An It's Complicated! — Book Covers guest post by Elizabeth Bluemle, a children's book author, blogger for Publishers Weekly, and owner of The Flying Pig Bookstore in Shelburne, Vermont.
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| Elizabeth Bluemle |
For sixteen years, I’ve been a bookseller in small-town, semi-rural Vermont, in a region that is progressive but fairly homogenous. I spend a lot of time introducing people to new books I think they might love, and over the years, I’ve encountered the usual range of responses from white customers to books with brown faces on the covers. Many of these responses are positive; some are reluctant or downright resistant, and represent mistaken assumptions about these books, that they are limited in focus and applicable only to a narrow, nonwhite audience.
I’ve got a toolbox full of tactics I use with hesitant customers, from subtle to overt, depending on how the situation reads. By emphasizing plot and character, by getting them to “forget” about race, I can get the adult excited about the story. I say adult deliberately, because out of the thousands of kids I’ve recommended books to, only a handful have ever shown even an awareness of the race of the cover character, much less a resistance to difference.
But the resistance is not entirely the reader’s fault. The extreme lack of diversity in children’s books (if it were hunger, it would count as starvation) — both featuring people of color as main characters and books published by writers of color — has led readers to some justified perceptions. For a long time, brown faces on covers by and large signaled certain kinds of stories: slavery, Civil Rights, gritty urban plight, outsiderness. The problem wasn’t with the stories themselves, of course; these were powerful, enriching, worthy books. But they were funneling nonwhite experience into particular tubes, and if readers were in the mood for something else—adventure or fantasy or mysteries, say—they looked elsewhere. They had to; there were few other choices. And that is still largely the case, with a few noteworthy, marvelous exceptions.
Because white people think (consciously or not) that this is what brown faces on covers mean, they may subconsciously dismiss them, which means they don’t sell as well as white faces on covers, which means publishers don’t want to risk brown faces on covers beyond a few allocated niche slots, which means that the public doesn’t have much choice or variety, and don’t have a chance to get past these outmoded assumptions.
It’s a chicken-or-egg situation, but it’s changeable. If there’s one thing I have learned from my time in the handselling trenches, it’s how readily the public accept what we tell them is worth reading, what we stand behind and put our resources into. The more diversity there is on book covers, the more normalized those images become, and the more people will see beyond skin color on book covers into the stories themselves. There is always a time in history when someone goes first. Someone realizes that white does not equal “normal.” Asks, “Is there a reason for the main character to be white? If not, let’s branch out.”
There are already publishers and artists who do this. They are alert to the possibilities and read a picture book manuscript without assuming that the characters are white unless otherwise specified. They choose Asian, Latino, Chicano, Black, Middle Eastern, Indian, Native American, and multiethnic kids to illustrate mainstream stories and assign them main-character status. Picture books like Peter Reynolds’, chapter books like Alvin Ho and Ellray Jakes and Calvin Coconut, Brendan Buckley and Mr. Chickee and Lisa Yee’s books and all of the fantasy that Tu Publishing is publishing — these are wonderful titles that leap off the shelves into the hands of customers of all ages.
The market is here; in addition to the (primarily pitched-to) Caucasian audience, more than 40% of the US population between ages 3 and 21 is nonwhite. When children’s book covers are finally fully and richly reflective of the world we live in, people will outgrow old assumptions and — with apologies and a tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr. — will judge book covers not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their characters. And plots, and writing. And that is a handselling world I look forward to.
I’ve got a toolbox full of tactics I use with hesitant customers, from subtle to overt, depending on how the situation reads. By emphasizing plot and character, by getting them to “forget” about race, I can get the adult excited about the story. I say adult deliberately, because out of the thousands of kids I’ve recommended books to, only a handful have ever shown even an awareness of the race of the cover character, much less a resistance to difference.But the resistance is not entirely the reader’s fault. The extreme lack of diversity in children’s books (if it were hunger, it would count as starvation) — both featuring people of color as main characters and books published by writers of color — has led readers to some justified perceptions. For a long time, brown faces on covers by and large signaled certain kinds of stories: slavery, Civil Rights, gritty urban plight, outsiderness. The problem wasn’t with the stories themselves, of course; these were powerful, enriching, worthy books. But they were funneling nonwhite experience into particular tubes, and if readers were in the mood for something else—adventure or fantasy or mysteries, say—they looked elsewhere. They had to; there were few other choices. And that is still largely the case, with a few noteworthy, marvelous exceptions.
Because white people think (consciously or not) that this is what brown faces on covers mean, they may subconsciously dismiss them, which means they don’t sell as well as white faces on covers, which means publishers don’t want to risk brown faces on covers beyond a few allocated niche slots, which means that the public doesn’t have much choice or variety, and don’t have a chance to get past these outmoded assumptions.It’s a chicken-or-egg situation, but it’s changeable. If there’s one thing I have learned from my time in the handselling trenches, it’s how readily the public accept what we tell them is worth reading, what we stand behind and put our resources into. The more diversity there is on book covers, the more normalized those images become, and the more people will see beyond skin color on book covers into the stories themselves. There is always a time in history when someone goes first. Someone realizes that white does not equal “normal.” Asks, “Is there a reason for the main character to be white? If not, let’s branch out.”
There are already publishers and artists who do this. They are alert to the possibilities and read a picture book manuscript without assuming that the characters are white unless otherwise specified. They choose Asian, Latino, Chicano, Black, Middle Eastern, Indian, Native American, and multiethnic kids to illustrate mainstream stories and assign them main-character status. Picture books like Peter Reynolds’, chapter books like Alvin Ho and Ellray Jakes and Calvin Coconut, Brendan Buckley and Mr. Chickee and Lisa Yee’s books and all of the fantasy that Tu Publishing is publishing — these are wonderful titles that leap off the shelves into the hands of customers of all ages.The market is here; in addition to the (primarily pitched-to) Caucasian audience, more than 40% of the US population between ages 3 and 21 is nonwhite. When children’s book covers are finally fully and richly reflective of the world we live in, people will outgrow old assumptions and — with apologies and a tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr. — will judge book covers not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their characters. And plots, and writing. And that is a handselling world I look forward to.
I argue this very point all the time - the only way to normalize racially diverse and LGBTQ characters in books is to have them there 'just because'. I couldn't be happier that my publisher put a handsome brown boy on the cover of my book, and that B&N often has it face out on their YA paranormal shelves. Tiny steps, but important ones. Great post!
ReplyDelete"When children’s book covers are finally fully and richly reflective of the world we live in, people will outgrow old assumptions and — with apologies and a tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr. — will judge book covers not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their characters." Thank you for this post! I'm tired of hearing "POC don't buy books, so why publish for them." Books featuring or by POC shouldn't be for a specific market-- they're for everyone.
ReplyDeleteWell said, Elizabeth. If we truly want to build a nation of readers then we need books that reflect the diversity of our nation. It's the grown-ups and some very out dated ideas about publishing that are standing in the way. Give the kids what they want--good stories with characters that reflect the diversity the kids and their friends--and you will make oodles of money selling books.
ReplyDeletePublishers complain about how only a tiny percentage of the population buys books and that that group is growing ever smaller. I argue that there's a huge under-served population out there. Give kids some mystery, realistic fiction, sci-fi,adventure and such with diverse characters and you'll see!
"But they were funneling nonwhite experience into particular tubes, and if readers were in the mood for something else—adventure or fantasy or mysteries, say—they looked elsewhere." Part of that is perception, and part of that is what writers of color seem to be expected to produce - either by themselves, their community, or the dominant culture. I'm really happy to see more books featuring people of color doing things other than being part of "The Struggle" (referencing civil rights) or "The Life" (referencing the gritty urban scene). Normalizing people of color (and the non-cisgendered) as "normal" means definitely expanding the diversity of stories written by writers and accepted by publishers.
ReplyDeleteThanks for contributing to a fascinating discussion.
Yes, indeed, Elizabeth, thank you! Normalizing is the way to go. I’m happy to read authors writing outside their cultures as long as adequate research (more than just websites) is carried out, but we need more multi-cultural authors too.
ReplyDeleteThe beauty is, we have this young generation of readers who, from what I can see, are virtually oblivious to race as a parameter for content and will grow up to purchase books by authors as diverse as the world around them...as long as we keep making them available. (Thank you Elizabeth)~
ReplyDeleteReaders of this blog - especially those looking for books starring children of color - will be interested in another of Elizabeth's contributions: "A World Full of Color," a LibraryThing list of "contemporary books featuring kids of color that aren't primarily about race" (http://www.librarything.com/catalog/shelftalker). There are more than 600 "noteworthy, marvelous exceptions" of titles published up to 2010. It's searchable by author, genre and age, so you can find the perfect book for a particular child.
ReplyDeleteI think you're right that people of color on a book cover has historically signaled a certain type of story to buyers--but this is changing. I've collected over a hundred YA book covers of color on a pintrest board, and was amazed at the diversity of genres represented! Take a look: http://pinterest.com/nandinibajpai/one-hundred-ya-book-covers-of-color/
ReplyDeleteThank you for this terrific post, Elizabeth, and all the good work that you're doing with A World Full of Color!
ReplyDeleteSweetheart, you were reading my mind today. I was going to do a blog entry to say the EXACT same thing. I love you. But you know that already.
ReplyDelete