known—continues to travel the world to share his love of books. He lives in Naperville, Illinois.

About Louder Than Hunger

“Every so often a book comes along that is so brave and necessary, it extends a lifeline when it’s needed most. This is one of those books.” —Katherine Applegate, author of the Newbery Medal–winning, The One and Only Ivan

Revered teacher, librarian, and story ambassador John Schu explores anorexia—and self-expression as an act of survival—in a wrenching and transformative novel-in-verse.

But another voice inside me says,
We need help.
We’re going to die.

Jake volunteers at a nursing home because he likes helping people. He likes skating and singing, playing Bingo and Name That Tune, and reading mysteries and comics aloud to his teachers. He also likes avoiding people his own age . . . and the cruelty of mirrors . . . and food. Jake has read about kids like him in books—the weird one, the outsider—and would do anything not to be that kid, including shrink himself down to nothing. But the less he eats, the bigger he feels. How long can Jake punish himself before he truly disappears? A fictionalized account of the author’s experiences and emotions living in residential treatment facilities as a young teen with an eating disorder, Louder than Hunger is a triumph of raw honesty. With a deeply personal afterword for context, this much-anticipated verse novel is a powerful model for muffling the destructive voices inside, managing and articulating pain, and embracing self-acceptance, support, and love.

ISBN-13: 9781536229097
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Publication date: 03/19/2024
Age Range: 10 – 14 Years

Filed under: Guest Post