00:00you may know her from her hashtag 1000 black girl books which she started because she was
00:07tired of reading and I quote about white boys and dogs so now she's being honored with the
00:11making a difference award at this year's black girls rock please welcome Marley Dias
00:16hi I'm very excited to have you here thank you and I love the ensembles thank you so much so
00:22talk to me you've been on tons of morning shows night shows you've gone from just being a regular
00:28kid if you will to now a celebrity what is that like it's a lot of fun and I think it's fun to
00:33have my social action projects kind of being in the limelight and showing that it's possible for
00:37like younger girls like younger kids in general to be able to do and make a change in their community
00:41so that's definitely important but at the same time I try to avoid invade having that invade into
00:47my schoolwork and my friendships because I don't want them to think that because I'm a celebrity
00:51in a certain like aspect like a literary advocate who's been on the news I don't want them to think
00:56that I have to be like that at all times I have to act superstarish or pretend like I'm all that
01:02when I'm at school well you kind of are amazing thank you you know being all that sometimes it's
01:06okay I'm just saying no so how many books have you have you collected now today um about 4,000 but
01:11we're still we're still donating so we run out but then we end up keep getting donations so so the
01:16process is going to keep going and going and going that's awesome and what are your you mentioned
01:20your friends what do your friends and teachers at school have to say about your success my friends
01:25they're very proud of me but I like to tell them what I'm doing but I don't go in depth so that
01:29they feel jealous or anything but they're really proud of me and they're happy and some of them
01:34help and some of them are just here they're for moral support and they're still like go Marley I'm
01:37happy I miss you at school but I'm still excited that you're able to do these things and go these
01:42interviews and promote whatever you're trying to say and my teachers are very proud of me as well
01:46you sound like you have some really great friends yes so you're a superstar you're receiving an award at
01:52Black Girls Rock you're doing great things for your community what do you do during the summer
01:56do you have summer plans are you gonna just continue to take over the world this summer
01:59well for summer I have camp stuff and then I have some extra like extra work and extracurricular
02:04things that I want to help with the project like I'm we're thinking of doing a black girl book club in
02:09which we would have like a meeting about a black girl book and we read it over the summer and I have a
02:13discussion with the author and then like a live chat over Skype and in person that is amazing and
02:18what's your favorite book Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson and why do you like that
02:22book I like that book because I'm a very avid reader and it was like I've been reading and
02:27reading and reading and then I got to this book and I had a challenge reading and I couldn't understand
02:32it's a poetry book it's a memoir of Jacqueline Woodson's life and it's really it was just really
02:37difficult and I was like wow there's finally a book out there that's like making it hard for me to
02:42understand so it was exciting but it was still difficult so and then I read it I waited a year and then I read it
02:47and I understood it and it meant a lot to me because I could understand that there was a girl who loved
02:52writing and she was black and she was experiencing racism and discrimination I like that you like a
02:57good challenge yes I'm super super proud of you congratulations on all of your success here at
03:03Essence you are family you're welcome back anytime and we're going to support any and everything that
03:06you do and congratulations on your black girls rock award thank you
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