Sunday Select, October 25, 2015

Quote of the Week

Those words nearly broke my heart. I could have sobbed in the convention hall. Instead, I swallowed them as a reminder that I need to do a better job, too. That I’ll always need to do a better job. That there is no arrival point. I’ll never arrive at some point where I’m outside the system of systemic racism—I’ll always be in it, and because I am, I have to do the best job possible calling people into the conversation that recognizes it, in order to do the work to try to deconstruct it. I’ll always need to do a better job “calling people in” rather than “calling people out.”

— by Brendan Kiely
 “The White Boy in the Third Row”
 from Reading While White

Opposing Viewpoints (Do They Have to Be?)

These past couple of weeks we saw sparks flying with opposing views over specific children’s books and general thoughts on children’s book publishing – mostly centered on the “writing the other” notion.  It seems to me that many practitioners (authors, librarians, critics, etc.) have been thinking hard and deeply and some have tried to sort out strongly held convictions when they clash against others’ beliefs.  Selected here are a few strands that I found especially powerful and am currently struggling with.  I lead the list with one article by Brendan Kiely, whose proposal for “calling people in” to the conversation and discussion on diversity issues in children’s and YA literature seems most sage and hopefully can serve as a reminder that we are ALL in this together and our final goals are to provide the best literary work for the young people in our world.

The White Boy in the Third Row by Brendan Kiely — from Reading While White

This Book Is Creating A Space For Queer Black Boys In Children’s Literature by JamesMichael Nichols — from Huffpost Gay Voices

About Meg Rosoff’s next book… a collection of links to various responses to a following facebook blow-up while discussing Large Fears, the book under discussion in “This Book is Creating a Space for Queer Black Boys in Children’s Literature”  — from American Indians in Children Literature

The Privilege of Colour, the Prejudice of White by Shelley Sousa — from Shelley Sousa: real writer made up worlds

The Hired Girl by Jonathan Hunt and especially the Comments section by many enthusiastic readers — from Heavy Medal

Good Intentions, Bad Outcome by Michael Grant as a response to On Writing PoC When You Are White by Justine Larbalestier

Books, Authors, the Publishing Industry

Wordcraft Circle Honors and Awards, 2015  — from worldcraftcircle.org

What it feels like to write a picture book by Viviane Schwarz — from The Kraken Studio

A Defence of Rubbish by Peter Dickinson

International Literature Shines at the USBBY Conference Science  by Lyn Miller-Lachmann — from http://www.lynmillerlachmann.com

The PW Publishing Industry Salary Survey 2015: A Younger Workforce, Still Predominantly White by Jim Milliot — from Publishers Weekly

I gathered these entries from various sources such as Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, and specific sites that I follow such as Educating Alice, Pub Peeps, Book Riot, School Library Journal, The Horn Book, We Need Diverse Books, American Indians in Children’s literature, etc.