PRESS RELEASE: Author Ben Mikaelsen Teaches Youth Lessons on Becoming the Author of Your Life
SAN FRANCISCO, CA—August 5, 2009—On August 3rd and 4th, City Youth Now through a generous grant from the Larson Charitable Foundation sponsored a visit by author Ben Mikaelsen to Log Cabin Ranch and the San Francisco Juvenile Justice Center. In preparation for his visit, the young men at both facilities were encouraged to read Mikaelsen's book Ghost of Spirit Bear. Mikaelsen's title is a genuine saga of self-awareness and survival that follows the act of violence, incarceration, anger, and restorative justice of a teenager who spends a year in exile on a remote Alaskan Island. On this island, his perspective is forever changed as he learns to accept his past and look forward to his future.
In his presentation, Mikaelsen shared his own struggles as a young boy growing up in South America where he was challenged and bullied for his differences. Learning English as a second language became a challenge when his family relocated to the United States where young Mikaelsen didn't know how to spell simple words like "the" or even his own name. At this young age he believed that skin color, language, clothing, and intelligence were the only things that mattered as he continued to be bullied for not fitting in at school. Mikaelsen learned that while everyone may have teased him for being different at school, the pages of his notebook never teased him for his ideas. There he was free to be whomever he wished to be, and his words and stories lifted him above his agonizing childhood. While he was unable to write in a mechanically and grammatically correct fashion, his experiences became moving stories that he scrawled in chicken scratch on the pages of his notebooks. By recounting his own struggles to become a writer, his presentation empowered the students to realize their own potential.
Mikaelsen encouraged the youth audience to grasp firm to their dreams and to find that place where there is quiet solitude and sanctity. In that place they can find a way to be true to oneself. As in his book, Ben shared with the youth that while raw eggs, flour, and lard on their own do not taste good, together, these ingredients make the richest most delicious cake imaginable. And, while the young men at juvenile hall have had one speed bump after another, these experiences add up to the richest story to be shared with the world. And that, urged Ben Mikaelsen, is the most important story any of the young men detained at the San Francisco Juvenile Justice Center will ever have to tell—the story about the rest of their lives: who are they now, and who might they yet become.
About Author Ben Mikaelsen
Ben Mikaelsen has won the International Reading Association Award and the Western Writer's Golden Spur Award. In addition, his novels have won many state Reader's Choice awards. These novels include Rescue Josh McGuire, Sparrow Hawk Red, Stranded, Countdown, Petey, Touching Spirit Bear, Red Midnight, Tree Girl and Ghost of Spirit Bear. His novels, Rescue Josh McGuire, Petey and Touching Spirit Bear have also been optioned for screen use. www.benmikaelsen.com
About City Youth Now:
City Youth Now supports youth in the San Francisco foster care and juvenile justice systems by providing funds for services and programs that promote stability and personal growth. www.cityyouthnow.org
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Press Contact:
Brittany Jarabek
Executive Director
City Youth Now
brittany@cityyouthnow.org
