Torrey Maldonado’s fast-paced novels infuse young readers with a deep sense of recognition, generated both by Maldonado’s firsthand experiences as someone born and raised in Brooklyn’s Red Hook projects, and his nearly thirty years teaching in New York City public schools. His popular titles, including Hands (Nancy Paulsen Books, 2023), What Lane? (Nancy Paulsen Books, 2020), and Tight (Nancy Paulsen Books, 2018), have won numerous awards and honors. Hands was recently featured as the 2024 Global Read Aloud choice for Middle School/Junior High—part of a select list of books about “searching and working toward something that is more than what we are.” Maldonado’s titles have also been praised for helping kids discuss topics such as identity, friendships, family, resilience, racism, and empathy.
Here, Maldonado talks with Lisa Bullard about the importance of “perfect-sized” books, the thing that young people need most, and how his goal as both a teacher and a writer is to recognize students who feel unseen, unheard, and uncentered.
Your newest novel Hands, like your previous novels, feels as if you’ve lifted the story directly out of the life of an everyday kid—somebody sitting in a classroom today. How do you manage to capture that sense of immediacy?
Everything I write is about an everyday kid in my classroom because each main character is me mixed with the tweens and teens I’ve taught for nearly thirty years. Other characters are those who make up kids’ worlds. I write about universal and timeless themes of friendship, family, and choices.
How do your young readers echo back to you the sense that your books tap into their actual lives?
In Pennsylvania, during an in-person author visit, a student stepped to the microphone and asked me, “When did you write this? Because this is right now.” Nearly every head in the crowd nodded. Lots of “yeps” and “exactlys” fireworked here and there too. A month later in Texas, I was asked that same question and saw a similar crowd reaction. In a virtual visit that was livestreamed across the country, a kid asked me, “How’d you write about a real kid?” The chat box exploded with kids from different states typing, “Facts,” “My life, fr,” and kids identifying with my books. It’s been heartwarming to get messages from Switzerland, Italy, Vietnam, Sweden, Canada, across the USA, and more, where educators and young readers say Hands is a fun, needed reflection of today’s young readers’ minds, hearts, and lives.
Left: Interviewed as a voice of young people by THE voice of young people at the Library of Congress. An honor to sit with the National Ambassador, Meg Medina.
Right: Full Circle, Community Pride: atop the middle school where I teach and graduated from, with my hometown projects in the background.
Do you have a favorite anecdote about how young readers have responded to your books?
At NCTE, I snuck up behind librarians standing in my signing line to surprise them and overheard one say, “My students who hate to read have read his Hands two, three times. So have my avid readers.”
Another amazing response: A reader told me after finishing Tight, “I used to be quieter. Now I speak up more with friends and in class.” Sharing my voice helps kids use their voices—that is like getting a standing ovation from the universe, and it’s fuel to keep doing what I do!
What was your biggest challenge in writing Hands?
My challenge with Hands was to be the author I’m known for. My goal is to write rollercoaster fiction where kids ask to reexperience my story again, just how kids ask to ride a rollercoaster again.
All my books are under 195 pages. With my novels, some of my chapters are just a paragraph long. So that was my challenge—and my solution. I kept rewriting each part of Hands—which holds a personal heavy topic—asking, “How can I make this feel lighter? Move faster?” Those two questions yield big rewards. They also work as an amazing writing prompt or activity for student writers and as writing advice for anyone who would love to write their own stories for young readers.
The whole process was a challenge “met” for me—shaping Hands to be perfect-sized and perfectly paced for busy schedules. It’s 135 pages.
Left: Turning pages & dreams into reality—Torrey celebrates his fourth book, Hands.
Right: Writing words on my couch that I never imagined would travel the planet—grateful for Hands‘ Global Read Aloud readers.
My goal is to write rollercoaster fiction where kids ask to reexperience my story again, just how kids ask to ride a rollercoaster again.”
Left: Passing the torch as alumnus guest speaker to the next generation of Black Vassar graduates—remember getting my Kente Cloth, my turn to crown another with theirs.
Right: From first in my family to attend college to delivering a keynote at Vassar, my alma mater—breaking new ground & paving paths for future generations.
My mom channeled my inner Jackson 5 with this Afro—I worked on my moonwalk next!
Were there any surprises that emerged as you wrote the novel?
Writing Hands was a joyride of turns and twists of me seeing how today’s new world meets the old. Writing Hands meant realizing how much some of my favorite movies, actors, comics, musicals, and songs of my childhood shaped me. Hands is Rocky and Creed and Star Wars meets the Spider-Verses. Hands is a portrayal of a Black boy growing up in a very different America and about a mentor teaching a kid what real power is. The main character is Black and Puerto Rican in Brooklyn like me and Miles Morales. He’s very much a boy trying to be a man.
It was a happy surprise for me to pull off piecing together different influences (from Hamilton to rap) like a puzzle perfectly fitting into the successful larger picture that is Hands. So, I got to relive my own feelings and memories. All of that was like unwrapping a gift not only I could enjoy, but one that I could share with our world.
What do you think young people need most today, and how do you hope to offer that to them?
Young people need safe spaces. As a teacher and author, my classroom and books are safe spaces—never intimidating, always comfortable. My books feel safe at first sight because they’re thin and chapters range from one paragraph to one or two pages. I also want young readers to see themselves in my stories and feel like, “Hey, that’s me!” It’s about them realizing they’ve got “main-character energy” to shape their lives and their stories. I want young readers to finish my books and think, “Wow, I totally belong here!”
I also want young readers to see themselves in my stories and feel like, ‘Hey, that’s me!’ It’s about them realizing they’ve got ‘main-character energy’ to shape their lives and their stories.”
Teaching amazing students! I got lucky as a teacher with this class.
You’ve been a public school educator for almost thirty years—wow! How have both your impressive careers—teacher and writer—been shaped by your own childhood?
Who I am as a teacher and writer is tied to who I was before that. I used to be the kid who was often unseen, unheard, and pushed to the side. For elementary and middle school, none of my teachers came from my projects or worlds like mine. It was like they were visiting a foreign country whenever they walked into my classrooms, and they didn’t get us kids, so they didn’t care for us the way they would for the kids from their families and communities. We were aliens to them—just without the cool superpowers. Wait, we did have powers—we were invisible to the teachers; we were invisible in books, and so was our community.
It’s been that way since before I was born up to now. To add salt to the wound, if most teachers and other outsiders weren’t overlooking us, they stamped our neighborhood with every negative thing you can imagine. At the same time, the media was stamping our neighborhood with all sorts of negative labels too. Life magazine called Red Hook one of the ten worst neighborhoods in the United States. Growing up in that, I always sided with the underdog. It makes me—as a teacher and author—make sure students who are unseen, unheard, and uncentered never feel that way. I let kids know my personal story of rising from poverty to being the first in my family to graduate high school, then college, then write books; to let them know if I—with seemingly nothing—can make it, then they can too.
I let kids know my personal story of rising from poverty to being the first in my family to graduate high school, then college, then write books; to let them know if I—with seemingly nothing—can make it, then they can too.”
Left: Family Matters: After his first college year, Uncle Torrey returns to create cherished moments with his niece who he helped raise.
Right: Honoring the one who always believed I’d be an award-winning author, even when I had to repeat a grade—Ma’s award much as it’s mine.
How else do your two career paths overlap?
I take teaching treasures and sneak them into my books. So, when you crack one open, it’s a walk into real schools and classrooms. Guess what you’ll see in many schools: core values. The rule is “show, don’t tell,” but schools tell kids about core values and don’t show them. I know if readers can see kids in books be it, then they can be it. My books mine the real value out of schools’ core values because my characters show courage, persistence, responsibility, open-mindedness, collaboration, kindness, and other school values acted out. The kids in my stories are examples of kids who are making it, then making a difference, and they show young readers how they can make a difference too. My books show readers what made the difference for me, so that kids can get in touch with who and what’ll help them win the big fight of Life.
I know that you have experience working in conflict resolution. How do you bring that into your stories?
For three years, I was a Conflict Resolution Trainer and Staff Developer for schools throughout New York. It’s rare that a kid wants a conflict resolution lesson. Do you know what all kids want? Fun. No one quits what’s fun. Great friction causes great fiction, and great stories are fun. So, I sneak conflict resolution into my books—there’s a big conflict that takes a whole book to get resolution.
Getting the crowd pumped! An auditorium is inspired when inspiration takes the stage.
What are your favorite parts of creating books for young people?
It’s important to me that my stories make people feel like they belong, especially kids from Black and Puerto Rican communities who don’t always see themselves in what they read. I want kids to know they can be anything they want, and that they’re carrying on the dreams of their relatives and those around us, just like I am. I loved revolving Hands around a boy’s interest in boxing and drawing because readers tell me they are questioning how they use their hands: Knock down? Lift up? Destroy? Create? I love that my books are the bridge to my meeting kids in virtual or in-person visits so we can have illuminating conversations. For example, it’s the best feeling seeing kids’ lightbulbs go on when we discuss Trev in Hands learning boxing because he feels alone, but he discovers that a boxer isn’t alone—he has corner people—then they realize and share who is their corner. It’s all about connecting kids to who’ll lift them to new heights.
I want kids to know they can be anything they want.”
Can you share any details about your forthcoming books?
I’ve had kids come up to me and say, “I’m gonna read your book to my little brother,” and it’s made me see our littler ones need something special just for them—tinier bite-sized versions of my novels. So, I got to work, thinking about my nieces and all. My first picture book, Just Right, publishes in spring 2026, and the illustrations by Teresa Martinez have that special magic that’ll make little hands grab them right off the shelves! Little Artist follows. Uncle will be my third picture book. So, keep your eyes peeled!
What are the best ways for educators and librarians to connect with you or to follow you on social media?
Folks can contact me (and find educator resources) through my website at torreymaldonado.com. Also, people can connect with me on Instagram. All my social media handles are @torreymaldonado.
