Many people in the world get judged and singled out for being outspoken about their beliefs in society. It is one thing to think about criticizing, but it is another to write about it and get it published. One of these authors is Laurie Halse Anderson, who wrote the famous book, Speak. Several people influenced her to write about problems in modern society, specifically high school. This book impacted people throughout the world, since they saw a more inside view of what modern day high schoolers have to go through.
Laurie Halse Anderson had multiple people that influenced her life, and the main two were her father, Ronald Frank, and her second grade teacher. When Anderson was a little girl, ironically, she struggled with reading and writing and didn't like English at all. But in second grade, Anderson's teacher changed her perspective completely. She taught her how to write haikus and explained that she could write how she was feeling in them and then when someone else read it they would understand how she was feeling. When Anderson was in that second grade classroom, she had her epiphany when she wrote her haiku about her cat, and "[her] head just cracked open, and [she] was like, Oh. I can do this." (Anderson a.). This depicts that her second grade teacher was the one who helped her break out of her shell and was the one who first introduced her to her love for writing and exploring her imagination, which is a major thing because before this she didn't even enjoy writing. The other major influence in Anderson's life, her father, was a great storyteller and poet. He told stories to Anderson daily, and could make her cry, laugh, and hurt all in one story. At the dinner table, he would tell her about the roots of words in different languages and how language is all connected. This had a huge impact on Anderson because she went to college to get her degree in linguistics. Anderson said in one of her interviews that she doesn't think she would've become a writer if she wasn't his daughter (Anderson a.