Industry Q&A with author-illustrator Don Tate

When you were a child or young adult, what book first opened your eyes to the diversity of the world?

I didn’t read books as much as I should have. I struggled with comprehension and retention. There was plenty of Dr. Seus and Mother Goose around the house, but I preferred our Funk & Wagnalls Young Students Encyclopedias. That’s where I discovered a multicultural world.

As a child, I thought the world was white. That’s what my world looked like growing up in Des Moines, Iowa in the 1960s and 70s. White people, white books, white movies, white television, white music. Encyclopedias allowed me to see the world from another vantage point. They revealed a world made up of color -- brown people of every shade. Maybe that’s why encyclopedias appealed to me so much.

What is your favorite diverse book that you read recently?

I’m a little confused about the term ‘diverse book.’ It's one of those uncomfortable, elephant-in-the-room terms, that used to mean one thing, but has morphed into something entirely different. It’s an industry code word whose definition still evolves.

I’ve illustrated children’s books for nearly 30 years -- trade and educational. When I entered the business back in the 80s, people used the word ‘diversity’ interchangeably with Black or African-American. When someone said ‘diversity,’ I knew they were talking about me. I was often hired to illustrate a text because an editor had a ‘diverse,’ ‘multicultural,’ ‘African-American’ manuscript. However when I hear the term used today, it’s more inclusive, as should be. When someone says ‘diverse,’ they could mean African-American, Hispanic, Asian, Native, LGBT, girls/women, mixed-race, physically challenged, Buddhist -- or even white. A better question might be: What is a favorite book that exemplifies diversity? But even that would be a difficult question because I don’t think diversity can be about one or two books. It’s about a body of books: Heart & Soul; Diego Riveria; Dreaming Up!; Around our Way on Neighbor’s Day; Alvin Ho; Jingle Dancer. There’s so many.

Is the Race Card Old School?

An It's Complicated! — Authentic Voices guest post by author, Mitali Perkins.

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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.

Diversity in the News

August 2nd – August 9th, 2013

NEW AT CBC DIVERSITY THIS WEEK

• Industry Q&A with Robin Smith, children's book reviewer
• Talking to Teens – Liz Waniewski, Executive Editor, Dial/Penguin Books for Young Readers offers insights into how teens pick books

CBC DIVERSITY/COMMITTEE MEMBERS IN THE NEWS

• CBC Diversity: Our Industry Cares About Kids on the Margins at Mitali’s Fire Escape – “One of the most encouraging signs of change since I've been in this vocation was the establishment of the Children's Book Council’s Diversity Committee…”

ON OUR RADAR

• Publishing Diverse Books Isn’t About Reaching Quotas at Rich in Color – Tu Books publisher Stacy Whitman on why she publishes diverse books
• Young dreamers at The Horn Book – author/illustrator Christopher Myers on Trayvon Martin and children’s books

Diversity in the News

July 25th – August 2nd, 2013

NEW AT CBC DIVERSITY THIS WEEK

• Guten Tag! My trip with the German Book Office by Connie Hsu, editor, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

CBC DIVERSITY/COMMITTEE MEMBERS IN THE NEWS

• Editor Namrata Tripathi: The Exclusive #LA13SCBWI Team Blog Interview at I’m Here, I’m Queer, What the Hell Do I Read?

ON OUR RADAR

• Spanish Magazines for Kids Hit Mainstream at Latinas 4 Latino Literature -- Cricket now offers some of the only Spanish-language magazines for kids
• A Book that Looks Like My Family (VIDEO) on Huffington Post Live – Host Nancy Redd invites Erica Perl (from First Book), Deborah Heiligman (author), Todd Parr (author) and Cara Lemieux (journalist) to weigh in on diverse families in children’s lit
• Writing Race in Novels: The Audio Version by Mitali Perkins (Bamboo People) – 10 tips for writing race in novels

An Ongoing Question, An Ongoing Discussion

Guest post by associate editor at Charlesbridge, Julie Ham.

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When Charlesbridge decided to host a diversity panel during this week’s Children’s Book Week, the onset of planning felt a lot like editing: asking the right questions was key. Who will speak well and honestly to this sensitive subject? Will the CBC partner with us? (Yes!) How will the panel contribute to this valuable, ongoing dialogue? Who will be in charge of buying the cheese? The crackers?!

I soon became preoccupied with one question that we think will come up during the panel discussion.

Can authors or illustrators write about or illustrate cultures and races different from their own? 

This question brought me back to a children’s literature graduate course I took about five years ago. We were examining Sold, a contemporary middle-grade novel about child prostitution in Nepal. We contemplated whether the author, Patricia McCormick (a white American woman), had the right to tell this story—one that falls outside her own experience and culture. As far as I could tell, no one else had written such a narrative for the middle-grade readership; I felt it needed to be told. Patricia had visited India and interviewed women and girls who had been sold to brothels, preparing herself to authentically tell this story as best she could. I felt confident that she had done her due diligence. I valued her choice to write about this subject matter and hoped her book would affect a diverse readership—a testament to the idea that the human condition—both good and bad—similarly touches all cultures, in all parts of the world. Maybe some of those diverse readers would be even closer to the book’s reality than Patricia was able to get through her research. Maybe they’d be inspired to tell their own stories.

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.