Year: 2016
-
Vote for the 2016 Teens’ Top Ten!
Visit DOGObooks.com to vote! You can check out previous years’ winners here.
-
The Reading Without Walls Podcast: National Ambassador Gene Luen Yang at Comic-Con 2016
Through his platform, “Reading Without Walls,” Yang hopes to inspire readers of all ages to pick up a book outside their comfort zone. In episode five of his podcast, Yang …
-
Scholastic Announces Sales of More Than 3.3 Million Copies of ‘Harry Potter and The Cursed Child’ Parts One and Two
New York, NY — Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Parts One and Two script book, the eighth Harry Potter story by J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany, and Jack Thorne, published …
-
National Ambassador Gene Luen Yang at San Diego Comic-Con 2016
Yang appeared on panels with fellow comic book creators Emily Carroll (Through the Woods), John Patrick Green (Hippoptamister), Noelle Stevenson (Nimona), and more throughout the event. Check out more photos from the convention …
-
Six Flags New England Hosts the First-Ever “Read a Book Day”
What: On Saturday, August 27, Six Flags New England and Candlewick Press are celebrating literacy with their first-ever “Read a Book Day.” The Coaster Capital of New England and Candlewick …
-
Christian Robinson to Illustrate 2017 Children’s Book Week Poster
New York, NY — August 11, 2016 — Acclaimed illustrator Christian Robinson has agreed to design the 2017 Children’s Book Week poster distributed by Every Child a Reader and the Children’s Book …
-
ALSC Now Accepting Applications For 2017 Penguin Random House Young Readers Group Award
CHICAGO, IL — The Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) and the Grants Administration Committee are now accepting online applications for the 2017 Penguin Random House Young Readers Group …
-
Author Natalie Lloyd on the Magic of Summer Reading
Lloyd relishes summer reading because it affords one the opportunity to travel to new worlds without leaving the comfort of home. There’s a secret all summer readers come to discover: imagination …
-
Candlewick Press Acquires New Picture Book Trilogy From Caldecott Award-Winning Team Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen
Somerville, MA — Bestselling picture book creators Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen will debut a new trilogy in 2017, Candlewick Press announced today jointly with the publishers of the Walker Books …
-
Philosophy and Children’s Books
As part of Wartenberg’s course Philosophy for Children, undergraduates visit local elementary school students to discuss children’s classics from Seuss to Steig. The picture books spark complex conversations about aesthetics, human nature, …
-
Three Educators Nationally Selected For 2016 Scholastic Art & Writing Award Artist Residency
NEW YORK, NY — Three art educators were selected for the second annual GOLDEN Educators Residency – a two-week art residency created by nonprofit Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, in partnership …
-
Candlewick Press and Boston Harbor Cruises Partner to Promote Literacy and Marine-Life Education
BOSTON, MA — Candlewick Press announced today that it will partner with Boston Harbor Cruises to expand the idea of the “beach read” by adding high-quality children’s books to the …
-
Developmental Benefits of Early Literacy
Below are just a few of the concrete benefits of early literacy: Vocabulary building Brain development Academic success Multi-sensory development Increased quantitative reasoning Emotional awareness Academics aside, having a regular …
-
Author Matt de la Peña Receives Intellectual Freedom Award
Urbana, Illinois – NCTE honors Matt de la Peña for his courage in standing up for intellectual freedom with the NCTE National Intellectual Freedom Award, given for de la Peña’s …
-
PLA Receives ASAE Power of A Summit and Gold Awards for Every Child Ready to Read Literacy Program
CHICAGO, IL — The Public Library Association (PLA) has earned 2016 American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) Power of A Summit and Gold Awards for its co-creation and implementation of …
-
Fighting Homogenization
Contributed by Ned Rust, Author
They want me to try to write for what?
They want a graduate of the 99%, non-minority, public schools of last-century Briarcliff Manor (the B.M. we call it, much like residents of the O.C., only without a validating TV show) to write for a diversity blog?
Roaring Brook has just published a book I’ve written called Patrick Griffin’s Last Breakfast on Earth,about a kid who undertakes a kitchen-sink chemistry experiment and ends up in a parallel world dominated by a hyper-modern efficiency state that finds human cultural heritages to be inconvenient and even anathema.
The novel’s chapters variously feature actual (not title) griffins, vigilante mothers, misanthropic shut-ins, jackalopes, and more. The good guys are trying to combat the efficiency state baddies by championing literature and art and music and wisdom; they’re called Commonplacers because at the center of their cause is something known as The Book of the Commonplace. Commonplace books are real and wonderful things, but this one is a bit more inclusive than your average.
Getting back to this diversity blog mission, my surprise at this invitation was also stoked by the fact that the title character—though I don’t think I spent much ink on it—is a white boy of suburban extraction just like me.
I mean, why would anybody want the white male author of a white male character to contribute to a conversation about the cultural and phenotypic differences among us?
Well, I’m over my initial surprise now. And I’m grateful.
Because, in fact, it was in fact my absolute intention in writing Patrick Griffin’s Last Breakfast on Earth not just to address diversity but to make it a central cause.
I am no great fan of intolerant politicians, golf- or yacht-clubs, but I have a lot of experience living near them and it happened to be—from accident of birth and upbringing—a setting I could bring to life with better justice than some others.
So, yeah, I wrote what I knew.
In fact, I leaned into my experience with the privileged classes. As a product of an accentless suburb, and as a frequent inhabitant of media industry cubicles in my adult life, I feel I am keenly aware of the sort of variety-averse, fearful conservatism that goes hand-in-hand with society’s stratified status quo.
And I think it’s freaking evil. So evil, in fact, that I could conceive none more profound to portray in my book.
I like to think the villains of Patrick Griffin’s Last Breakfast on Earth are not the regular work-a-day malefactors of today’s popular fiction. They do not hold gladiatorial contests for their target readership’s age bracket. They do not suck blood. They do not rip bodices. They are neither contemporary schoolyard bullies nor bullying gods from some ancient polytheistic religion. They do not try to find and kill teens with special powers. They do not throw up cruel obstacles for children with cancer. They are not abusive school administrators. What they are is a group of people who are all about making the world as easy as it can be for themselves. They rule the world with a micromanaging, manipulative, efficiency-minded, monopoly-gloved, close-minded, diversity-crushing fist.
They rule the world in the way that big companies here in the real world too often do—by gate-keeping outside ideas and by investing in what they perceive to be safe bets. They assume that we, the faceless (though demographically assessed) consumer hordes, like less diversity rather than more diversity. And, by catering to this assumption, they believe they will extract more money and social power from us.
It probably is not the most commercially savvy note to sound. It is doubtless easier to say one’s main character is up against an Evil Wizard than up against the Homogenizing Forces of Modern Corporate Culture. But I maintain some hope that Patrick Griffin’s Last Breakfast on Earth will get some readers to think critically about and even to take action against the monoculture-loving, diversity-fearing, sunlight-avoiding, culturally abhorrent forces all around us. Anyhow, I really can’t think of an evil more profound. And if I didn’t write a compelling story that makes this message stick with my readers . . . well, that failure deserves to stick to it, and to me, like white on snow.
Photo credit Bart Rust
Ned Rust is the co-author of two books in the Daniel X series and Witch and Wizard: The Gift with James Patterson. He lives in Croton, New York, with his wife, son, and daughter.
-
Winnie-the-Pooh Dolls Back on Display
Winnie-the-Pooh and Piglet, Eeyore, Kanga, and Tigger are looking cute as ever, just in time for Pooh’s 95th birthday on August 21. The dolls have been not only cleaned, repaired and stabilised, …
-
#1 New York Times Bestselling Author Kitty Kelley to Publish Her First Children’s Book with Simon & Schuster
New York, NY — Atheneum Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing, announced today that it will publish Martin’s Dream Day, the first picture book for …
-
Scholastic Announces Strong Sales for ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’
Scholastic announced a first printing of 4.5 million copies for the eighth story in the beloved series. Eager fans of all ages gathered at midnight parties in bookstores and libraries to …
-
National Ambassador Gene Luen Yang’s Creativity in Progress Series: Part 5
In his latest post, Yang shares his approach to inking. Though it took him years of practice to hone — and a few spills — inking is now Yang’s favorite part of …
