Ali Velshi banned book club ban of the poet X

Elizabeth Acevedo, author of The Poet Xspeaks with Ali Velshi

National Youth Poet Laureate Elizabeth Acevedo The Poet X is a National Book Award winner and New York Times bestseller. The book tells the story of Xiomara, an aspiring tenth-grader in Harlem. Ali Velshi praises Acevedo’s approach to faith, family, sexuality, self-preservation, self-love, and self-expression in free verse. Through the poems she writes, she connects the reader to the protagonist’s coming-of-age story.

Parents and organizations who perceive the religious component of Xiomara’s journey as anti-Christian have The poet X. The difficult discussions about choice, religious belief, and culture are at the heart of the book and are ones that parents and children around the world have every day, whether we are comfortable having these discussions or not.

If you’re concerned about approaching a story told in poem form, Acevedo assures that there’s nothing here you can’t learn — or relearn. “Poetry is one of our first languages ​​in many ways. Our parents sing us lullabies, our parents tell us rhymes all the time, we grow up with poetry and then we lose that. There’s nothing wrong with going back to poetry.”

Listen to the discussion between Velshi and Acevedo The Poet X

Watch Velshi and Acevedo discuss the conflict between culture and religious belief

Velshi on banned books on MSNBC: