Listen to the Latest SCBWI Podcast Now: A Conversation with Denene Millner

Denene Millner is the editor of Denene Millner Books at Simon & Schuster and a bestselling author herself. She speaks with Theo Baker about her own writing, her career path, and what her eponymous children’s book imprint is all about.

Listen to the episode trailer here.

Current SCBWI members can listen to the full episode here (log in first).

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

Check out this virtual YA panel on The Brown Bookshelf with Justina Ireland, Brandy Colbert, and Dhonielle Clayton, moderated by Paula Chase Hyman

This two-part panel at The Brown Bookshelf is well-worth reading!

screen shot of the panel discussion, as posted at The Brown Bookshelf

The authors talk about expanding the range of published books featuring characters of color (and, importantly, by authors of color), sensitivity reading, authors speaking up (or not) on social media, reader expectations, and much more. A few stand-out quotes:

Brandy: "I remember the first time I saw the African American section in a bookstore. It was a very strange feeling. Like, yay! But also—why do we have to be shelved in a different section entirely?"

Paula: "Own voices shouldn’t be a fad. My concern is this type of thing becomes a campaign. We have far too much catching up to do for it to be that."

Justina: "There’s a section of the population that wants the media they consume to be from people who uphold their values. Authors are going to have to learn to cocoon themselves or accept being more involved in reader response."

Dhonielle: "Now, it’s times for marginalized and black content creators to get the same roll outs that white women have gotten for decades for their books. Tours, big marketing campaigns. Our books deserve a shot at big audiences."


Read the full panel discussion here:

Part One

Part Two

Find out more about Justina Ireland here.

Learn more about Brandy Colbert here.

Dhonielle Clayton's online site with more on her is here.

And Paula Chase Hyman's website is here.

Thanks to Justina, Brandy, Dhonielle, and Paula for sharing!

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

"Where Are The People Of Color In Children's Books?" and "The Apartheid of Children's Literature": Walter Dean Myers and Christopher Myers Raise Their Voices

Of 3,200 children’s books published in 2013, just 93 were about black people, according to a study by the Cooperative Children’s Book Center at the University of Wisconsin.

Here are two important responses for us each to consider: Walter Dean Myers' opinion piece in the New York Times is "Where Are The People Of Color In Children's Books?"

He speaks, so eloquently, of how

"TODAY I am a writer, but I also see myself as something of a landscape artist. I paint pictures of scenes for inner-city youth that are familiar, and I people the scenes with brothers and aunts and friends they all have met. Thousands of young people have come to me saying that they love my books for some reason or the other, but I strongly suspect that what they have found in my pages is the same thing I found in “Sonny’s Blues.” They have been struck by the recognition of themselves in the story, a validation of their existence as human beings, an acknowledgment of their value by someone who understands who they are. It is the shock of recognition at its highest level." 

And then, Christopher Myers (Walter Dean Myers' son) responds to the same jarring statistical evidence of the lack of characters of color in children's books in his own New York Times piece, "The Apartheid of Children's Literature. 

Christopher writes about books as maps for a child's sense of possibility, and how, in a world where children of color aren't well represented in all types of children's literature, "The cartography we create with this literature is flawed."

 He also speaks about the villain in this,

"The closest I can get to the orchestrator of the plot — my villain with his ferret — is The Market. Which I think is what they all point to because The Market is so comfortably intangible that no one is worried I will go knocking down any doors. The Market, I am told, just doesn’t demand this kind of book, doesn’t want book covers to look this or that way, and so the representative from (insert major bookselling company here) has asked that we have only text on the book cover because white kids won’t buy a book with a black kid on the cover — or so The Market says, despite millions of music albums that are sold in just that way."

This is an important conversation to have - both externally in our industry and internally, as creators of works for children. How are WE representing the worlds of our stories? What scenes - what maps are we drawing?

Good questions to ask - and then act upon.

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

ps - My thanks to Lesley for the heads-up on these opinion pieces!

Why Hasn't The Number of MultiCultural Books Increased In 18 Years? - Lee & Low's Study Raises Questions That Need To Be Addressed

Lee & Low released this infographic, study and discussion, trying to get at what's going on with the numbers and behind the numbers.  It's bringing some much-needed attention to the fact that when you look at children's books by and/or about people of color,

"the number of books that contain diversity has not grown." 

They also asked some luminaries in our field what's going on.  Some highlights:

From Kathleen T. Horning, Director of Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC), School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison:

I think we saw the numbers of multicultural books flatlining when school and public libraries began to get funding cuts, so that publishers came to rely more on bookstores for sales. At around that time, we also saw the rise of Amazon, Borders, and B&N. I’ve heard many times from publishers that the “buyers at B&N” believe multicultural books don’t sell. When they are not stocked in these bookstores, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

From Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop, Professor Emerita, The Ohio State University:

There may be a perception among some teachers and others whose job it is to connect children and books that “multicultural books” are only for or mainly for so-called minorities, rather than for all children.

From Nikki Grimes, New York Times Bestselling Poet/Author:

I think authors of color who do not produce manuscripts that fit an expected demographic, who, for example, are writing books featuring characters who are middle class, instead of poor, or characters who live in two-parent households, instead of single-parent homes, are finding it difficult to place their manuscripts. That, of course, speaks to the perception that only people of color will want to purchase books by people of color, and so publishers want to play to the audience which they believe—wrongly or not—is the average, or the norm.

And from Betsy Bird, Author, New York Public Library librarian and School Library Journal blogger at A Fuse #8 Production:

"...it’s a many headed Hydra of difficulties. It can be overcome. There just needs to be a concentrated effort."

Shocking statistics, wonderful discussion.  Go check it out!

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

The Birthday Party Pledge - a new initiative to encourage the giving and reading of kid and teen books with Characters of Color

Children's author Zetta Elliott started The Birthday Party Pledge to give all children, but particularly children of color, books by and about people of color for their birthdays. 

As author Lyn Miller-Lachmann (former editor of MultiCultural Review and author of the award-winning Gringolandia (2009), which portrays a Latino family) explains:

The idea of the Birthday Party Pledge is to create a new generation of readers and to support the works of authors of color and others who write authentic books with characters of color. To help people choose authentic books, the various BPP committee members have created lists of 15 recommended titles for different age levels, genres, and topics. For instance, teen blogger Ari Valderrama of Reading in Color and I created the lists for global fiction and historical fiction, and Zetta Elliott assembled the speculative fiction list.

A very cool and worthwhile initiative - and the website includes some wonderful suggestion booklists, in categories that include

Books Boys Love

Books Girls Love

Chapter Books

Global Fiction

Graphic Novels

Historical Fiction

LGBTQ Fiction

Non-Fiction

Picture Books

Poetry

Speculative Fiction

and

Sports Books


Check it out, be inspired by, and maybe even take the Birthday Party Pledge! 

Illustrate and Write On, 
Lee