Lakelore, page 18
I’m deeply grateful to the doctors who diagnosed my ADHD and dyslexia. It illuminated a childhood of making myself sit still in class, and then getting into fights on the playground. Of forcing myself to seem as normal as possible, and then collapsing in on myself. Of knowing I needed to not be too loud or too conspicuous, because as a child of color, I had little margin for error.
Sometimes my ADHD is hard to separate out from my dyslexia. They both exist in my brain at the same time, and have some overlapping effects. My experiences with dyslexia led to impulse-control-draining frustration, and worsened conflicts with teachers and peers.
But here’s where I got lucky: Like Lore, I have a mother who’s all the proof I needed that just because our brains work differently doesn’t mean we’re stupid. My mother graduated from high school without knowing how to read. If you think you have to be incredibly smart to manage that, you’re right.
Both my mother and my father read out loud to me, and both these things were acts of love—on my mother’s part because, after learning to read in her twenties, she still stumbled over words, and on my father’s part because he could barely get through a paragraph without me asking questions.
I learned to read because a few very patient family members, like my mother and my father, and a few very patient teachers and librarians, read with me. I memorized words by the sounds of their voices and their hands pointing to what line they were on. That was my access point to language, the patience and openness of the adults in my life who did not let me fall through the cracks in a system that would call me troubled, or obstinate, or unreachable before it would ever call me a reader.
I learned to read because of the people who decided I was curious instead of stupid and stubborn, that my brain was wired a little differently instead of wired wrong.
That lesson, that different wasn’t wrong, was one I had to learn about my own gender identity. That existing as who I truly am is as valid as reading the way I realistically can.
Those of us who are transgender and nonbinary, we are beautiful.
Those of us whose brains don’t process language or don’t process the world in the way we’re often told we should, we are brilliant.
Before we part ways for now, reader, I have a favor to ask: If you can read to and with the children in your life, please do. If you can encourage others to read to and with the children in their lives, please do. No matter how a child’s brain is wired, no matter how they experience the world around them, they likely won’t think the world of books is theirs too unless someone invites them into it. Those we trust show us the path into stories.
If no one had read to me, I wouldn’t have learned to read.
If no one had read to me, I wouldn’t be writing these words.
To every one of you who does for someone else what my family and community did for me, thank you.
RESOURCES
To learn more about ADHD, dyslexia, and gender identity:
CHADD
chadd.org
ADDitude
additudemag.com
INTERNATIONAL DYSLEXIA ASSOCIATION
dyslexiaida.org
NATIONAL CENTER FOR LEARNING DISABILITIES
ncld.org
GENDER SPECTRUM
genderspectrum.org
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My heart feels like a glitter jar when I think about everyone who was part of this story becoming a book. I’m grateful for every one of them. I’ll name a few here:
The doctors and mental health professionals who diagnosed my ADHD and my dyslexia, and who help me navigate the work of living the best life I can with the brain I’ve got.
Kat Brzozowski, for being both a spectacularly brilliant editor and a fearless ally.
Jean Feiwel, for making Bastián, Lore, and me part of the Feiwel & Friends family.
Brittany Pearlman, for helping my books make their way in the world (and for calling me an enby-friendly nickname before I even came out).
Rich Deas, for the amazing art direction at MacKids; Liz Dresner, for your stunning vision for this book and for putting two trans characters on the cover; Carolina Rodriguez Fuenmayor, for your absolutely incredible art.
Pat McHugh, Jessica White, Dawn Ryan, Celeste Cass, and Ilana Worrell, and really, let me say thank you again to all the editors, copy editors, managing editors, production managers, and production team members who’ve worked on my books, because working with a dyslexic author can make this rigorous work even more challenging, and your patience and graciousness is a gift.
Everyone at Feiwel & Friends and Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group: Emily Settle, Liz Szabla, Erin Siu, Teresa Ferraiolo, Kim Waymer, Jon Yaged, Allison Verost, Molly Ellis, Leigh Ann Higgins, Cynthia Lliguichuzhca, Allegra Green, Jo Kirby, Kathryn Little, Julia Gardiner, Lauren Scobell, Alexei Esikoff, Mariel Dawson, Avia Perez, Dominique Jenkins, Meg Collins, Gabriella Salpeter, Romanie Rout, Ebony Lane, Kristin Dulaney, Jordan Winch, Kaitlin Loss, Rachel Diebel, Foyinsi Adegbonmire, Amanda Barillas, Morgan Dubin, Morgan Rath, Madison Furr, Mary Van Akin, Kelsey Marrujo, Holly West, Anna Roberto, Katie Quinn, Hana Tzou; Katie Halata, Lucy Del Priore, Melissa Croce, Kristen Luby, and Cierra Bland of Macmillan School & Library; and the many more who turn stories into books and help readers find them.
Nova Ren Suma, Emily X.R. Pan, Anica Mrose Rissi, Aisha Saeed, Emery Lord, Dahlia Adler, Elana K. Arnold, Sara Ryan, Cory McCarthy, A.S. King, and all the writer friends I’ve written with, brainstormed with, and shared spaces with, both physical and virtual, while writing this book.
E.K. Johnston, Emma Higinbotham, Chandra Rooney, Lindsay Smith, F.M. Boughan, Tara Sim, and Molly Owen, who held space for me alongside a lake when I was a newly out enby, and whose creative energy was there when lake magic first took over my brain.
Lindsay Eagar, Lee O’Brien, and Karen McCoy for helping me go deeper into these characters and their worlds.
Taylor Martindale Kean, Stefanie Sanchez Von Borstel, and the Full Circle Literary team, and Taryn Fagerness and the Taryn Fagerness Agency, for your advocacy for stories and their authors.
My mother and father, for listening to the passages I wrote on dyslexia, and for helping my dyslexic brain learn how to read in the first place.
My fellow neurodivergent brains, and my fellow trans and nonbinary siblings—I am so grateful for the communities we make together.
Readers, for bringing stories to life in your hearts. Thank you.
Thank you for reading this Feiwel & Friends book.
THE FRIENDS WHO MADE
LAKELORE
POSSIBLE ARE:
JEAN FEIWEL, Publisher
LIZ SZABLA, Associate Publisher
RICH DEAS, Senior Creative Director
HOLLY WEST, Senior Editor
ANNA ROBERTO, Senior Editor
KAT BRZOZOWSKI, Senior Editor
DAWN RYAN, Executive Managing Editor
CELESTE CASS, Assistant Production Manager
ERIN SIU, Associate Editor
EMILY SETTLE, Associate Editor
FOYINSI ADEGBONMIRE, Associate Editor
RACHEL DIEBEL, Assistant Editor
LIZ DRESNER, Associate Art Director
ILANA WORRELL, Senior Production Editor
Follow us on Facebook or visit us online at mackids.com.
OUR BOOKS ARE FRIENDS FOR LIFE.
ALSO BY ANNA-MARIE MCLEMORE
The Mirror Season
Dark and Deepest Red
Blanca & Roja
Wild Beauty
When the Moon Was Ours
The Weight of Feathers
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Anna-Marie McLemore was born in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains and taught by their family to hear la llorona in the Santa Ana winds. They are the author of The Weight of Feathers, a finalist for the 2016 William C. Morris Debut Award; 2017 Stonewall Honor Book When the Moon Was Ours, which was longlisted for the National Book Award in Young People’s Literature and was the winner of the James Tiptree Jr. Award; Wild Beauty, Blanca & Roja, Dark and Deepest Red, and The Mirror Season. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Bastián
Lore
Bastián
Lore
Bastián
Lore
Bastián
Lore
Bastián
Lore
Bastián
Lore
Bastián
Lore
Bastián
Lore
Bastián
Lore
Bastián
Bastián
Lore
Bastián
Lore
Bastián
Lore
Bastián
Lore
Bastián
Lore
Bastián
Lore
Bastián
Lore
Lore
Bastián
Lore
Lore
Bastián
Lore
Bastián
Lore
Bastián
Lore
Bastián
Bastián
Lore
Bastián
Lore
Bastián
Lore
Bastián
Lore
Bastián
Lore
Bastián
Lore
Bastián
Lore
Bastián
Author’s Note
Resources
Acknowledgments
Also by Anna-Marie McLemore
About the Author
Copyright
Copyright © 2022 by Anna-Marie McLemore
A Feiwel and Friends Book
An imprint of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC
120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271
fiercereads.com
All rights reserved.
Feiwel and Friends logo designed by Filomena Tuosto
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
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First hardcover edition 2022
eBook edition 2022
eISBN 9781250624154
Anna-Marie McLemore, Lakelore
