Sometimes a Dream Needs a Push: Realistic Fiction Grade 6

Sometimes A Dream Needs A Push: Realistic Fiction Grade 6 Realistic fiction tells a story about characters and events that are like those in real life. Authors of realistic fiction tell the story through the plot—the main events of the story. The plot includes a conflict, or problem, and the resolution, or how the problem is solved. Authors of realistic fiction might tell the story through first-person point of view. In first-person point of view, the narrator is a character in the story. Like Chris, from Sometimes a Dream Needs a Push, Walter Dean Myers (1937–2014) was a tall and athletic boy who enjoyed playing basketball. But Myers was also an avid reader. He loved books from the time he was a young boy. He would sit on his mother’s lap and imagine the characters as she read. Even though Myers struggled in school, he was a good writer. An English teacher recognized his talent and encouraged him to keep on writing no matter what happened to him. He went on to become the author of more than 100 books for young readers, many with a young boy as the main character.