Industry News
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Marcia Brown Has Passed On
“Ms. Brown was one of only two artists — the other is David Wiesner — to receive the Caldecott Medal three times. She also illustrated six Caldecott Honor Books, as the runners-up are …
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First Book's Stories For All Project™ Arms Educators With Diverse, Inclusive Children's Books to Fuel Learning, Promote Educational Equity
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Educational outcomes improve when children have access to books in which they see their lives reflected. They become more engaged and enthusiastic readers, a critical step to succeeding …
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2015 Comstock and Wanda Gág Read Aloud Book Award Winners Announced
Eighteen regional teachers and librarians, along with Minnesota State University Moorhead students read aloud 286 picture books to 21,988 children during the year. The winners and honor books were selected …
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CBLDF’s Comics Connector Builds A Bridge Between Libraries, Educators, and Comics Creators!
For Immediate ReleaseContact: Charles.Brownstein@cbldf.org Comic Book Legal Defense Fund continues the celebration of Children’s Book Week by launching its newest resource – the Comics Connector! CBLDF’s Comics Connector is a directory resource that connects educators and librarians with creators, …
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News-O-Matic Daily News App Is Just for Kids
News-O-Matic inspires children to be engaged and informed citizens. Readers can discover ways to take action within their community, or share their thoughts and questions with a worldwide network of …
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Get Caught Reading Comic Books, Challenged Books and Other Must Reads
WASHINGTON, D.C. — What do Archie, Fone Bone, Hip Hop Family Tree, Usagi Yojimbo and the Peanuts gang have in common? These comic book icons have all been “caught reading.” This …
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Mirrors and Windows
Contributed to CBC Diversity by Delia Sherman
It’s 1961. I’m 10, and in bed reading a book. My mother isn’t telling me to go outside and play because, first, we live on the 11th floor in an apartment building in New York City, and second, because playing outside always makes me wheeze.
The book I’m reading could be anything—though, if I’m really sick, it’s likely to be The Swiss Family Robinson. The Swiss Family is mostly male and much older than I, but the practical details of their island life and the girl who has built her own house all by herself are endlessly fascinating to me.
This is my special comfort book, but I also love The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood and the Narnia series and the biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine from Mama’s nightstand, The Wind in the Willows, Nancy Drew, and A Wrinkle in Time. As an adopted only child, I find books about big, warm families of colorful siblings exotic and fascinating. But I like Little Men even more than Little Women. The boys of Plumfield School feel like a family even though they aren’t related by blood. I particularly identify with the musician Nathaniel, who is delicate and sensitive and lies a lot.
I’m a girl and I can’t read music, but I understand why he lies. I lie to stay out of trouble, too.
Some books act as mirrors—reflecting the reader’s experience—and some as windows—inviting readers to empathize with characters who may not look like them or think like them or share their beliefs or tastes.
Realistic novels of domestic life are the most obvious mirrors, but fantasies and historical fiction can be mirrors, too, and allow readers to see characters like themselves in the center of the action, solving problems, struggling against adversity, making decisions, and earning their happy ending—or tragically failing, but still being important, and above all, familiar. Window books are seldom comfortable or soothing, but they help us understand that, while we are not all the same, we are all human, with stories worth hearing.
Mirror or window is not an absolute state. A book like Virginia Hamilton’s Justice and Her Brothers is a mirror for some readers, a window for others. It is true, however, that most novels tend to reflect the dominant culture. In countries whose population is racially diverse and culturally heterogeneous this creates a terrible imbalance.
In the United States, there are plenty of mirror books written for male, educated, heterosexual, able middle class White Anglophone Christians. Women, LGBT people, people of color or different religions or languages or cultures or abilities are frequently pushed into the margins, cast in supporting roles, treated as exotic, dangerous, or inferior, misrepresented, or just left out completely. The books that mirror their lives and experiences are often assumed to be more formulaic, less interesting, less relevant, less important.
It’s the 21st Century now, and I’ve left my isolation behind in the 20th, along with my asthma. I write books as well as read them, and my stories mirror the things I’ve experienced and observed. My childhood in one of the most diverse and heterogeneous cities in the world is reflected in my two New York Between novels, Changeling and The Magic Mirror of the Mermaid Queen, set in a magical New York peopled by supernatural immigrants to the New World. The Freedom Maze, about a 1960’s white girl who goes back in time to her family’s plantation in 1860 and is taken for a light-skinned slave, is part of my lifelong struggle to understand and overcome the unthinking racism I grew up with.
Most of my stories contain characters of many colors, genders, ages, and sexual orientations because they are part of history—even Western European history. They show up in diaries, memoirs, census lists, cemeteries, and local records of all descriptions. Mirroring their experience opens a new window on our shared history, both good and bad.
The truth is, every reader needs both kinds of books. All children—all adults—need positive, undistorted images of their own reality. They also need positive, undistorted images of the reality of the other.
Diversity is a fact. Books that don’t acknowledge it are not mirrors, but shuttered windows. In the real world, skin color, gender, physical ability, sexual orientation, or even religion and class, in no way limit intelligence, competence, leadership ability, or common sense—although studies suggest that marginalized people tend to be more empathetic and generous, perhaps because they encounter so many window books.
No matter what we look like, no matter what we believe, we are all human. The best way to understand that—to develop empathy—is to read each other’s stories.
Delia Sherman was born in Japan and raised in New York City but spent vacations with relatives in Texas, Louisiana, and South Carolina. Her work has appeared most recently in the young adult anthologies The Beastly Bride: Tales of the Animal People; Steampunk! An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories; and Teeth: Vampire Tales. Her novels for younger readers include Changeling and The Magic Mirror of the Mermaid Queen. She lives in New York City.
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Starting a Conversation with Young Readers
The tips are for sparking discussion with young readers of all ages, from toddlers to teens. Suggestions include incorporating the story into playtime; asking personalized questions; and making real-world connections …
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Asbury Park School District Invests in Literacy for All
Asbury Park, NJ – As part of Superintendent Dr. Lamont Repollet’s ongoing efforts to raise achievement for all students in the Asbury Park School District, the Board of Education has …
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New Diary of a Wimpy Kid Series Book Title, Cover, and Color Revealed
NEW YORK, NY — Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS, today revealed the cover, title, and color of the biggest book of 2015, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Old School. …
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Eighth Annual Children's Choice Book Awards Winners Announced During the 96th Annual Children's Book Week
New York, NY — May 4, 2015 – The Children’s Book Council and Every Child a Reader announced the winners of the eighth annual Children’s Choice Book Awards (CCBA) at …
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Favorite Children's Authors Come Together To Get Kids Reading This Summer
NEW YORK, NY – Recent research from The Kids & Family Reading Report indicates that 91% of kids say that their favorite books are the ones they picked out themselves1 – and summer is …
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HarperCollins Publishers Announces Changes to Leadership at HarperCollins Children’s Books
New York, NY – HarperCollins Publishers today announced that Susan Katz, President and Publisher of HarperCollins Children’s Books, will retire this summer after 28 years with the organization. Suzanne Murphy, currently Vice …
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Judy Blume Shows Support for the New York Public Library
You can show your support by signing this letter. Librarians are the protectors of intellectual freedom. They are the defenders of books and imagination and thought. They are on the …
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President Obama to Announce New eBook and Library Initiatives
As part of the president’s ConnectED program, the White House has reached out to major book publishers to provide over $250 million in free eBooks to low-income students. In addition, …
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North Shore Music Theatre & Friends of Dane Street Playground to Host ‘Smash the Guinness World Record’ Fundraiser Event
WHAT: On Sunday, May 17th, the North Shore Music Theatre will host a fundraiser to benefit the Friends of Dane Street Playground and to break a Guinness World Record: “Most parents reading to their children simultaneously.” …
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Neurological Study Supports Reading Aloud to Young Children
After the children’s caregivers provided information on reading practices in the home, the subjects underwent fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) scans while listening to stories. The kids whose guardians read …
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Atheneum Books For Young Readers to Launch New Imprint: Caitlyn Dlouhy Books
New York, NY – Esteemed children’s book editor Caitlyn Dlouhy will launch an eponymous imprint, Caitlyn Dlouhy Books, Simon and Schuster Children’s Publishing announced today. The newly formed imprint will reside within …
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There's a Party in Your Head and Everyone's Invited
Contributed to CBC Diversity by Melissa Grey
There are seven narrators in The Girl at Midnight – a fact I wasn’t very open with during the querying process because I was worried the number might scare off potential agents. My thinking was that by the time someone read enough of the manuscript to discover just how bonkers I went with the number of point-of-view characters, they would either be invested enough in the story or they’d already soured on it. The gamble paid off.
Because there are so many narrators, I’m often asked how I approach writing a single story with so many PoV characters. I’m not always fastidious when it comes to writing methodology but these are a few points to keep in mind when writing different perspectives (especially when they’re different from you in terms of sex, gender, race, culture, etc.).
It is not a single story
You’re the star of your own life, right? Well, that’s how your characters feel about their lives, even if they’re not the book’s main character. Every character is the hero of their own story, even the villains. No one thinks of themselves as the side dish. So, even if a PoV character has only a single chapter in a book of sixty, they should still have their own perspective on the story. They need their own motivations, their own desires, their own outcomes. When I was plotting out The Girl at Midnight, I made a list of what each character wanted more than anything and what they actually got in the end (so often, the two are not the same). Each character thinks the story is theirs. It’s important to be mindful of that.
Research, research, research
Research is key. It’s always critical, no matter what you’re writing, but it’s absolutely essential when you’re writing an experience different from your own. I am not a gay man, but there is one in my book, so I did my homework. I’m dealing with mostly nonhuman characters in The Girl at Midnight trilogy but ideas of racism, bigotry, and prejudice are still a part of it, so I did that homework too; even though I have personal experience with prejudice (I’m a woman and not white), my experience is not universal. Reading fiction and nonfiction about and, more importantly, by people different from you is so, so, so important. It will inform how your characters approach the world of your book and the problems in it.
Write outside the box (or book)
One of the strategies that really helped me get inside the heads of so many characters was writing stuff that was never going to be in the book. I used to write fan fiction (ain’t no shame in it!) and one of the common types of fic is called Five Times Fic. It’s basically short stories like Five Times Harry and Draco Kissed and One Time They Didn’t. Each ‘time’ is usually short, maybe 100-200 words depending on the writer, so it’s all about those slice-of-life moments that show you the heart of a character. I wrote drabbles like that for several of the characters in The Girl at Midnight when they were proving elusive (Caius was a bit slippery sometimes) and it was such a fun way to get to know them. I didn’t have to worry about building a whole plot or impressing my writing partners or wowing an editor. Those little side stories were for my eyes only and they really, truly helped. I find they’re also a great way to combat writer’s block. And they’re just plain fun. Fun is so essential. Writing a book is hard, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be fun!
Melissa Grey was born and raised in New York City. She wrote her first short story at the age of twelve and hasn’t stopped writing since. After earning a degree in fine arts at Yale University, she traveled the world, then returned to New York City where she currently works as a freelance journalist. To learn more about Melissa, visit melissa-grey.com and follow @meligrey on Twitter.
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Jumpstart and Candlewick Press Partner to Celebrate the 10th Anniversary of Jumpstart’s Read for the Record®
BOSTON, MA (APRIL 28, 2015) — Jumpstart, a national early education non-profit organization, and Candlewick Press, an independent children’s publisher, have announced their partnership in honor of the 10th anniversary …
