Growing Up African American
For a long time, Myers viewed being black as something that prevented him from having certain opportunities or experiences, and he also believed that the color of his skin was the reason for his inability to write for a living. Although he was intelligent, well-read and ultimately thrived in his elementary school, where he was one of the higher-flying students, his life became more of a social stereotype after his early entry into high school. He did not experience racism from either his fellow students or from his teachers, but he felt that he experienced racism from life in general; because his father had not received a good education, he did not have a particularly high-paying job. White collar jobs were not available to him and by the time Myers was in high school the family was seriously struggling financially. There was no money or opportunity for Myers to go to college. He began to drop out, and get involved in petty crime, even befriending a murderer and realizing that he would need to get out of town pretty soon for his own safety and wellbeing. This is why he joined the military.
On returning from his tour of duty, Myers fell into one dead-end blue collar job after another and was never really happy. He missed writing, he missed education, and he wanted to try to find a way to have them both. This is when the central irony of his life occurred; in his youth he had considered his race to be the barrier to writing for a living, but now, in drawing on his experiences as a young man, he was able to make his race the thing that enabled him to become a full-time writer.
Adoption
Although Myers does not write at length about his adoption, it is something that comes up as a theme throughout the book and even acted as the central theme of an entire series of books for younger readers that Myers penned later. Myers himself was adopted; he was born to a black mother and father, but adopted by his father's first wife, a German-Native American woman, and her second husband, who was a black man. Myers absolutely adored his parents and was close with them. Throughout the book it is emphasized that his rebellion was never against them but against the inequities he found in his life or his inability to process his feelings. Even when he is succeeding intellectually, and surrounding himself with people of similar intellectual interests, and his relationship with his parents becomes more distant in that they do not really understand each other, the love between them never diminishes. Myers remembers that they gave him a "marvelous" childhood and his goal has always been to make them proud of him.
Bullying
It's an old, familiar story; child is bullied in school, child puts up with it, child receives no support from teachers or other kids, child finally fights back - and the bullied child is all at once the "bad kid" whose behavior is a risk and whose rebellion is simply intolerable. This is what happened to elementary school age Myers; because of his speech impediment, he was bullied very badly by his classmates and because he was not able to respond or stick up for himself verbally, he used his fists, promptly getting caught and disciplined, as well as being immediately cast in the role of the instigator. This experience that Myers relates is an experience common to all bullied children and it is also interesting to note that he was blessed with teachers who did not always judge on face value, and who were willing to see more to a child who had been largely dismissed as a troublemaker.
The Gift of a Good Teacher
After defending himself from bullies, Myers was considered a problem child, but thanks to some of his teachers, who felt that there was more to him than this behavior, his entire life changed and he went from bottom of the class to the top because they chose to think outside of the box in their dealings with him. Myers was given speech therapy, which enabled him to express himself better and avoid the frustration of feeling unable to say what he wanted to. It also minimized the bullying he experienced because it gave him more confidence, and bullies do not tend to bully their more confident classmates. Academically, they realized that he was passionate about books and linguistics and encouraged him, which ultimately allowed him to take accelerated learning classes and graduate early. The theme of the gift of a good teacher is evident in that much of what he was able to accomplish in later life can be traced all the way back to Myers' experiences with his caring and innovative elementary school teachers.
