Year: 2013
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Second Annual Class of National Student Poets Appointed to Serve One Year as Literary Ambassadors
Washington, DC – During a special ceremony at the National Book Festival this past weekend, five distinguished teen poets emerged as national literary leaders and were appointed as the second …
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What Books Would You Pick For a List of Great Children’s Books?
“Great stories never grow old! Chosen by children’s librarians at The New York Public Library, these 100 inspiring tales have thrilled generations of children and their parents — and are …
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Powering Global Education: First Book to Provide Books and Digital Content to 10 Million Children Worldwide by 2016
NEW YORK – In July, 16-year-old Malala Yousafzai mesmerized the United Nations – and inspired millions watching – by urging a united effort against illiteracy, poverty and terrorism and calling for free, …
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Kids Set a New World Record for Summer Reading with 176,438,473 Minutes Read
New York, NY – Kids around the globe have a reason to celebrate: they set a new world record for summer reading! As part of the Scholastic Summer Challenge, a free program …
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Storia® Wins 2013 Parents’ Choice Silver Honor Award
New York, NY — Storia®, the teacher-recommended ebook and ereading app created by Scholastic, was awarded the prestigious 2013 Parents’ Choice Silver Honor Award as a top mobile app for children, …
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This Week on Girls Scouts’ The Studio: The Classroom Series Author Robin Mellom
“A writer notices things in the world—a thought, an idea, or something in the environment—and puts it into words. That moment, that treasure, is now something to be shared. Do …
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Random House Children’s Books Hosts Fan Art Contest
“Christopher Paolini will pick ten finalists, plus one grand-prize winner. The finalists will receive signed copies of the 10th-anniversary collector’s edition of ‘Eragon.’ The grand-prize winner will receive original artwork …
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New Grant to Encourage Diversity in Science Fiction Writing
The grant would be administered by the Speculative Literature Foundation, a non-profit organization that promotes science fiction and fantasy and encourages new writers of both adult and children’s genre literature. …
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Ask a Librarian: Find the Perfect Book for Your Child
“From girls who save the world to American history guaranteed to gross you out, our picks will help any child love reading even more”, says Noodle. Brought to you by: …
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13 Acclaimed Illustrators Promote Children’s Independent Reading with Art Depicting READ EVERY DAY. LEAD A BETTER LIFE.
New York, NY – To increase awareness of the importance of children’s daily independent reading in order to succeed in school and in life, Scholastic, the global children’s publishing, education …
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Kids’ Right to Read Fights Challenge to ‘Invisible Man’ During Banned Books Week
KRRP, founded by the National Coalition Against Censorship and the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, defends the freedom to read in schools and libraries nationwide. KRRP is sponsored in …
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Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Reading Is Fundamental Kick Off Book Tour with Children’s Literacy Celebrations at Ft. Bragg, Joint Base Andrews
Abdul-Jabbar will speak with parents and kids, share his inspiring life story and sign copies of his book. Kids at the literacy celebration will also receive free books from Reading …
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CBC Diversity 101: Blurring the Lines Between Familiar and Foreign
Part II—A Focus on Dialogue
Contributed to CBC Diversity by Uma Krishnaswami
My Personal Connection
The books you read as a child are as real as the places you live in or the people around you. They whisper to you of the possibilities the world can offer, like mental pathways into your own as-yet-unlived future.
In that category, Rumer Godden gave me permission to write. Kipling both enchanted and troubled me; only many years later did I understand my own need to write about the country he depicted with his strange colonial mixture of tenderness and disdain. But as a child of the late 1950s growing up in India, I cut my reading teeth on Enid Blyton.
I learned a lot from Enid about humor, family, friendships, and the pleasure of racing along a swiftly unfolding plot. Now, thinking back, I am pretty sure that I also learned how not to write dialogue.
Stereotypes/Clichés/Tropes/Errors
Consider this passage. The characters, including Kiki the parrot, have arrived in a fictional place called Barira. They’re met by the hotel manager:
‘Ha – what you call him – parrot!’ said the little manager. ‘Pretty Poll, eh?’
‘Wipe your feet,’ said Kiki, much to the man’s surprise. ‘Shut the door!’
The small man was not sure whether to obey or not. ‘Funny bird!’ he said. ‘He is so much clever! He spiks good! Polly, polly!’
‘Polly, put the kettle on,’ said Kiki, and gave a screech that made the man hurry out of the room at once.*
*(US readers, note that the punctuation is correctly quoted from this UK edition)
Note the reference to the speaker as “the little manager.” In the allocation of power, even the talking parrot is higher up than this adult character in a developing country. Note the deliberate errors in his speech, his hesitation in choice of words, his mildly mangled pronunciation and syntax. All of it results in making the foreigner seem an object of ridicule.
From The Valley of Adventure, here’s a passage where the children talk about the natives of the country they’ve landed in:
‘What country are we in?’ said Lucy-Ann. ‘Shall we be able to speak their language?’
‘I don’t suppose so for a minute,’ said Philip. ‘But we’ll just have to try and make ourselves understood.’
One wonders if they pulled it off by shouting or speaking… very… slowly.
This isn’t meant to indict Enid Blyton as a person or as a writer. In Blyton’s 1940s world, speakers of English were “us” and everyone else was “them.” Social psychologists call this “ingroup bias.” We all have some version of it. As writers we need to become aware of our own biases as we create the voices of our characters.
Things I’d Like to See
Here’s what I tell my students in the MFA program in Writing for Children and Young Adults at Vermont College of Fine Arts.
1) In dialogue, create speech patterns that don’t stereotype. This means listening, really listening, for character voice, a process that is equal parts meditative practice and craft. If you don’t listen closely enough, you end up transcribing real conversation, and we all know the paradox in that—real speech, written down as dialogue, sounds fake. Take that across cultural lines, and those transcriptions sound not only fake but patronizing.
2) Use colloquial speech—please don’t take all the contractions out. Personally, I’m tired of hearing South Asian characters who sound like Gunga Din. When you’re writing contemporary fiction, let your characters sound as if they live in the same century as we do. You’re after cadence, not caricature.
3) When characters use a sprinkling of languages other than English, allow the meaning to emerge through context. Parenthetical translation isn’t incorrect, exactly, but it can become annoying if it’s overused. Sometimes mood matters more than literal definition.
4) It really helps if you have at least a working familiarity with the language you’re trying to sprinkle in. Otherwise your characters are going to sound as if they’re reciting from tourist phrase-books.
5) Get into your characters’ hearts and souls, not just their thoughts. Emotional resonance is what you’re after, regardless of what kind of story you’re writing. Dialogue that is too cerebral will feel flat, as if your characters were talking heads. Then again, make sure that the character’s emotions feel true to his or her cultural context. Oh, and while you’re at it, make sure you’re not stereotyping that context either.6) Whether you’re writing within or out of your own cultural context, let dialogue do the work it’s meant to do—show subtext, hint at unspoken emotions and interpersonal dynamics, affect the momentum of the story by driving it forward or lingering for a glimpse into something deep.
Suggested Reading
- In This Thing Called the Future by J.L. Powers, Zulu words are used in dialogue with subtlety and sureness. The author is aware of the choices she makes in matters like standardizing plural forms for clarity or employing nouns in sentences.
- Tell Us We’re Home by Marina Budhos. In this novel with a braided structure, the voices of three immigrant girls are perfectly tuned.
- Where the Mountain Meets the Moon and Starry River of the Sky, by Grace Lin. The dialogue in both books seems an effortless extension of the storyteller’s voice.
- The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano by Sonia Manzano integrates Spanish words and phrases into dialogue with ease and fluidity. Each spoken voice is clear and distinct.
Uma Krishnaswami is the author of The Grand Plan to Fix Everything and The Problem With Being Slightly Heroic, both from Atheneum Books for Young Readers.
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Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group Launches Swoon Reads
This exciting new initiative gives readers an unprecedented role in determining an author’s fate and allows them to advocate for their favorite stories: writers can directly submit their manuscripts to swoonreads.com, …
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James Patterson to Give $1 Million to Independent Bookstores
In an interview with Shelf Awareness, he explained: “We’re going to help as many stores as possible, and to do so as fairly as possible. I’d also like to prioritize …
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6 Children’s Books Featured on the 2012 Top Ten Challenged Books List
Dav Pilkey’s Captain Underpants book series captured the top spot for reasons that include “offensive language” and “unsuited for age group.” Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson’s And Tango Makes Three picture book …
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Simon & Schuster Launches Pilot Program with Four Leading Educational Distributors to Bring eBooks to Classrooms Nationwide
Effective immediately, schools may work with the participating distributors to purchase digital copies for the classroom. Each ebook purchased may be used in the classroom for one year from the …
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This Week on Girls Scouts’ The Studio: ‘Ernest & Rebecca’ Series Author Guillaume Bianco
“I would advise aspiring writers to believe in what they’re doing and also to listen to advice, but to make sure to keep their personality and individuality. To be focused …
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Barry Goldblatt Literary, LLC & the Vermont College of Fine Arts Form the Angela Johnson Scholarship for Writers of Color
“The $5,000 scholarship will be awarded to up to two students annually. With the hope of helping attract more writers of color to the leading MFA program for writers of …
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Common Core and the Miracle of the Reading Brain at the CBC Annual Meeting
Both speakers feel that though there are flaws with the standards, their implementation will bring about many positive results. “Asserting that the Common Core represents the most significant ‘cultural shift’ …
