These 'Letters' Are A 'Hug On Paper'

One book serves as a role model for young girls.

Following the award-winning book Letters to a Young Brother: MANifest Your Destiny, CSI: New York star Hill Harper (Dr Sheldon Hawkes) set out to pen a companion novel geared toward young women: Letters to a Young Sister: DeFINE Your Destiny. The inspiration to write the books came when he interacted with young fans. "I started traveling and speaking to a lot of groups of youth all over the country and I ended up being asked a lot of questions," he explained to the Detroit Free Press. "You find out how few of them don't have positive role models in their lives to help them navigate the journey from boyhood to manhood or from girlhood to womanhood." Harper recalled books from his youth that helped him on this journey to adulthood. "So I wanted to see if I could write a book that could help others," he said.

"In many cases, these women are being raised in single-parent households where the mother is the primary parent, and they don't have a great deal of platonic older male affection," Harper continued. This may cause young women to seek out affection from the wrong people in the wrong way. "And that is why we are seeing many of the negative things that we are seeing in our community. (With) this book I want them to take a step that I call a hug on paper. That's what it is, a platonic hug from an older male to a young teenage girl."

Harper interviewed about a hundred girls for the book and got insight and contributions from various well-known women and men, including Michelle Obama, Nikki Giovanni and Blair Underwood. "The overall message of Letters to a Young Sister: DeFINE Your Destiny has everything to do with self-worth and self-esteem," Harper explained. "A lot of people, especially our young women, are struggling with self-worth and self-esteem issues. So the focus of this book is to build up, and build back up that self-esteem and self-worth."

The actor said he has another book in the works. "I'm not exactly sure of the title yet, but it's definitely going to be for adults this time," he revealed. "It's going to be adult topics and adult issues. It's probably going to be pretty bold in terms of the language and the way I put it together. So we're going to run that and take a couple of risks and hopefully create a book that people will respond to."

The original interview is from the Detroit Free Press. You can purchase Letters to a Young Sister from Amazon.com, Amazon.ca or Amazon.co.uk--or pick it up at your local bookstore.

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