Cape Celebrates Literacy

Two weeks ago, I had the pleasure of attending the first-annual Cape Elizabeth Author Festival, prompted by this invitation from writer and Pond Cove Elementary School librarian, Cameron Rosenblum:

"As part of a week-long, community-wide celebration of literacy, funded by the school department and the Cape Elizabeth Education Foundation, we have twenty some-odd authors for all ages confirmed so far for a living book fair. Our wonderful local independent book store, Nonesuch Books, will be handling sales and will preorder your book/s to have on hand. Authors can greet readers, sign books, and choose to do readings in a smaller setting near the fair. We invite authors to a simple dinner afterward, where they can relax and mingle with other writers and illustrators and members of the Cape community.

Cameron and her amazing team (including Superintendent Meredith Nadeau with her sleeves rolled up, eager to do anything that needed doing) welcomed us with goodie bags, balloons, and a great showing of the community.

I shared a table with illustrator and writer Stephen Costanza, who created the gorgeous picture book Vivaldi and the Invisible Orchestra, among others. Next to us was writer (and former Concord, NH bookstore owner) Marilyn Taylor McDowell, whose first book, Carolina Harmony, was a Booklist Top 10 Historical Fiction for Youth Pick.

 

One of my favorite parts of the day was when a boy named Jasper came over to my table, picked up my graphic novel picture book, The Legend of Hong Kil Dong: The Robin Hood of Korea, and asked, "Can I take this and read it?"

Carl Cowan, husband of writer Mary Morton Cowan, found Jasper curled up on a couch in the back of the room and shot this gorgeous photo. What a treat for an author-illustrator to watch a child fall into a book they've created.

 

And it was delightful to "relax and mingle" with a few of the "twenty some-odd" - and odd we are, in all our delightful ways - writers and illustrators from the region.

We look forward to many more years of "Cape Celebrates Literacy!"

Do One Thing for Diversity #2

Make some noise to support passage of legislation for comprehensive immigration reform!

Do One Thing for Diversity

Yesterday was World Day for Cultural Diversity! (I just got the word late last night - but it's never too late to join in.)

The global campaign “Do One Thing for Diversity and Inclusion,” which is an initiative of the UN Alliance of Civilizations, in partnership with UNESCO, asks us to join in the effort:

• To raise awareness worldwide about the importance of intercultural dialogue, diversity and inclusion.
• To build a world community of individuals committed to support diversity with real and every day-life gestures.
• To combat polarization and stereotypes to improve understanding and cooperation among people from different cultures.

They offer

Ten simple things YOU can do to celebrate the World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development

1. Visit an art exhibit or a museum dedicated to other cultures.
2. Invite a family or people in the neighborhood from another culture or religion to share a meal with you and exchange views on life.
3. Rent a movie or read a book from another country or religion than your own.
4. Invite people from a different culture to share your customs.
5. Read about the great thinkers of other cultures than yours (e.g. Confucius, Socrates, Avicenna, Ibn Khaldun, Aristotle, Ganesh, Rumi).
6. Go next week-end to visit a place of worship different than yours and participate in the celebration.
7. Play the “stereotypes game.” Stick a post-it on your forehead with the name of a country. Ask people to tell you stereotypes associated with people from that country. You win if you find out where you are from. 
8. Learn about traditional celebrations from other cultures; learn more about Hanukkah or Ramadan or about amazing celebrations of New Year’s Eve in Spain or Qingming festival in China.
9. Spread your own culture around the world through our Facebook page and learn about other cultures.
10. Explore music of a different culture.

Follow the links for ways to join in.

I'm working on Saturday's launch of "I'm Your Neighbor, Portland," a city-wide read of books set in Maine's immigrant communities.

What ideas do you have - for today, this month, and this year - to Do One Thing for Diversity & Inclusion? (Next year, I'll be ready for May 21.)

Writing, Illustrating & Publishing Diverse Books

Last Thursday, I got to attend this great panel, hosted by Charlesbridge and the Children's Book Council as part of Children's Book Week:

"Diversity on the Page, Behind the Pencil, and in the Office: A Discussion with Children’s Book Creators and Editors"

Moderated by Ayanna Coleman,
CBC Diversity Committee

Panelists:
Mitali Perkins, author
London Ladd, illustrator
Katie Cunningham, Editor, Candlewick Press
Alyssa Mito Pusey, Senior Editor, Charlesbridge Publishing
Monica Perez, Executive Editor, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

What a treat!

The discussion opened with the question,

What's your definition of "diversity," why is it important in children's books,  and how is this reflected in your work?

Other topics mentioned were the wide range of diversity issues (class, sexuality, disabilities, etc., in addition to race, class and gender); the experience of writers and illustrators of color in being pigeon-holed as representatives of their particular cultures; and the question of color-blindness. There was a good discussion of the challenge of increasing the diversity of staffing in children's publishing due to low salaries, especially for internships and entry-level jobs.

Here are a handful of gems I collected from the treasure trove of shared thoughts:

•  In describing characters with disabilities, use "person-first language," i.e. a person with a certain condition, not someone who is identified by that characteristic.  - Katie Cunningham      (It occurs to me that this applies to all kinds of differences. Each person is so much more than any one of her/his group identities.)
• Before you write or illustrate outside of your own racial or cultural experience, "cross the border yourself, and hold some babies over there." - Mitali Perkins
• "It's still a problem that we view these [multicultural] books differently," not as books for everyone, anytime.  - Monica Perez
• Don't just portray the outside of diverse characters and situations; "make it alive, beyond this," (gesturing to his skin). - London Ladd
• "Everyone has to do the research." Just because you're a member of a particular group, "you aren't automatically the authentic voice." - Alyssa Mito Pusey                                                          
  
  

Read. This. Article.

Especially if you are white.

Amazing article by Kartina Richardson in Salon - "How Can White Americans Be Free?: The default belief that the white experience is a neutral and objective one hurts both white and American culture."

It's fierce and it's tender, and it's full of memorable ideas and arresting phrasing:

"Because The Default has so successfully dominated our subconscious, because our egos have been shaped by it from the moment of birth, we perpetuate it in micro ways while fighting inequality with more obvious actions. The silent poison continues to poison."

 and

"The external benefits of whiteness, so emphasized by modern Western culture, mask the pain of being a white default. The thinking white man is hyper-aware of his role in a system of oppression. Awareness of his privilege erases his right to existential dissatisfaction or depression (and yet he still feels it). He is unable to embrace his white identity without feeling like a racist, and he is left without a sense of heritage or ethnicity. If he does not achieve the greatness that is promised to all white people (either by being poor, or unsuccessful) he feels invisible, like a failure without any excuse."

and

"The fight against inequality, the fight against The Default, is a fight for white spiritual and emotional freedom, not just the freedom of people of color, women, or gays and lesbians. It is only by seeing white specificity that we can awaken to the fallacy of the idea that humans are separate. Perhaps if whites see their own psychic freedom at risk, a new racial awareness will arise naturally."

There are essential truths here. Read it, examine it, pass it on.

Thanks to Whitney Leader-Picone, designer at Charlesbridge Publishing, for the find.

Recognizing Ourselves

Here's a beautiful quote from a poet about seeing ourselves in each other, through reading:

“Readers don’t want the differences to estrange them — for all their curiosity, they actually want the differences to disappear. They want to recognize themselves. This is all part of the larger paradox of fiction, where the characters must be specific enough to be anyone. In the end, the packaging may simply serve as an introduction. The true meeting takes place when the book opens, and a stranger reads about — and comprehends — a stranger.”  –Amit Majmudar, a poet and diagnostic nuclear radiologist, is the author, most recently, of the novel The Abundance.

 From a New York Times opinion piece, "Am I an 'Immigrant Writer'?" 

This feels like a continuation of the discussion we were having at the Charlesbridge-Primary Source event yesterday.

Thanks to Kirsten Cappy, who posted this at I'm Your Neighbor, Portland.

From the Heart

Tomorrow afternoon from 4:00-6:00, I'll be presenting a workshop for Children's Book Week at the Watertown Public Library, jointly hosted by Charlesbridge Publishing and Primary Source, which "promotes history and humanities education by connecting educators to people and cultures throughout the world."

From the Heart: Illustrating Across Race and Culture

“The literature of America should reflect the children of America.”

- Lucille Clifton –

An overview of creating 31 books about diverse people, places and cultures from the perspective of an artist who grew up bilingual and bicultural. 

Using her own experiences as an illustrator and writer depicting people of many cultures and races not her own, Anne Sibley O’Brien will explore questions of racial and cultural diversity in children's books:

• What does it mean to be a writer or illustrator creating images of children of other races, and to be an educator sharing them?

• What constitutes an authentic and respectful portrayal across race and culture?

• How can we better ensure that all of our children see themselves reflected, and gain a sense of the wideness of their world, in the books we share with them?

Here's a related blogpost, "Seeing All of Us in Diverse Children's Books," on the Charlesbridge blog, "Unabridged."