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In 1992, I created a comic strip called Mama’s Boyz because there were so few that starred black characters. It was picked up by King Features and distributed weekly to close to 900 papers for almost 20 years.
In 1995, I sent a Mama’s Boyz book sample to several publishers. And they sent them all back. One editor even added a note saying that they, “would NEVER be interested in my black-sitcom style of humor.” It wasn’t just THAT they rejected my work. It was HOW they did it. So I changed my goal.
Note to self #1: Avoid publishers!
In 1997, I self-published, Mama’s Boyz: As American as Sweet Potato Pie!, but even though it had a foreword by one of the most famous cartoonists in the world, Lynn Johnston (creator of the popular For Better or For Worse) and I had received some pretty good press in mainstream publications, my customers were still 99.9% African American boys.
But it still did pretty well. As a result, a few years later, I got a call from Alex Simmons, who had written comic books such as Archie, Batman, and Scooby Doo. He pitched a series of graphic novels based on historical African-American figures to a major publisher, and they wanted me to illustrate them. I was thrilled! But just as it was gathering steam, our editor (African American) left the company and the project fizzled out.
Note to self #2: Why didn’t you listen to note #1? You big dummy!
In 2007, I published my second book Mama’s Boyz: Home Schoolin’. And it wasn’t until a librarian in Stamford, Connecticut, GAVE out copies to her reading group, that I realized that other kids could actually enjoy my work too. I mean boys AND girls. Black, white, Latino, Asian… In fact, my biggest fans turned out to be two sisters of Indian ancestry. “I would have never bought this book for my daughters,” their mother told me, “but they absolutely LOVE it!” This made me realize that it wasn’t the kids who didn’t want my book, it was the parents who didn’t want their kids to want my book. The school book fairs where I sold the most, were the ones where the kids had their own money, and mom and dad were nowhere to be found.
Note to self #3: Avoid parents!
One day at a book festival, an adorable little blonde cherub around five years old grabbed a copy of Please Don’t Yell at We!
and ran off as fast as she could. Her mother demanded that she bring the book back. She refused, hiding it behind her back. She REALLY wanted that book. Seeing me watching, the woman promptly walked over to her daughter, whispered something, and pointed to me. The girl quickly, and sadly, handed over the book, which she then put back on my table.
Note to self #4: UGH! I only have two stupid rules and I keep breaking them. See Note #3!!! No wonder no one wants to publish you!!!
Fast forward to 2013, when I wrote my first middle-grade novel The Offenders: Saving the World While Serving Detention!,
the story of five middle-school bullies (three boys and two girls of different ethnicities) who gain super powers. But instead of transforming into cool superheroes, they are forced to take on the characteristics of the kids they pick on. Now they’re the ones who are being teased, and by the same kids who they are trying to help! I even hired my own two teenage sons as co-writers to make the dialogue more believable.! This time, I chose to only put silhouettes of the characters on the cover to see if that would impact sales. After all, over the years, I saw firsthand how trying to get people to stop at a table full of books with brown faces is like trying to drag a boy down the doll aisle at Wal-Mart
Now that I had the book, I needed to do something different at the book fairs, starting with my appearance. My wife and I came up with “The Uniform.” My Mama’s Boyz sweatshirt was replaced by a buttoned dress shirt; no sunglasses; no baseball cap; definitely no hoodie. I even shaved off my goatee and left only my mustache. And as far as the table goes, I would ONLY put out The Offenders. During my next two events, where I normally did poorly, The Offenders was one of their best sellers! I even had a few schools order them in bulk to teach their kids about bullying.
In late 2013, Scholastic offered me the opportunity to illustrate The Zero Degree Zombie Zone, written by Patrik Henry Bass and edited by Andrea Davis Pinkney.
What I loved about The Zero Degree Zombie Zone was that even though the four main kids are black, it wasn’t boxed in as “a black book.” I suddenly reached a whole new level of exposure, attending my first ever signing at BEA and a ton of other great events, including the National Book Festival in Washington, DC. I was even reimbursed for gas! Then one day I checked the mail, and there was a pin and a certificate from the Junior Library Guild. Wow!
And now, I’m proud to announce that I am currently working on a yet-untitled graphic novel to be published by another major publisher in 2017. It’s the story of Jordan Banks, an aspiring artist whose mom makes him go to a prestigious prep school instead.
I’d like to leave you with a few suggestions for those of us who REALLY want to see more diversity in the children’s book industry:
PUBLISHERS: • Hire people who know how to find diverse talent and content. I would have never gotten to do the Scholastic book if not for Andrea Davis Pinkney. • Look for people who have a proven track record, and give them the freedom to bring THEIR ideas to life. People like Wade and Cheryl Hudson, Eric Velasquez, Zetta Elliott, Shadra Strickland… have been thriving in this industry for decades. Tap into that. • Let diverse authors and illustrators create stories that are fun and exciting. Too many books for kids of color are biographies about slavery and the Civil Rights Movement. If the only books that white kids had were on Thomas Jefferson and Teddy Roosevelt, then maybe they wouldn’t be so excited about reading either. • Black illustrators can draw white characters, too — we’re versatile and would LOVE to work on a major title! You don’t have to wait until you find a manuscript about a black kid to hire us. A book on George Washington Carver will NEVER sell as wel
l as a book on George Washington. And a book on George Washington will NEVER sell like Diary of a Wimpy Kid. • If you’ve done a book starring a character of color before and it didn’t do well, please don’t say, “Well, we tried it and it didn’t work, so let’s never do that again.” Maybe it wasn’t the right book! White books fail all the time, but you keep making them.
WHITE PARENTS: • If your kid wants a book that stars people of color, let them get it. It won’t hurt them.
BLACK PARENTS: • Our friends give our kids books starring white protagonists all the time, but we never give THEIR kids books starring kids of color. So start! • Sales are like voting; every one counts. So if you see authors who make the kinds of books that you think are important to your kids, please support them. And ask your library to order them as well.
GATEKEEPERS: • You have an enormous effect on book sales. I know librarians who ONLY order books that get great reviews from 2 or 3 publications. Find that Little Engine That Could, and give it a push. • Use reviewers who get it. You can’t send a vegetarian to review a steak house. So stop. • Include diverse books in discussions with other books on the same topic. Books like The Offenders should be discussed alongside other books on bullying or superheroes.
SCHOOLS: • Include our books in your class reading lists. It will have an enormous impact — and not just on the kids of color. Black authors are like the Whos in Horton Hears a Who: “We are here! We are here!” If the only time your kids see an African American is on the news, in sports, or in movies, they are already forming detrimental opinions that they will carry into adulthood. • You don’t have to wait until Black History Month to invite us to do a school visit. We have the same impact in October, or May, or even November! And last but definitely not least,
AUTHORS FOR DIVERSITY: • If you’re writing about characters from backgrounds that you know nothing about, do the research. For The Offenders, because one of the characters is adopted, I interviewed parents who had adopted kids from other cultures. For the Latino boy, I let my Latino friends critique it.
We all have a job to do, so let’s get to work!
Jerry Craft has illustrated and written close to two dozen children’s books. He is the creator of Mama’s Boyz, a comic strip that was distributed by King Features for almost two decades, making him one of the few syndicated black cartoonists ever. He has won five African American Literary Awards and is currently working on a graphic novel for early 2017 release. Visit his website at www.jerrycraft.net, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter. He can be contacted at jerrycraft@aol.com
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Well, this is good timing, I thought to myself when Caitlyn Jenner (then presenting as Bruce and using the pronoun he) popped up on our TV set this past April following the Diane Sawyer interview.
“Honey,” I said to my four-year-old daughter, who was playing nearby, “you remember Ashley, your babysitter from last summer? Well, Ashley’s going to watch you again this summer. But we’re going to call Ashley he now, because he’s a boy.”
My daughter stared at me blankly, and I didn’t blame her, since the last time we’d seen Ashley we’d called him a she. I took a breath, struggling to find the words to explain gender identity in terms she could grasp. “Sometimes someone knows in their heart that they are a boy, even though people have called them a girl since they were born. And that man on the TV is telling us now that he’s really a girl, because that’s how he feels inside.”
“OK,” she said, and went back to her puzzle.
When we hired Ashley, we loved his ability to connect with our daughter and his obvious passion for childcare and education. But Ashley didn’t make a lot of eye contact with adults, and he seemed a little shy or uncomfortable around us. So when I got in touch with Ashley this past April to inquire about summer sitting, I noticed a difference in the communication immediately, even just through our texting. There were lots of exclamation points, and the overall tone was upbeat and chatty. He explained about transitioning, and we became Facebook friends. His posts were full of energy, joy, and excitement. It felt like Ashley was finally free to be Ashley, and from my adult perspective, it was inspiring. (See Ashley’s story in the New York Times’s Transgender Today project)
But how would my daughter experience the shift? I had a sneaking suspicion it wouldn’t be that big a deal, but being an overthinking, protective parent, I went into prep mode.
I’m no dummy about the power of books as discussion starters, so I turned to our Unitarian Universalist church and was pointed toward 10,000 Dresses by Marcus Ewert, illustrated by Rex Ray (Seven Stories, 2008). The protagonist, Bailey, is a transgender girl (assigned male at birth) who just wants to make and wear beautiful dresses. Her family isn’t terribly tolerant of this behavior, and Bailey is sad until she finds an ally in a dressmaker down the street.
My daughter and I read the book several times at the beginning of the summer, and we talked about Ashley.
It wasn’t until early August, though, that we made plans for her to go to Ashley’s house for babysitting. I reminded her that Ashley was a boy and would have short hair and a beard. I showed her a picture on my phone.
“But I don’t like boys,” she said flatly. This was said in the same way she informs me that she doesn’t like carrots, or that she doesn’t want to go to the grocery store, or she doesn’t want to wear the stripey shirt, or brush her teeth, or … well, you get the idea.
“Boys are nice,” I said, unceremoniously packing her into the car. When we got to Ashley’s, I went in and stayed a while to make sure everything was copacetic. My daughter was a little nervous and shy, but when the toy bin came out, hesitation was swept away.
I asked Ashley about the visit later, and he said that my daughter kept chattering on in a semi-coherent fashion about dresses and someone named Bailey. My daughter and I hadn’t discussed the book for well over a month, but clearly the story had stuck with her and came out at the appropriate moment.
When my daughter and I got home, I asked her how the visit went. She gave me a hug and said, “I love Ashley.” And though this was said in the same tone she uses to describe a can of Spaghettios, I felt proud and found it hard to answer right away.
When I contacted Ashley about writing this blog post, he was immediately on board, and we talked on the phone for a while. I was eager to learn whether there were any books that had resonated with him as a child. Had he encountered any books with transgender characters? He said that throughout childhood, he hadn’t known that there was any other way to define himself but by the gender label that had been placed on him since birth. He enjoyed Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird, as he could relate to a tomboy character. But he had yet to encounter himself in the pages of a book. “You’d really have to be looking for them back then,” he said of books with transgender characters.
I think that’s probably still true, but fortunately for all of us there are some excellent books being published today that are getting a lot of attention and buzz. Aside from 10,000 Dresses, here are three of my recent favorites.
George by Alex Gino (Scholastic, 2015)
This book is getting tons of accolades, and deservedly so. Fourth-grader George wants to play Charlotte from Charlotte’s Web in the school play, but the teacher won’t let her because everyone sees her as a boy. But George knows she’s actually Melissa, a girl. This charming middle-grade story will steal your heart. There are many standout moments, but I particularly loved the nuanced relationship between Melissa and her older brother, Scott. But my absolute favorite detail in the book? The three-piece case, revealed by removing the jacket, is blue in the front and yellow in the back, an unusual choice. It’s a deliciously bookish metaphor for transformation and a subtle reinforcement of the book’s message to look beyond a person’s exterior to see what lies within.
Parrotfish by Ellen Wittlinger (Simon and Schuster, 2015)
A new paperback version (available September 29, 2015) updates the original 2007 edition of this YA classic. As a junior in high school, Grady comes out as a transgender boy, to the mixed reactions of his family and classmates. The funny and frank friendship with geeky Sebastian grounds the novel, just as Sebastian’s acceptance grounds Grady as he seeks to build a new identity in the ever-challenging halls of high school. I find the book particularly useful in its clear and thoughtful discussion of a whole spectrum of gender identity and sexuality. Indeed, Grady’s name is chosen, in part, because it includes the word gray, underscoring that not everything is black and white.
Beyond Magenta by Susan Kuklin (Candlewick, 2014)
Subtitled Transgender Teens Speak Out, this is a totally candid and raw look at what it means to be a transgender teenager in America today. The text packs a punch with its unfilte
red honesty and presents a range of ethnicities, religions, and economic backgrounds, as well as the many identities and sexualities that fall under the transgender umbrella. A watershed book.
When I was growing up in New Hampshire several decades ago, we didn’t talk much about gay or transgender people (and those certainly weren’t the words we would have used to describe them). We’d joke on the playground that the little loop on the back of a button-down shirt was a “fag tag,” and a favorite expression was “You’re so queer!” It goes without saying that there was no understanding that gender identity was separate from sexuality. My early comprehension of what it meant to be transgender was rudimentary at best, ignorant at worst.
Fast-forward to 2015. Transgender people are visible everywhere. They’re on TV, in the news, and on the cover of Vanity Fair. My daughter’s caregiver is transgender. My daughter could be. Or my son. And if either of my children are, thank goodness that we seem to be progressing as a society so that my kids, all our kids, have a better chance of leading the lives they want and need to live. There are more options now. We’re having a deeper conversation. Let’s keep it going.
Yolanda Scott is editorial director at Charlesbridge, where she has edited nearly two hundred books since beginning her career in 1995. She is a co-founder of Children’s Books Boston, sits on the board of directors of the Children’s Book Council, and is a member of the CBC Diversity Committee. She lives near Boston.
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