Jason Reynolds (born December 6, 1983) is an American author of novels and poetry for young adult and middle grade audiences.

In the next four years, Reynolds wrote eight more novels, most notably the New York Times best-selling Track series — Ghost (2016), Patina (2017), Sunny (2018), Lu (2018) — and As Brave as You (2016).

[10] Outside of her rap, few literary works spoke to his experience of urban life growing up as a black child and then teenager in the 1980s and 1990s, and he didn't start reading books until he was 17.

[12] Moved by these experiences of "the power of language",[11] he continued to pursue poetry through high school, graduating from Bishop McNamara High School in 2000,[9] and college, even as he received poor grades and discouragement from professors in his English courses[10] at the University of Maryland (he ultimately graduated with a BA in English.

[12] Reynolds was also introduced to spoken word in this period[12] and began performing,[14] including eventually solo shows, and in 2001,[12] his first book came out, a poetry collection called Let Me Speak.

[15] During college, Reynolds also worked at a DC bookstore chain called Karibu Books, which specialized in African-American literature.

[10] Enthralled with Wright's novel from the first page, Reynolds next began making his way through the great works of African-American literature on the store's shelves, reading James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, and Toni Morrison.

[16] Reynolds does not start with a particular age audience in mind; instead he focuses on trying to write the voice of his characters authentically and lets that dictate whom the book would appeal to.

Our Way, a memoir about moving to New York to pursue their dreams, expressed through Reynolds's poetry and Griffin's illustrations.

[11] He worked at a department store—the Lord & Taylor in North Bethesda, Maryland—to pay the bills, going to a Borders bookstore on his lunch break to see his book arrive on the shelf in 2009.

[8] Eventually, Reynolds returned to New York, again working in retail while he applied to graduate school, unsuccessfully because of his college grades.

[21] The book depicts a black teenager assaulted in a convenience store by a white police officer who wrongly suspects him of stealing.

[21] In a review for The New York Times, Kelka Magoon found both main characters "successfully drawn" and called the novel "a book to be grappled with, challenged by, and discussed.

The two met on a Simon & Schuster book tour in 2013, which coincided with the news that George Zimmerman had been acquitted of the murder of Trayvon Martin.

[31] In The Washington Post, a reviewer said, "Reynolds deftly blends humor and heart through lively dialogue and spot-on sibling dynamics.

Patty and her younger sister live with their dead father's brother and his white wife because their birth mother is unable to take care of them after losing her legs due to diabetes.

Critics noted the deft way the book handles many issues[38] including teamwork[37][38][39] and non-traditional family structures.

Reynolds is the author of Miles Morales: Spider-Man (2017),[44][45] a novel based on the Marvel Comics' Afro-Puerto Rican teen character.

[46] Reynolds has described his ambitions for the book as similar to Jordan Peele's approach to Get Out, namely to engage the audience with systemic social issues by "distill[ing] it down to a single family."

[5] Reynolds was moved to write the book by his visits to juvenile detention centers, where he frequently encounters children caught in a cycle of violence that, under slightly different circumstances, might have been his own: Reynolds has said that after his own friend's murder, he and other friends planned to seek revenge but never did so as the perpetrator wasn't conclusively identified, something he looked back on and "realized how lucky that was.

[56] On the day of its release, Look Both Ways became a finalist for the National Book Award[57] and later made the New York Times Best Sellers List.

[58] Jason Reynolds explained that he wanted to explore kids' autonomy in this book, saying, "It is a time when they are unsupervised" and they "get to learn about the world on their own, for better or for worse.

"[62] In 2021, Reynolds, alongside Kendi and Sonja Cherry-Paul, published Stamped (For Kids): Racism, Antiracism, and You, which was illustrated by Rachelle Baker.