I'm Jean Demby and you are listening to Code Switch from NPR.

So y'all know we love books at Code Switch.

You know, they help us explore the world and sharpen our ideas and understand ourselves.

That might be especially true for the books we read when we were really young.

I remember when I was nine and I had to read The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, the

book that is a giant propaganda piece for Turkish Delights.

Oh, and it's also about, you know, Christianity or whatever.

Anyway, today we're talking to an author who has thought really hard about the image of

the world they want to present to young people.

Their name is Kason Callender.

Today Kason is the author of a whole bunch of middle school and YA books.

In fact, we're actually talking to Kason as part of a collaboration between NPR and the

Library of Congress National Book Festival.

But before Kason was a famous book author, they were a kid in St. Thomas and the Caribbean

writing fan fiction.

It used to be primarily for Harry Potter, which is a really difficult subject for me.

Difficult because Kason is trans and non-binary.

And as you'll probably know, J.K. Rowling has said some janky stuff about people who are

trans and non-binary and she's been doing it for years is a whole thing.

But Kason says back in the day, the Harry Potter books were a big deal for them because they

taught so much of our generations to have even any empathy period for people who are different.

I mean, I would disagree that they do that for the house elves.

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