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When we put out the nominations call for this year’s 28 Days Later Campaign, there was one name that flooded the comments section more than any other: Tonya Cherie Hegamin.

Hegamin began life as a resident of Westchester, PA, but later relocated to Rochester, NY. She earned her MFA in Writing for Children from the New School University in 2003. As an Assistant Professor at the City University of New York, Medgar Evers College, Hegamin currently teaches Children’s Literature, Fiction Writing, and Composition. In 2010, her picture book, Most Loved in All the World, won the NYPL’s Ezra Jack Keats award. She is also the author of three young adult novels: M+O 4EVR, Pemba’s Song, and her most recent, Willow (Candlewick Press, 2014).

Hegamin’s passion for young people extends beyond the literary; she has served thousands of young people as a crisis counselor, rights advocate, and sexual health educator as well. On day 16, The Brown Bookshelf shines its spotlight on author Tonya Cherie Hegamin.

Inspiration

I’ve always been inspired by Virginia Hamilton—she was the model for successful black women in the publishing world for a big chunk of time and I think she will always be a writer who I strive to emulate in terms of depth and breadth of work. Her husband, Arnold Adoff has been another mentor/inspiration to me since my first picture book, Most Loved In All the World. He’s the one I’ve turned to again and again not just for his experience the industry, but for his commitment to the expression of language. His ear for word craft is impeccable, and he is still the best person to talk to when I question being a writer. My other inspiration is E.B. Lewis. He would listen to me read drafts of Willow for hours on the phone while he was painting. He was the first person to believe in that book when it was only twenty five pages and he wouldn’t let me quit. I am so grateful to him for that! My other inspiration is Tove Jansson. Although she is completely different from me as a writer, I’ve read almost all of her work (Moomins and her adult writing) and I am in awe in how she constructs story in such a care-free way. She and her partner, graphic artist Tuulikki Pietilä were out and proud before lesbianism was acceptable in public; they both were courageous and powerful artistic humans who never let anyone change them.

The Process

Willow sprouted from a lot of my research for M+O 4Evr and Pemba’s Song. I found books (like Slaves Without Masters by Ira Berlin) about those who “managed themselves” while the master was gone, and even those who feared leaving their sheltered lives in the South. I also read a great book called Forbidden Fruit: Love Stories from the Underground Railroad by Betty DeRamus. I researched historical figures like Mary A. Shadd who wrote A Plea for Emigration (she grew up and was educated in Delaware and Pennsylvania, but led a campaign urging former slaves to Canada for freedom). Then I researched accounts of freed men and women who would travel south to help others over the Mason Dixon line and escape enslavement. Finally, in my own family history we have more than one account of my enslaved ancestors being related to their owners. One great-great-grandmother even sued her white father after the Civil War!  The question of what would make someone stay and willingly subjugate themselves and what would motivate one to leave a seemingly ‘comfortable’ life that rendered you powerless was always in my mind. It became a perfect storm of “what if” that all writers chase for a good book.

Under The Radar

I’d have to say that even more than people who are being “traditionally” published, I believe my students’ writing is the best undiscovered talent I know. Many of my students are writing amazing fiction and creative non-fiction that is so raw and fresh. They are living the world that others are being paid gobs of money to write about. I had a student who wrote a children’s book about a boy with Autism who makes a friend who doesn’t care what other people say. She wrote it so she could share it with the kids she teaches. Another student wrote about a dystopia where kids who are dynamic because of their differences were the only ones who could survive. They write for the joy of it and the need to set their hearts free. I hope they all continue to hone their craft, if simply to create stories that aren’t being told, and sharing it with kids who aren’t being remembered by the industry.

State of the Industry

Perhaps you detect the cynicism in my tone? I do believe that the children’s book industry is saturated with people who churn out the same stuff (I might also be one of them). I don’t think it’s because we writers can’t think of anything new, it’s just that what is marketable and what we really need are two different things. Although I see the merit of the intentions of the Common Core pedagogy, I also know that there will be another educational evolution in the next few years and our ideas about literacy and books for young people will shift yet again, hopefully ever for the better. I think that the future of diversity is inclusion; diversity is quantitative, inclusion is qualitative. We have to take personal steps to stop labeling people as different and embrace them for who they are. The industry is concerned with numbers, not hugs. Companies only shift marketing practices for new demographics when there’s a profit. The more we each demand to be recognized and included there is always possibility for positive change.

For more information on Tonya Cherie Hegamin, please visit her website.

From her bio at Simon & Schuster: Nalo Hopkinson is the award-winning author of numerous novels and short stories for adults. She was born in Jamaica, and lived in Trinidad and Guyana before moving to Canada at sixteen.

Her novels, such as Brown Girl in the Ring and The Salt Roads, and other writing often draw on Caribbean history, culture, and language. Ms. Hopkinson is one of the founding members of the Carl Brandon Society, an organization that helps “build further awareness of race and ethnicity in speculative literature and related fields.”

The first chapter of The Chaos, her forthcoming young adult novel, can be read online. From the book description:

“Sixteen-year-old Scotch struggles to fit in—at home she’s the perfect daughter, at school she’s provocatively sassy, and thanks to her mixed heritage, she doesn’t feel she belongs with the Caribbeans, whites, or blacks. And even more troubling, lately her skin is becoming covered in a sticky black substance that can’t be removed. While trying to cope with this creepiness, she goes out with her brother—and he disappears. A mysterious bubble of light just swallows him up, and Scotch has no idea how to find him. Soon, the Chaos that has claimed her brother affects the city at large, until it seems like everyone is turning into crazy creatures. Scotch needs to get to the bottom of this supernatural situation ASAP before the Chaos consumes everything she’s ever known—and she knows that the black shadowy entity that’s begun trailing her every move is probably not going to help.

For her adult work, Hopkinson has received Honourable Mention in Cuba’s “Casa de las Americas” literary prize. She is a recipient of the Warner Aspect First Novel Award, the Ontario Arts Council Foundation Award for emerging writers, the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, the Locus Award for Best New Writer, the World Fantasy Award, the Sunburst Award for Canadian Literature of the Fantastic, the Aurora Award, and the Gaylactic Spectrum Award.

The Chaos must be characterized by the same literary excellence, as it has received the following reviews already:

“Noted for her fantasy and science fiction for adults, Hopkinson jumps triumphantly to teen literature. . . . Rich in voice, humor and dazzling imagery, studded with edgy ideas and wildly original, this multicultural mashup—like its heroine—defies category.”–Kirkus Reviews, *STARRED

For more about Ms. Hopkinson, visit her online.

I’d ask where books like My Own Worst Frenemy were when I was a young reader, but I already know the answer – they didn’t exist. It’s why I started writing YA, in the first place.

Reviewing books like Reid’s first in the Langdon Prep series is bittersweet for me. On one hand I feel like doing a friggin’ back flip to celebrate their arrival. On the other, I’m so annoyed that it’s seriously taken publishing this long to acknowledge that readers (of color or not) would enjoy a book like this.

So yeah, obviously I liked this book. And sorry a portion of my review was done on a soap box. This issue isn’t just close to me, it formed my identity as an author. It’s tough to sit back and separate the individual book from the overall issue of diversity in YA. Maybe one day…

That said, My Own Worst Frenemy is quite a gem. Readers looking to infuse a little mystery in their lives will love it. Chanti Evans (confession: every time I saw the MC’s name I wanted to call her Chianti – just how my brain works) is from a working-class hood in Denver. Her mom’s an undercover cop who wants Chanti’s academic career to have a fighting chance, so she sends her to Langdon Prep a snooty private school where all schools are in books – across town.

My Own Worst Frenemy is a good first in a series book. We meet Chanti, Bethanie (a sure-fire frenemy in the making), Marco (the future BF) and of course there’s a female and male meanie, Lissa and her twin Justin. Getting to know them all is most of the fun, but this is a mystery after all – so there’s some intrigue and sleuthing involved.

The 4-1-1 breaks down like this:

The Good
Chanti and Marco are full-bodied characters. They feel real and readers will care about them. But note to authors: stop making main characters so insecure. We all know they’re going to end up with dude in the end. Enough with them putting themselves down just to build up the tension revolved around the growing love interest!

Chanti is African-American and Marco is Mexican. I’m fairly certain the other characters are of color too, but the book doesn’t dwell on that. Which is a plus. The reader can assume everyone is brown or not – it’s up to them really.

The Bad
The chapters revolve between the present and flashbacks of how Chanti ended up in trouble and thus at Langdon. The flashbacks were distracting and sometimes slowed down the action. It was obvious Chanti had gotten caught up in something, but since she’s not in juvie or jail, it couldn’t have been that serious. So, really, it almost didn’t matter to me how she ended up there. For the sake of the series, I hope the flashbacks end at book one.

The Ugly
No ugly.

Like most mysteries that involve teen sleuthing, the reader will have to suspend a little belief about just how much knowledge and moxie Chanti has. But that’s the fun of reading mysteries, right? We all want the MC to be a bit more courageous and smarter than we would be in the situation. Chanti’s righteously nosy and observant which makes her a great investigator and ripe to be a new millennium girl-detective idol.

By Mal Peet

My problem is, I’m way too literal. When someone tells me that a book is Young Adult, I sort of believe it. And right, wrong or indifferent, for ME a Young Adult novel has to primarily revolve around a young person’s experience. Some YA historical fiction reads like adult historical fiction.

An adult historical fic can start with the protagonist at birth or even before the protag is born and I’m fine with that. I’m not okay with that if it’s a YA historical fic. Feel free to argue this point with me, but I’m not likely to budge. I like my YA about young adults!

So, in a nutshell that’s one of my issues with Mal Peet’s, Life: An Exploded Diagram. One of them.

In all fairness, the Worldcat summary of Life says:
In 1960s Norfolk, England, seventeen-year-old Clem Ackroyd lives with his mother and grandmother in a tiny cottage, but his life is transformed when he falls in love with the daughter of a wealthy farmer in this tale that flashes back through the stories of three generations.

So I’m warned that the story is told through three generations. But then it shouldn’t be YA. It makes me wonder if it was classified YA because they felt it was more easily marketed that way.

Okay, moving on…

Even if I ignored that the story was told over three generations, the other issue I had with Life was that the heart of the story “how Clem’s life is transformed when he falls in love with a daughter of a wealthy farmer” was lost in the detail of the Cuban missle crisis. The detail about the USA’s standoff with Cuba over nuclear arms should have been woven into how it impacted the characters. Instead, there was far more detail about the crisis, how it started and played out than I wanted. And the impact it had on Clem and Frankie felt like a side story rather than the main story.

I’ll put it this way, I can tell you more about Clem’s parent’s relationship and its quirks more than I can about Clem and Frankie. Their overall relationship felt…rushed. There was no good reason for Frankie to be attracted to Clem, but she was. And I took it on face value. But as soon as I was ready to throw myself totally into their romance that pesky nuclear arms crisis kept interfering.

As historical fiction goes, it’s a nice body of work. Had someone booktalked it to me alluding to the fact that an adult Clem is re-telling his life story – I would have probably lapped it up. I would have still had an issue with the level of detail about the arms crisis, but I would have come at the book in a different frame of mind. As it were, this was presented as YA. In that regard, it didn’t work as well for me.

By Cara Chow

The best thing a book can do, to and for me, is evoke some sort of passion. The bell rings if it makes me angry. Bitter Melon rang my bells, much like What Can’t Wait did. Both are stories about what it’s like to be a first generation American citizen of an immigrant parent. Both portray the conflict these young people are faced with when the message from their parents is mixed – the parents want them to have a better life but they also want to ensure the teen doesn’t forget their culture and roots.

Immigrant families aren’t the only folks facing that issue. Every family has its own culture, tradition and roots. So there’s always some level of struggle a teen faces when they’re ready to go out and find their way in the world.

The difference, in most cases, is the level of intensity those born of immigrant parents faces. It can reach heights of tension bordering on familial warfare. And in Bitter Melon, it becomes abusive. Frances (Fei Ting) is a seventeen-year-old senior in 1980′s San Francisco expected by her hardworking mother to become a doctor and take care of all mama’s medical and financial ills. Lofty goals, especially considering Frances has no desire to be a doctor.

Frances’ mother uses mental and physical abuse to keep her daughter on the required path. Not until she erroneously ends up in a speech class instead of Calculus does Frances find her voice (pardon the pun) and begin to consider life outside her domineering mother. She finds an ally in a former competitor and begins to secretly live life on her own terms.

On one hand, Frances was a sympathetic character. You’d have to be heartless not to feel for someone enduring that level of abuse. But on the other, the abuse made her selfish, sometimes suspicious and sneaky. It’s no Cinderella story, for sure.

Bitter Melon doesn’t break any new ground. And there seemed very little reason for it to be set in the 80′s. There were points where I forgot it was 1989 until there was a pop culture or fashion reference. However, Frances’ struggle for independence (what teen doesn’t at some point?) and her willingness to get into trouble for a simple sip of a social life kept me reading.

I also found the end satisfying and balanced. It’s neither triumphant or tragic, but steeped in the mixed feelings one would likely have after enduring years of abuse from a loved one.

By Heidi Ayarbe

Compulsion. Ten letters. Ten plus zero equals 10. Damn! Not good.

If you’re wondering what I’m raving about, wait until you dive into Compulsion and into the very chaotic head of seventeen-year-old Jake Martin, star soccer player and OCD sufferer.

Jake’s held prisoner by his compulsions – needing the time, or people’s words, or french fries or his steps and just about anything else countable to end up in a prime number. Having to do everything exactly the same every single day to keep the spiders from gnawing at his brain.

I’m a happy ending type of gal, but only when it warrants it. This didn’t warrant it. Mental illness is a complex problem that can’t be happy ended easily. Yet, I wanted Jake to have a happy ending so badly that I think I held my breath the last 20 pages of the book, hoping against hope he would.

I know, I know this is total opposite of how I felt with Leverage. And God only knows the characters in Leverage went through enough to deserve their pat ending. Still, Jake’s story is heart-wrenching. I needed him to catch a break.

This story could have easily been from the perspective of a kid who chooses to lurk in the shadows because of their disorder. You’d almost expect that since the compulsions are so intense, the assumption would be everyone would notice just how odd this kid is.

But Jake is the star soccer player on whose shoulders winning the team’s third championship in a row rests. He’s popular by sheer force of his athletic prowess. So hiding his OCD is an exhausting routine. I was tired right along with him by book’s end.

Although Compulsion attempts to tag a trigger to Jake’s disorder, the reality is it’s clearly genetic. Jake’s mom exhibits severe symptoms of mental illness and his sister slightly so. All the more reason Jake is a very sympathetic character.

He started out in a deficit thanks to his mother, making the odds of him catching that break I mentioned slim.

It’s complex stuff. But Ayarbe pulls the reader into Jake’s head. She doesn’t get into any clinical detail about mental illness or OCD. Instead, she forces the reader to experience the all-out hell it is when you can’t control your impulses and the effects on your mind and body both when you give in to them and when you can’t. It’s a hellish version of a Catch-22.

Readers who don’t mind dipping into the depths of the brain’s darkside will enjoy Compulsion. As an aside, although I don’t believe Jake was, many of the book’s other central characters were of Latino-descent. It threw me, at first, because there wasn’t any particular reason there should have been so many Latino characters – other than Ayarbe lives in Colombia and is clearly influenced by the culture. Still, I welcomed the diversity.