Vick Hope: The Books That Made Me

As hosts of their school's radio station, our heroes Arthur & Grace realise just how powerful their voices can be when they work together. In Shout Out we want to encourage kids to stand up for what they believe in, to know that their voices and their stories matter, and that when they speak up together they can make a difference. We hope this book inspires children to start a student newspaper or a school radio station, to get creative and find confidence in their voice. But above all, it is important to us to simply get them reading and give them an exciting world they can fall in love with, connect with, escape to and get lost in, especially at this time when they're stuck inside or being home-schooled and unable to play with their friends

Like most kids, there was no shortage of Roald Dahl books sprinkled throughout my childhood, but this - although perhaps a lesser-known story of his - is the one that really stood out. It's about a young boy, Billy, who meets a giraffe, pelican and monkey who work as window cleaners. Standard! Although told in the first person by Billy, the 'me' in the title is the monkey, who concludes every verse of his signature song with the refrain 'the giraffe and the pelly and me'. We didn't have a TV in our house growing up, so we were all about storytime before bed, and I remember my dad reading this to my brothers and I, and putting on voices for all the characters. It was so rhythmic, you could almost sing along; in fact it's so etched in my memory, I still do.

The writer David Almond is from my hometown of Newcastle upon Tyne and at the age of 12 nothing had ever been so exciting for us at our school than the fact that the actual author of actual books that we'd actually read was coming to visit for a signing. Almond's novels Skellig, Kit's Wilderness and Heaven Eyes all captured my imagination as he created worlds and characters which were at once magical to me, but which I also acutely recognised. He sparked a love of literature for me that felt palpable; not only did I feel I could feasibly be a part of his novels, but I felt I could feasibly be a part of creating them too. I knew I loved writing and David Almond -a local legend and mainstay on young adult reading lists far and wide- showed that people like me could tell stories for a living.

Racial and social hierarchies are flipped in this novel's segregated dystopia, in which the darker-skinned Crosses are the superior class over the lighter-skinned Noughts. Exploring themes of racism, oppression, rebellion and political dissidence, this was a thought-provoking and mobilising read in my early teens, however it was the story of forbidden love at its core that nourished me the most. Having grown up as part of a mixed race family in 90s Newcastle, we didn't know anyone else who looked like us, and it was in the pages of Noughts & Crosses that for the very first time I heard of an interracial relationship like that of my parents. Where I had previously grappled with questions about my racial and cultural identity, I sought solace in Malorie Blackman's words as she painted a picture I recognised; I felt like I could better understand what my parents had suffered, and learned the importance of different perspectives, as she spoke to me of the futility of prejudice.

I first read To Kill A Mockingbird when I was in year 5, aged 9. Mum gave me her copy from when she was at school, complete with pencil notes in the margins, telling me that life's greatest lessons couldn't wait for the GCSE syllabus. She wasn't wrong, this was one of the most important books I ever devoured. I remember feeling waves of fascination and disgust, firstly at the injustice described, and then at the fact this was not merely a story of injustice but reflective of very real history, and THEN at the realisation that injustice like this was't resigned to the historical past but quite alive in our present. Of course much of the context was lost on me, and it wasn't until studying it for GCSE years later that I realised just how seminal this book was, but at the tender age of 9, I was triggered. To Kill A Mockingbird taught me that we are not equal and we should be, that we have more in common than that which divides us, and that we must speak up for what is right.

Mum has told me many stories of growing up during the Nigeria-Biafra war of the late 60s: stories of running from air raids, of the execution of important local figures, of housing soldiers who were passing through the village, of the siege of the Igbo people, of the shortage of food and being painfully hungry, of coming to the UK, of becoming a part of a culture so unfathomably different to the one she knew... but as with any childhood memory, there are gaps. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie helped me fill those gaps, weaving stories just like my mum's together (in fact, mum -also middle name Ngozi- regularly muses that CNA must have been watching her as she has written her biography in Purple Hibiscus), giving them historical and political context (Half Of A Yellow Sun was nothing short of an education to me, teaching so much about my heritage and the history of our family's land), all the while precisely delineating the nuance and depth of her characters' feeling with effortless grace (to me, Americanah's Ifemelu has been one of the greatest literary vehicles for changing the way I think, without ever overtly philosophising). Adichie is a heart-wrenching and mind-blowing writer of whom I am forever in awe. And you haven't even gotten me started on We Should All Be Feminists...

Sometimes, a novel just 'gets' you. You find yourself turning down the corners of the pages with quotes that resonate, that articulate thoughts or feelings you have had but were never able to put into words; proof that someone else has thought and felt those things too, you are not alone. For me, this novel was Zadie Smith's Swing Time. Smith crafts a protagonist who's mixed race upbringing and journey from small borough through academia to show business is uncanny, as are her relationships, passions, fears, talents and shortcomings. But what I connected with most profoundly was her relentless pursuit of a place where she belongs. Our narrator travels far and wide, perpetually plagued by the same sense of unbelonging, alienation and shifting identities with which I grew so familiar in my teens and twenties. Through keen social commentary on race, class, gender, privilege and even happiness as relative concepts, Swing Time really helped me see the world as a constantly dynamic dance with one another. Nothing is absolute, and as we navigate the journey perhaps we all belong everywhere and nowhere at all. In finding a character who felt like I did, I realised that that's ok.

It was the most emotionally affected I've ever been by a piece of literature. I didn't just cry, I bawled...