I can't count how often I have fallen into conversation in these years about the heavy complexity that is on the shoulders of the young of our species, humans growing up in this time.

I worry and resist the characterization of them as a lost generation.

I believe that with everything before us, from the digital

revolution and AI, to the ecological and societal remaking that are already upon us,

they have wisdom and instincts in their bones that will be essential if we are all to flourish

and not merely survive this century.

I also feel deeply as a person who has moved into the eldering time of my life that they need and deserve accompaniment.

So I immediately accepted an invitation last November of 2024 to an event hosted at Georgetown University on the matter of being young in America.

I was especially excited when Jason Reynolds agreed to be part of this. The first conversation I had with Jason in 2020 imprinted me deeply.

There's a link to that in the show notes, and I encourage you to listen.

He is wise beyond his years. He's now in his early 40s. As an author and the former ambassador

for young people's literature, Jason brings a listening ear and a deep capacity for joy and for love to his offerings and interactions

with children, adolescents, and young adults in this world of ours. Jason himself didn't pick up

a book to read until he was a teenager. His books, which often speak to the experience of children

of color, especially boys,

have been great gifts to educators and librarians and his readers themselves.

So Jason and I were joined at Georgetown by a current student there, Kessli-Jean Vie.

She too is a force of nature, and you will hear about her various passions and projects in the course of this conversation.

But what happens in our encounter that including me spans generations from the 20s to the 40s to the 60s and extended out to a room of people of all ages and walks of life.

It's as much about who we will be and how we

will be as what we have before us to do each in our own lives. Nothing is resolved here or summed

up, but my perspective on what it means to be young in America is refreshed and emboldened, complicated in good ways,

...