Two Cool Tweets (about me)

At the Kweli Conference in NYC on April 6-7, Ibi Zoboi spoke on a panel about how she wanted to "Debbie Reese" a book about Haiti. I saw that just at the moment when I was taking my highlighter to a copy of Little House on the Prairie to highlight passages that I wanted to focus on at an upcoming workshop. I snapped a photo of me doing it and tagged Ibi, telling her I was doing that 'Debbie Reese' thing right at that moment:




A few days later, on Twitter, Ibi replied:

To ‘Debbie Reese’ is to read closely & critically, w/ love & deep compassion for your people, w/ a keen understanding of history & power structures & how that affects young readers.

Cool, right? WAY COOL. And then, Rita Williams-Garcia replied in that tweet thread, too. She said 

Common use: "Yes, but has this galley been #D_Reesed ?""Yes. Thoroughly #D_REESED." Error: "thoroughly" is redundant here.

Again, cool, RIGHT? I was delighted but beneath that delight was a powerful surge of appreciation for the meanings that my work has for Ibi and Rita. I like my name being turned into a verb that has such significance!