CBC Diversity

Contributed to CBC Diversity by Audrey Maynard

I was a non-traditional hire when I began my editing career in 2001. My job qualifications included 12 years working with children and families in urban and rural classrooms. This meant I had a deep understanding of the transformative power of picture books. It also meant I understood the huge need for more diverse books for America’s children. But the third thing I learned from my teaching career was that most people have a story to tell, and some of those stories are pretty amazing. This knowledge has proved very valuable in my work as an acquiring editor. From day one on my job, I decided to cultivate an inclusive attitude towards submissions. My goal has been to find not only the right story, but the right story-teller. Happily, this approach is one that has worked well for our company over the years. As an editor, you never know who will author the next best-selling children’s book. More to the point, that “next book” you are hoping for may not even arrive as a written submission!

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Contributed to CBC Diversity by Thom Barthelmess

I’m so pleased to be asked to contribute to the CBC Diversity blog and talk a little about how audiobooks fit into the bigger picture. Much of our conversation about diverse literature for children and teens has focused on books in print, but I ask us to remember that audiobooks have a critical role to play in connecting diverse books to their young audiences. In all kinds of ways audiobooks facilitate, enhance, and sometimes constitute the reading experience, making stories come alive for children and teens in deeper and more profound ways.

We know how important it is to make diverse books available to children and teens, but for some kids that is only the first step. Many young people lack the decoding and fluency skills to unlock the stories contained within these wonderful books. Audiobooks are able to bridge this gap, bringing the stories to life for struggling readers. Jason Reynolds, whose wonderful novel When I Was the Greatest is featured among the Hear Diversity titles, has traveled across the country to talk with young people, including visiting young men in juvenile detention facilities. Listening Library has distributed hundreds of copies of audiobooks to many of these institutions, and Jason talks about hearing from these teens how the availability of the audiobook allowed them entry into a story that would otherwise have been closed to them.

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Contributed to CBC Diversity by Tamara Ellis Smith

Early in the fall of 2011, Tropical Storm Irene swept through my home state of Vermont, my town, my street and my home—and all of a sudden I was inside Another Kind of Hurricane, my debut middle-grade novel (Schwartz & Wade, 2015) about Hurricane Katrina, in a way I had never imagined.

I began to write Another Kind of Hurricane in September 2005. The story was born out my then four-year-old son Luc’s question, “Who is going to get my blue jeans?” as we dropped off a bag of food and clothing for the Hurricane Katrina Relief Drive at the Vermont State Police Barracks. I didn’t know how to answer his question. I didn’t know who would get his blue jeans. But he stayed with me, this mystery person. And so I began to imagine: What if a Caucasian boy in Vermont named Henry donated his blue jeans to the relief effort in New Orleans? And what if an African-American boy named Zavion got them? What if Henry put his lucky marble into a pocket of those jeans? And what if Zavion found the marble and wondered who had given him this magical gift?

Because I was writing outside of my experience, I did my homework for this story. I read articles and blogs and books—first-hand accounts of what it was like to be in New Orleans during and after Katrina. I interviewed people. I watched documentaries. I felt as though I knew—as best I could—what it had been like during those harrowing days of the hurricane. I felt emotionally connected to the incredible people who had survived such a tragic disaster. It was from this place that I wrote my novel.

Then Tropical Storm Irene hit and Another Kind of Hurricane became exceedingly more personal.

In an odd, reverse sort of process, life imitated art.

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Associate Publicist at HarperCollins Children’s Books

Let’s get this out of the way first.

Yes, I work in publishing.
Yes, my name really IS Booki.

Sometimes I joke that I got hired because of my name. Who knows, that might be kind of true.

To be honest, I didn’t plan on working in publishing. Actually, I didn’t plan on studying writing or literature, or anything book-related at all. At one point, I was heading towards biochemistry and pharmacy school. To be fair, at another time, I was thinking pretty seriously about becoming an elephant trainer.

Things change.

One constant, though, is that I have always been a book person. When I was forced, (as we all eventually are) to really consider the future, I thought about what I liked and what I wanted to spend my time doing. It always came back to books.

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