What makes a family? Kern Carter explores this question in YA novel Boys and Girls Screaming
Kern Carter's Boys and Girls Screaming is a different kind of coming-of-age story. The narrative centres around the friendship between two teenage girls named Ever and Candace. The two are inseparable, considering themselves sisters, but Ever struggles to cope when tragedy strikes in her life. Along with Candace and her brother Jericho, Ever starts the Boys and Girls Screaming club — or BAGS — an emotional support group for other kids in their school who are dealing with trauma.
Along the way, the girls uncover some explosive family secrets and realize they have even more in common than they had ever thought. Boys and Girls Screaming touches on themes of sisterhood, unpacking trauma, and asks the question: What makes a family?
Carter is a Toronto author and freelance writer. He has written and self-published two books — the novella Thoughts of a Fractured Soul and the novel Beauty Scars. Carter also has writing credits in Forbes, The New York Times, Global Citizen, Elle Magazine and Fatherly.com. CBC Books named Carter a Black writer to watch in 2023.
Carter told CBC Books about writing his debut YA novel Boys and Girls Screaming.
Drawing from experience
"My first book, Thoughts of a Fractured Soul, was my life fictionalized. The second book, Beauty Scars, was more like observations of what I saw when I moved out of town about ten years ago. But with Boys and Girls Screaming, I was really just using my imagination. I wanted to write a story that would be entertaining but was deep enough to be thought-provoking and start conversations.
"I was thinking about abandonment because I had gone through some stuff with my daughter. When I started writing this book, I'd had full custody of my daughter for about three years at the time and she hadn't seen her mom in that long.
I wanted to write a story that would be entertaining but was deep enough to be thought-provoking and start conversations.
I also had a friend who was a foster parent and he told me about a kid that came into the home. He called his mom and said, 'Mom, come pick me up right now. We could be a family again.' And she said, 'No, stay. I'm not coming to pick you up.' So those stories were on my mind when I was writing it."
Writing with intention
"Writing is so technical and you need to have so much command over language and craft. Before Boys and Girls Screaming, I wasn't capable of telling a story like this — I didn't have the tools. I went back and took full-semester writing classes at Humber College and U of T because I just had to get better. Once I did that, the story was so much more clear.
"I figured out how to make it commercial but still keep it deep and still have that heart and that spirit that I really wanted. It was really a matter of becoming a better writer and then matching that with imagination and storytelling."
It was really a matter of becoming a better writer and then matching that with imagination and storytelling.
"I wrote this book to be entertaining. That's why there's a twist in there. I hope people are able to just read through the surface level of the story and still feel like they got something out of it.
"But for those that want to get a bit deeper, there are a lot of nuances they can relate to."
LISTEN | Kern Carter on becoming a dad as a teen:
Leaning on each other
"I didn't look at it necessarily like I was focusing on mental health. I looked at it like I was focusing on community and what that means. And mental health obviously was an aspect of that. I was thinking about the world of social media and seeing how kids were struggling in real-time. I was writing about community, and mental health was just a natural part of that story.
I thought it was important to show that if kids kind of took matters into their own hands — yes it could get a little chaotic — but if you learn to lean on really good friends, it could change your life.
"I thought it was important to show that if kids kind of took matters into their own hands — yes, it could get a little chaotic — but if you learn to lean on really good friends, it could change your life.
"I had really good friends growing up, and it saved my life. Even at what I thought was my weakest — between my mom and my friends and my brothers — my support system was incredible. So I just want to fictionalize and imagine that in this world."
Sister, sister
"I wanted Ever and Candace's friendship to feel almost obsessive — there's a hint of obsession there. Candace has a hint of obsession with Ever and Ever is very protective of Candace. I wanted their relationship to really feel like sisterhood.
Candace has a hint of obsession with Ever and Ever is very protective of Candace. I wanted their relationship to really feel like sisterhood.
"They have this really, really intimate friendship that's unconditional. I want to make sure that young girls reading Boys and Girls Screaming realize, 'I can have a friend that I absolutely love that maybe does something that I don't like, but we're still we're so bonded that it doesn't matter.
"You'll be mad for a couple of days and we're back together. Even though it's imperfect, it's still unconditional."
What makes a family?
"To me, the mother-daughter relationship can be really precious. But I wanted to ask: Who is the mother? And what is a mother? I want to have levels of what parenting is, what motherhood is.
"I wanted to remove blood from it. I don't think Candace has the same connection with her mom that Ever does, but they still have a very strong connection — she loves and respects her mom. And that's not her biological mother. It's her adoptive mother.
I wanted to get people to think about what motherhood is, what parenting is and what love is, when it comes to mother-daughter or mother-child relationships.
"I wanted to get people to think about what motherhood is, what parenting is and what love is when it comes to mother-daughter or mother-child relationships."
Kern Carter's comments have been edited for length and clarity.
