Biography

Author of the Young Adult nonfiction debut The Boy Who Carried Bricks, a 2016 In the Margins Book Awards Top Ten title, Alton Carter is a former foster child, police officer, and graduate of Oklahoma State University. He now works as a director of Methodist youth ministries. He makes his home in Oklahoma, with his wife and their two sons. His new book, Aging Out, arrived summer of 2016.

Schedule

1 p.m. to 1:45 p.m.
State Capitol, House Chamber
Book Talk
The Boy Who Carried Bricks

2 p.m. to 2:45 p.m.
B&N Jr. Tent
Book Signing

The Boy Who Carried Bricks: A True Story

Winner of the 2016 Oklahoma Book Award

Abandoned by his father, neglected by his mother, shuttled between foster homes and a boys ranch for most of his formative years, a young man refuses to succumb to the fate that the world says should be his.

Born the second of five children to a woman who not once had a name to write in the blank space left for father on her children’s birth certificates, Alton Carter does not mince words as he describes a childhood full of violence and hunger and neglect.

Early on, Alton decides he wants a “normal life”—even if that means standing up to abusive relatives and being teased by his siblings and cousins. Along the way, he keeps an eye out for those who might help lighten the load, never losing hope that such people exist.