In Chrystal D. Giles’s second middle grade novel, Not an Easy Win, Lawrence, a newly transferred student struggles with being uprooted from Charlotte, N.C. With one parent incarcerated and another struggling to make ends meet, Lawrence, now living with his strict, religious grandmother, feels dispirited, like he can’t catch a break. When Lawrence meets his reserved neighbor, Mr. Dennis, he is set on a new path forward. We spoke with Giles about capturing Black Southern experiences, the school-to-prison pipeline, the impact of families with incarcerated loved ones, and the importance of Black children finding literature that they can relate to.
Your character Lawrence and his family are from North Carolina, like you. What do you feel you are bringing to readers with this setting, and do you feel you are giving a fresh perspective?
Growing up I never saw stories set in North Carolina. And even as an adult, I don’t see much. Charlotte often gets called “The Little Atlanta,” which is probably true, but it still kind of puts you in someone else’s shadow. Also, I think Charlotte is an interesting city because it’s Southern, but not everyone sees it as a Southern town. It feels very Southern to me, though, [because] we’re kind of in the Bible Belt, which I think is directly associated with Southern towns. My first book, Take Back the Block, takes place in an urban setting. The town in this story is based on the town where my family is from called Laurinburg, N.C., and it has a cool feel to it. I would like to think this setting is a love letter to Southern culture. So you will see me talk about separation between races and what that means to the characters and how they live.
Why did you choose chess as the pathway to get Lawrence to focus and find himself? Do you play chess, or have you tried to learn it?
I’m not a chess player. I learned to play chess and I wasn’t very good at it. I wanted to be good at it, but I just simply did not have the skills. The idea came some years ago as I was watching a documentary on a chess grandmaster. He talked a lot about how chess changed his life and how he thought the lessons in patience you learned from playing the game can be applied to life. I took that in the back of my head and I thought I could tell an interesting story. When I met this character [Lawrence], I thought about who I wanted him to be, and about his family. I thought about the story that he could tell. I thought, I’ll give him a hobby where he can slow down, think, and process. It makes you feel like if you play chess, you have an edge and you can think deeper than everyone else. All of those things came together to make me feel like chess would be a good vehicle and a good hobby to give Lawrence.
On your website, you state that reading to your son reignited your love for children’s books. Can you recall what books you read that made you feel this way?
I have to be honest to tell you that I don’t know that a particular book made me fall in love. I think what made me fall in love was the act of watching my son discover stories that also made me realize that there were not enough books in this current environment that represented our lives. I love the act of reading and it brought me, my son, and my husband together. But very quickly, I realized that there weren’t enough stories that felt like my family. So my love came back but at the same time, I had this discovery that I’ve always had these stories in my mind that don’t exist in the world. And I thought kind of ambitiously that maybe I could write a story that felt relevant and also authentic to my life and my family’s life.
How did you go about creating the youth center in the story and making it a transformative place for Lawrence?
There’s a theme in all of our stories that really connects, and that’s community. Lawrence doesn’t have any place to land and he doesn’t have any friends so he feels a bit disconnected from his family. I thought a community center would be a good place to put him around other young people like him. Growing up, I went to youth centers and after-school programs. I’ve been to a couple of summer programs and there’s something that you receive, even if you don’t want to be there as often kids don’t, from being in a space with other people like you; it’s community. Even if you resist, it will wear you down eventually. I wanted to place him in the middle of a community of people who would eventually win him over. It actually ends up being one of his wins.
You also insert heavier themes in the book, such as the school administration’s failures when it comes to dealing with Lawrence. Can you explain what you hope adult readers take away from this story?
I try to layer my books. I start off with a character and then I try to fill out their lives as much as I can. So in this book, Lawrence has been suspended and faces expulsion. A young reader may notice some kids are bullying him and he gets into fights but it’s not his fault. I hope that an older reader or an adult reader would take a deeper dive into how that happens. Unfortunately, in American society, Black children are expelled more often than their [non-Black] peers. They get longer suspensions and I know, just anecdotally, [with] having a small child, they get called down when they get in trouble and get sent to the principal’s office. There’s also a pivotal point in the story where we learn that Lawrence’s dad is incarcerated, and a child may relate to that because many children grow up with a parent or a family member who has been incarcerated. I actually grew up with a parent who was incarcerated, and there’s an impact on the child. There’s a financial impact on a family, which we can see in this story. Then there’s the emotional impact of not understanding or maybe having some embarrassment and shame. Again, we can tie that into the general American statistics that Black people are incarcerated more often and for longer sentences than their white counterparts. There’s also a nod to the school-to-prison pipeline and how Lawrence may be on a track for that.
What do you want educators to understand about working-poor families, especially those that are part of marginalized communities?
First and foremost, know that each child you encounter has a full life. It’s round, and it’s more layered than what you see. It may not be typical, and it may not be something similar to yours, but it doesn’t make them any less special. Too often kids are not being listened to. They are not being spoken to in a truthful way. In my book, Lawrence feels like nobody hears him and he feels like everything is his fault. If he had a conversation with someone, particularly at school, to say, “Hey, look, these people are bothering me,” that’s a very simple conversation. I also hope educators view this in the larger sense because our society is steeped in white supremacy. There are systems that are automatically placed to stifle certain communities. There’s lots of statistics that prove it. I know a book can’t change everyone’s perspective, but I do hope that books like this can impart some level of empathy.
You have a lot of strong characters in this story. Were these characters reflective of your own upbringing or something else?
I dedicated this book to my grandmother. My grandmother is probably slightly nicer than Lawrence’s granny. Lots of people think the granny of this story is mean. I don’t view her in that way. She’s the kind of no-nonsense [type]. She’s just a real-life woman who’s been through some things. I liken my grandmother to that figure; she took anybody in who needed it. She cooked for anybody who needed it. She cared for any child who she thought needed it. I think it’s an important piece of the story. The mentor in the book, Mr. Dennis, is a man of few words, but I think having a strong mentor in Lawrence’s life was important. I made the decision not to have his father in the book. He’s there in the story and he’s there in the memories.
But I decided if I would not have his presence directly in the book then Lawrence would need a mentor. Mr. Dennis doesn’t bash them [the kids at the youth center] over the head with lessons. [Lawrence] just goes there to study. Dennis becomes a part of Lawrence’s routine and he challenges him, and I think that was a very important component to have.
What’s your next project?
So I’m excited with what I’m working on. I do not have a title or a publication date, but I can tell you that it features my first girl main character. It’s a story about friendship and family. I’m happy that I get to continue to write stories that I hope are a help to my community, and hopefully, one day my son can look up and see lots of books that represent him and his community that he doesn’t have to hunt for.
Not an Easy Win by Chrystal D. Giles. Random House, $16.99 Feb. 28 ISBN 978-0-593-17521-7
