CBC Diversity
Month
“We
Need Diverse Books is joining forces with Madcap to address a real need –
lifting up marginalized voices while also showing writers how to write outside
of their communities in a careful, diligent and thorough way.” @weneeddiversebooks
Contributed by Ashley Herring Blake, Author
I recently started working in an indie bookstore. The great thing about this job, aside from being surrounded by beautiful books all day long, is that it gets me out of my writer brain and back in touch with my reader brain. I work mostly in the kid’s section, and every day customers come in with very specific requests. I’ve noticed a lot of the teens who frequent the young adult section don’t ask for recommendations all that much, but the middle grade and advancing readers section is a cornucopia of parents looking for certain books or certain topics for their kids.
The other day, I had a mom ask me for a book with a trans character for a first grader.
Tell us about your most recent book and how you came to write/illustrate it.
Lou Lou and Pea and the Mural Mystery is about two best friends, Lou Lou Bombay and Peacock Pearl. Lou Lou loves horticulture and Pea loves art. Every Friday afternoon, they get together in Lou Lou’s backyard garden for their PSPP (Post-School-Pre-Parents) tea party. They chat about school, discuss Pea’s latest fashions, and plot the weekend’s activities.
But all plans go out the window when a series of small crimes crop up around El Corazón, their quirky neighborhood, right before the Día de los Muertos procession. First, Pea’s cousin’s quinceañera dress is tragically ruined. Then Lou Lou’s beloved camellia bush, Pinky, suffers a serious blow. And that’s just the beginning! When clues start to appear in El Corazón’s outdoor murals, the best friends join forces, using Lou Lou’s floral expertise and Pea’s artistic genius to solve the mysteries.
This is my first middle grade novel, and I began working on it when I was caring for my mom during an illness. My mom was a school librarian who cultivated my love of reading, so I felt that writing a children’s book was a fitting way to spend my time. I wanted to tell a story inspired by my neighborhood, San Francisco’s Mission District, and its amazing community art, food, traditions, and local culture.
Contributed by Julie Bliven, Editor at Charlesbridge
On October 4 the CBC Diversity Initiative, in conjunction with Boston publishing professionals, held its first Teen Outreach Panel. It was a wonderful success! But first let’s back up a minute.
This past January the Lee & Low Baseline Survey came out, confirming the lack of diversity in children’s publishing. In response, the members of the CBC Diversity Initiative gathered around the little back table at the CBC’s NYC office and established a specific goal for the next two years: recruitment. That is, we want to recruit more readers and creators of diverse books, and a more diverse workforce in the publishing field.
Enough is enough. Haiti has been dealt another crushing blow; and most people have yet to recover from 2010’s devastating 7.0 earthquake. Hurricane Matthew pounded our side of the island, leaving hopelessness in its wake. The death toll, now one thousand, continues to soar. We cannot take much more.
The country has not seen a storm this monstrous since Hurricane Hazel, in 1954. The category 4 monster brought treacherous winds, debris, and swollen rivers that rushed past with a fury. Bridges collapsed, ripping families apart, leaving husbands stranded on one side and wives on the other. The flood stripped away layers of what remained of our thin-thin topsoil, taking with it delicate saplings, crops, and faith.
A book list in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month. via @richincolor
A round-up of inspiring young characters with reading difficulties. via BN Kids Blog
Nancy
Bo Flood, author of more than fifteen books, sat down with her editor, Yolanda
Scott, to discuss Soldier Sister, Fly Home, out from Charlesbridge in August
2016.
YS: You often mention “walking a bridge between two worlds or cultures,” and you’ve said that’s what Tess does in the Soldier Sister, Fly Home. What do you mean?
NBF: Soldier Sister, Fly Home is about walking the bridge between two worlds, Navajo and Anglo, and also the bridge between three generations: one’s own, one’s parents’, and one’s grandparents’. The two sisters, Tess and Gaby, are bi-racial. They walk several bridges daily, between different cultures and different generations. Many of us do this, to different degrees and at different times in our lives.
Contributed by Beth Phelan, Agent The Bent Agency
#DVpit is a Twitter event created to showcase pitches about and especially by marginalized voices. It will be held on October 5 and 6th. Visit dvpit.com to learn more.
I have always been a reader. Many times, I would read the last page of a book only to immediately flip back to the beginning and start again. What brought me back to books again and again was the escape, but it still felt like I was escaping into someone else’s story, someone so far removed from my own reality. It never felt like it could be mine, or that my own stories and experiences could be worth sharing.
That needs to change. And it’s starting to, but there’s still so much more to do. Thanks to Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop, we have this important concept of mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors. And I know there are younger readers out there who were and are, like me, still searching and still deserving of many different reflections and many different windows.
