It’s sometimes hard for anyone to raise theissue of cultural and racial diversity in children’s publishing without beingaccused of being misguided or misinformed, of over-reacting or being too politically correct – or even of having a chip on their shoulder.
This post is therefore something of a cop-out. It issimply a list of things I have read or heard over the past year related to blackauthors and/or children’s and young adult books with black characters.
I ask you to make your own mind up aboutwhether they are statements of fact or fiction and what, if anything, needs tochange – and invite responses about how we might go about it.
- Thereis no bias, discrimination or racism in children’s publishing.
- Thereis a limited demand for books by and/or about black people.
- Thereare more children’s books about blackpeople than by black people.
- Eventhe most positive reviews of black authors often compare them either to otherwriters of the same racial background and/or to white writers.
- Ifpublishers already have one or two black authors they are less motivated tofind others.
- Ifpublishers already have one or two successful, high-selling, prize-winningblack authors, they are looking for others in exactly the same mould.
- Bookswith black people on the cover do not sell well.
- Whitereaders do not relate to books about black characters.
- Veryfew manuscripts by black writers are submitted to editors and agents.
- Manyof the manuscripts submitted by black writers are not of publishable qual
I think there are two things I manage to do every December: blog about cookies and collect for Salvation Army’s little red bucket. I don’t know that I’ll collect for the Salvation Army this year, but I will be blogging about cookies. In a big way! Now through Christmas, I’m going to be posting “recipes’ of holiday cookies from bloggers, librarians and authors. “Recipes” because I’ll be posting recipes for making cookies from scratch, how to make a better cookie from a mix or refrigerator dough or where to find a special cookie at a certain bakery. And, they’re ‘holiday’ cookies, not Christmas cookies. It’s all about the joy of the cookie and special memories brought together as the winter weather slows us down, the year winds down and cookies and a beverage are just the thing!
My sister and I will be doing our annual cookies and cocktails next weekend! I think we’ll be sipping grasshoppers as we make things like oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, peppermint bark candy and I’m not sure what else. I just know it will be lots and lots of sisterly fun!
I’m still collecting cookie posts, but I really think you’ll enjoy the one’s I’ve collected like this first one from Malaika Rose Stanley. Malaika is a Children’s writer, author of Skin Deep, Spike and Ali Enson, Miss Bubble’s Troubles and more. She’s currently a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at London College of Fashion. She shares here about one of her favorite Christmas books and a recipe for Mince Pies. I remember Mince Pies from when I was a little girl! My dad liked them and they probably reminded him of his mom who was from London.
~From Malaika Rose Stanley
One of the earliest stories about Christmas that I remember reading is The Story of Holly and Ivy by 
Rumer Godden, first published in 1958 – although it has been reprinted many times since and was adapted as an animated film called The Wish That Changed Everything in 1991 It probably says quite a lot about me that my other childhood favourites include Heidi by Johanna Spyri and The Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett. As a children’s author, my current tastes are for stories altogether edgier but even today, The Story of Holly and Ivy still evokes the magic of Christmas with a charming and nostalgic story about a lonely orphan, a doll without an owner and a woman with a Christmas tree and no one to enjoy it.
And for me, nothing evokes the taste of Christmas more than Mince Pies. These are small, individual shortcrust pastry cases filled with mincemeat. These days, the filling contains no meat and is actually made from minced fruit: raisins, currants, cherries, sultanas, apricots, candied citrus peel, apples, walnuts or almonds, mixed spices and sometimes a splash of brandy or rum.
Ready-made pies are available in the USA as well as the UK and even though many families bake home-made pies, the filling still usually comes out of a jar!
Mince pies have been part of British Christmas celebrations since the 17th century when the pies
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I once had editorial feedback that said, "It's not very likely Adil would have a cousin named Katie - could you change her name to something more Indian?
What a very interesting post. But may I add -
Very few of my editors or readers know what colour I am. Only one knew what colour I was in advance of signing a contract.
I don't know what colour most of my editors (or any of my readers) is.
So perhaps a lot of this is more relevant to the higher-profile areas of fiction (YA, basically) than to those areas in which business is conducted by email, and there are no author photos on the covers.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if we reached a stage where such posts were irrelevant? When writers were just writers, and characters were just characters with all their glorious differences.
will be thinking about your post all day- mulling over those questions. On Tues my girls book group continued reading Skin Deep.They are reading the story at home but we meet each week to delight in reading aloud the story and talking about what has happened in the chapter.Your story has universal themes and great characters that they can relate too. It was hard to find a novel that could do this.
Would it be better perhaps to have a list of five aims?
More books by black writers
More books about the experiences of black people in Britain and the world
More black people in publishing (editorial and marketing)
and so on???