Cynthia Leitich-Smith's amazing Cynsations blog hosts this wonderful interview between Kekla Magoon and Carole Boston Weatherford.
A few highlights:
"I mine the past for family stories, fading traditions and forgotten struggles. Like Harlem Renaissance bibliophile Arturo Schomburg to document the history of African descendants, I aim to construct a truer, more complete history. That is affirming for me and for our children." —Carole Boston Weatherford
On Carole's picture book about the Tulsa Race Massacre, Unspeakable:
Kekla: It must have been a challenge to tell this difficult and painful story about Tulsa in a style that works for young readers, and you do an amazing job of making the information relatable. How did you approach that challenge, and why did you feel it was important to share this story with even the very youngest children?
Carole: I told this story for the same reason that I wrote the elegy Birmingham, 1963 (WordSong, 2007) about the bombing of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. Past sacrifices should not be forgotten. But they will be unless we pass our history down to our children.
I do not believe that children are too tender for tough topics. Children deserve and demand the truth—a complete history that had not been whitewashed or candy-coated. Children were victimized by slavery and segregation and suffer under systemic racism. Given the adultification of Black children and the criminalization and police and vigilante murders of Black people, we cannot afford to condescend to children.
Illustrate and Write On,
Lee
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