Showing posts with label Candlewick. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Candlewick. Show all posts
Friday, October 18, 2013
Friday, September 20, 2013
Is the Race Card Old School?
An It's Complicated! — Authentic Voices guest post by author, Mitali Perkins.
When my book Rickshaw Girl (Charlesbridge) came out, one reviewer said I was “drawing on my cultural roots” to tell the story.
I winced when I read that line.
I was writing about Naima, the Muslim daughter of an impoverished rickshaw puller in Bangladesh. My grandfather was a Hindu landowner who exploited people like Naima. The rift between me and my character was almost as wide as a daughter of a slave-owner writing about the daughter of a slave. Sure, we’re both Bengali, so we share a language and other cultural commonalities. But why is race the primary authenticity card when it comes to granting storytelling permission? What about power, gender, class?
The bottom line is that all fiction crosses borders. Age: middle-aged people write about children. Gender: women write about boys; men write about girls. Class: suburbanites write about inner-city kids.
If we don’t write an imagined life, we craft memoir.
Does that mean anybody can write anything when it comes to fiction? It must, with caveats. Because what an author learns before the age of seven does matter in fiction.
When my book Rickshaw Girl (Charlesbridge) came out, one reviewer said I was “drawing on my cultural roots” to tell the story. I winced when I read that line.
I was writing about Naima, the Muslim daughter of an impoverished rickshaw puller in Bangladesh. My grandfather was a Hindu landowner who exploited people like Naima. The rift between me and my character was almost as wide as a daughter of a slave-owner writing about the daughter of a slave. Sure, we’re both Bengali, so we share a language and other cultural commonalities. But why is race the primary authenticity card when it comes to granting storytelling permission? What about power, gender, class?
The bottom line is that all fiction crosses borders. Age: middle-aged people write about children. Gender: women write about boys; men write about girls. Class: suburbanites write about inner-city kids.
If we don’t write an imagined life, we craft memoir.
Does that mean anybody can write anything when it comes to fiction? It must, with caveats. Because what an author learns before the age of seven does matter in fiction.
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Children's Book Week CBC Diversity Event
As a part of the amazing line-up of events occurring during Children's Book Week (May 13-19, 2013), the longest-running national literacy initiative in the country, Charlesbridge Publishing has teamed up with the CBC Diversity Committee to host a special panel featuring editors from Charlesbridge Publishing, Candlewick Press, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; as well as the inspiring author, Mitali Perkins; and the extremely talented illustrator, London Ladd.
This intimate panel will be held in Watertown, Massachusetts and, unlike CBC Diversity events we've held in the past, this event is open to the public. See below for all of the important details and keep in mind that space is limited so registration is required.
Thursday, March 28, 2013
A Skin Not Your Own
Originally posted on the Diversity in YA blog by Laura Goode
I like to call my YA novel, Sister Mischief, the world’s first interracial gay hip-hop love story for teens. It’s hardly news to anyone reading this blog that young adult literature has historically suffered a dearth of queer protagonists and strong, whole characters of color. Including those identities in my novel was important to me, but as a white woman who’s in a committed relationship with a man, part of me wondered, am I entitled to borrow these skins?
While I was writing SM, I thought a lot about a phenomenon I’ve come to call the Good White Person Syndrome (GWPS). GWPS involves not just being a honky with positive values about race, but more sensitively, figuring out how to convey to others, especially people of color, that you are not a racist like Bad White People are. To be a GWP, you must banish the following phrases from your vocabulary:
“Some of my best friends are [insert non-white ethnicity here].”
“Can I touch your hair?”
“[Insert non-white ethnicity here] babies are SO ADORABLE.”
“No, but where are you FROM?”
I like to call my YA novel, Sister Mischief, the world’s first interracial gay hip-hop love story for teens. It’s hardly news to anyone reading this blog that young adult literature has historically suffered a dearth of queer protagonists and strong, whole characters of color. Including those identities in my novel was important to me, but as a white woman who’s in a committed relationship with a man, part of me wondered, am I entitled to borrow these skins?
While I was writing SM, I thought a lot about a phenomenon I’ve come to call the Good White Person Syndrome (GWPS). GWPS involves not just being a honky with positive values about race, but more sensitively, figuring out how to convey to others, especially people of color, that you are not a racist like Bad White People are. To be a GWP, you must banish the following phrases from your vocabulary:
“Some of my best friends are [insert non-white ethnicity here].”
“Can I touch your hair?”
“[Insert non-white ethnicity here] babies are SO ADORABLE.”
“No, but where are you FROM?”
Friday, March 15, 2013
Diversity in the News
March 7th – March
14th, 2013
ON OUR RADAR
- HarperCollins and Lee & Low create winning proposals for First Book’s Stories for All Project
- The Diversity in YA Tumblr, managed by YA authors Cindy Pon and Malinda Lo, is back!
- On Goodreads: Best YA Books with Non-White Protagonist
- Lovely interview with Grace Lin for the Girl Scouts’ Storyteller Series
- The CBC’s visual Ode to Ezra Jack Keats, who would have been 97 on 3/11/13
- For Women’s History Month, Open Road Media spotlights Virginia Hamilton (author of 41 books, including M. C. Higgins, the Great): Virginia Hamilton, The Great
- PW KidsCast: A Conversation with Alaya Dawn Johnson on the cultural, technological, and musical influences that helped shape the futuristic Brazilian setting of her new book.
- Two Rappers’ daughters are working on a YA novel: Lil Wayne's daughter Reginae Carter and Birdman's daughter Bria Williams have teamed up to write, "Paparazzi Princesses" – set to be published in June by “Cash Money Content.
- An Interview with Harlem’s Little Blackbird Author Renée Watson on Watch. Connect. Read
Friday, March 8, 2013
Diversity in the News
February 28th
– March 7th, 2013
CBC Diversity felt it was time to step up our game when it came to participating in the conversations outside our blog concerning children's books and the representation of people within them. We want you, our readers, to know that you can rely on the CBC Diversity blog to provide links to news stories, discussion threads, tweet trends, and blog posts about these important conversations. We'll be posting weekly roundups to keep everyone abreast of the conversation and we'll be entering into a few more ourselves. We hope you do too!
If you'd rather look at everything all at once, you'll still be able to find the links to these news articles and blog posts on our all-inclusive News & ... page as well as event details on our CBC Diversity Google calendar located on our Events page.
Friday, December 14, 2012
Diversifying the "Best of" Lists
Every year around December, various publications and organizations will post their “Best of” lists and editor’s choice round-ups. Here are a few diversity titles that we spotted among the crème de la crème.
Young Adult
ARISTOTLE AND DANTE DISCOVER THE SECRETS OF THE UNIVERSE
by Benjamin Alire Saenz
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
A School Library Journal Best book of the Year
A Junior Library Guild Selection
A National Book Award Finalist
A Junior Library Guild Selection
The Congo is a dangerous place, even for people who are trying to do good.
Eliot Schrefer asks readers what safety means, how one sacrifices to help others, and what it means to be human in this new compelling adventure.--From Scholastic
Young Adult
ARISTOTLE AND DANTE DISCOVER THE SECRETS OF THE UNIVERSE
by Benjamin Alire Saenz
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
| ★ Publishers Weekly ★ School Library Journal |
A Junior Library Guild Selection
Aristotle is an angry teen with a brother in prison. Dante is a
know-it-all who has an unusual way of looking at the world. When the two
meet at the swimming pool, they seem to have nothing in common. But as
the loners start spending time together, they discover that they share a
special friendship—the kind that changes lives and lasts a lifetime.
And it is through this friendship that Ari and Dante will learn the most
important truths about themselves and the kind of people they want to
be.--From Simon & Schuster
by Eliot Schrefer
Scholastic
 |
| ★ Publishers Weekly |
A Junior Library Guild Selection
The compelling tale of a girl who must save a group of bonobos--and herself--from a violent coup.
The Congo is a dangerous place, even for people who are trying to do good.
When
one girl has to follow her mother to her sancuary for bonobos, she's
not thrilled to be there. It's her mother's passion, and she'd rather
have nothing to do with it. But when revolution breaks out and their
sanctuary is attacked, she must rescue the bonobos and hide in the
jungle. Together, they will fight to keep safe, to eat, and to survive.
Eliot Schrefer asks readers what safety means, how one sacrifices to help others, and what it means to be human in this new compelling adventure.--From Scholastic
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Industry Q&A with author Tanita S. Davis
Tell us about your most recent book and how you came to write it.
I read a newspaper account of Theresa Sparks, who was formerly a man. I was struck by what she had to say about love and family, and I wondered if my own family could have survived a transgender member intact. During this time, the hatemongers under the banner of the Westboro Baptist Church were up to some headline-grabbing stupidity, and I found myself wondering if people who claimed Christianity could ever love someone enough to accept them – thus Happy Families came out of a lot of quiet thoughts. It challenged me to explore my own hidden fears and beliefs and to make a personal resolve in favor of love.
Do you think of yourself as a diverse author?
Um... not really. In the mirror/window illustration made famous by Mitali Perkins☺, I consider myself a mirror – I'm turning my work around toward my community, and these are the people I see. I try to be inclusive of the sometimes invisible things – the differently abled or those with other challenges, multiracial blends, blended families, various faiths, etc. – because that's real-world stuff, and I really feel there's too much culture-less, colorless fiction being published.
Um... not really. In the mirror/window illustration made famous by Mitali Perkins☺, I consider myself a mirror – I'm turning my work around toward my community, and these are the people I see. I try to be inclusive of the sometimes invisible things – the differently abled or those with other challenges, multiracial blends, blended families, various faiths, etc. – because that's real-world stuff, and I really feel there's too much culture-less, colorless fiction being published.
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