Episode 51: Jim Phelan & Nikki Grimes — excerpts from Nikki Grimes’s Ordinary Hazards

In this episode of the Project Narrative Podcast, Jim Phelan and Nikki Grimes discuss excerpts from her memoir in verse, Ordinary Hazards, published in 2019. Ordinary Hazards has been banned, and this episode will touch on that aspect of Grimes’s experience with the book but initially will focus on the book itself, the story Grimes tells, and how she tells it. Born and raised in New York City, Grimes began composing verse at the age of six and has been writing ever since. Grimes’s output is impressive for both its quantity and its quality, but among her notable titles are Bronx Masquerade, Jazmin’s Notebook, Talkin’ About Bessie, Dark Sons, The Road to Paris, Words with Wings, and the New York Times bestseller Barack Obama: Son of Promise, Child of Hope. Among Grimes’s many notable honors are the Coretta Scott King Award, the Children’s Literature Legacy Award for her “substantial and lasting contribution to literature for children,” the ALAN Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Field of Adolescent Literature, and the Virginia Hamilton Lifetime Achievement Award. Jim Phelan and Nikki Grimes connected through Ashley Hope Pérez, who knows Grimes through the Unite to Read project, a three-year initiative at the Ohio State University funded by a grant from the Mellon Foundation. “The Unite to Read project seeks to combat book bans, engage the public in defending and reading banned books, and unite diverse stakeholders in amplifying access to literature and ideas.”