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Since I don’t do much with YA on a regular basis I don’t read the blog of The Book Smugglers as often as I would like, even though they’re some of the best in the biz.  Love their reviews.  Really top notch stuff.

Anyway, they recently reviewed a book called The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson and they got to talking about plus sized folks on covers.  The initial galley for Carson’s book featured a waiflike slip of a white girl when the character is supposed to be plus sized and dark-skinned.  Necessary changes were made to the final cover, but you still wouldn’t be able to tell the girth of the heroine from either of them.  The Book Smugglers end their review with, “Something we haven’t talked much about, however, is this concept of slenderizing a plus-sized character for a cover. We’ve seen it before in books like Everything Beautiful. Have you noticed any of this in your reading?”  Elizabeth Fama recommended a great Stacked piece on the subject from 2009 which I remember seeing some years ago that discussed this very thing.

I’ve been wondering about portrayals of overweight children in books for kids myself.  With obesity rates the highest they have ever been amongst our nation’s youth, ours is a country that doesn’t know how to deal with its large children.  Their portrayal in literature, therefore, is something to think about.  Usually, if you’re a kid and fat in a book then you’re a villain of sorts.  A Dudley Dursley or Augustus Gloop.  If, by some miracle, you’re the hero of the book that’s fine, but you’d better be prepared to disappear from your own cover.

So I tried to find representation of fat children on middle grade book covers.  Alas, these are the only books I was able to come up with, and as you can see they’re hardly ideal.  Let’s look at what book jackets tend to do to large kids.  As far as I can tell, these fall into three distinct categories: Inanimate Objects, Taking Advantage of Momentary Slimming, or Part of the Body.

Inanimate Objects

By far the most popular solution.  On the YA end of things it’s almost de rigueur.  On the children’s side it’s less common but not entirely unheard of.

Larger Than Life Lara by Dandi Daley Mackall

Here we had a book about a confident, well-adjusted girl who was also fat.  And here we have a book cover of a dress, with no girl in sight.  Yes, it refers to the plot, but still . . .

Slob by Ellen Potter

Owen, the hero of this book, is a big guy but you wouldn’t know it from looking at the cover of the book.

For all those Mom's out there who have heard these words over and over again (Are We There Yet?)...Happy Mother's Day!

Are We There Yet? by Dandi Daley Mackall (Author), Shannon McNeill (Illustrator); Dutton, 2003

Ages 4-8

"Backseat race- All in place?..."

The rhythmic text poses the question over and over again- Are We There Yet? The family's on a road trip and the full-color art captures the feeling of those long car rides that you spent with your brood. It'll bring back all those memories of being crammed in the backseat with your brother or sister, dog, luggage, food and snacks, and games.

"Boring,Snoring,Zilch to do.Someone pinched me!Wonder who?Open sunroof-Bye-bye, shoe!"

Holy Cow, what a weekend!

A quick madcap recap of the overwhelmingness of it all--

I have to say, when I got off the metro, I was struck by Chinatown being overrun by librarians.

I lost myself in the exhibits, happily getting ARCS for Kiki Strike: The Empress's Tomb by Kirsten Miller and Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale, as well as a slew of others that look really good. The people at Bloomsbury especially were really nice.

I spent a really long time talking to the awesome people at :01 First Second. Did you know there's a sequel to Kampung Boy called Town Boy? There totally is and I have it. They hooked me up with great books and things to look out for. The Lost Colony is moving way up my to read list. Also, :01 ARCs? Awesome. French flaps and no note that they're an ARC. I didn't think they were, until I saw on Amazon that the titles I picked up aren't available yet... I also got a t-shirt. :01 are the good people who brought us American Born Chinese and their other books are awesome and you should check them out. I think it's a great publisher to turn to for people who turn their noses at graphic novels as literature.

Then I headed over to DC Public Library for the book launch and bhangra party with Mitali Perkins. She has some, um, "awesome" pictures of me shaking my white booty, Bollywood style. (I'm rocking out in the brown shirt and flower skirt).

While I was there I got to meet Genevieve and Sara of commenting-fame, Zee Says, Sheila Ruth, MotherReader, Betsy, Julie, Liz B and Kristin and I'm sure a few others.

I was so excited listening to Sara talk about her new book that I forgot to ask what her book that she already had out was, so I looked it up today. EEP! Letters from Rapunzel has been on my "To Read" list for awhile!

Then we headed over to the always fabulous Capital City Brewing Company for dinner. That poor waiter. We were joined by lots of people there and I'm not a good networker, so I didn't get to talk to most of them, but I did get to hang out with Trisha (who provided tasty tasty macadamia nuts) and Kristen. Plus, the Raspberry Hefeweizen? Tasty tasty.

Then, me and my heavy bags took our weary selves home. I got in the car to find a message from Dan saying that our friends were at Etete and I should join them there. So I drove back to town (I live, like a mile across the river so it's not as far as it sounds) and they finished up dinner and we had some chill drinks at DC 9.

The next morning I woke up quite early to run out to a meeting for a group project I'm working on for school. As much as I hate group projects, this is actually pretty good (and I'm not just saying that because my group members might be reading this.) It's a small group and we have super on-topic meetings and our project is about banned children's books.

Then I headed back downtown. I went to the ALA store and picked up the new Banned Books Resource Guide (why isn't ALA selling that online by itself?) and such exciting things as the Intellectual Freedom Manual. And an Orlando Bloom key chain.

Then I headed down to Graphic Novel land and talked to some really, really great people. Graphic novel people are the best. The really best part was unexpectedly seeing my college buddy Kasia manning the TokyoPop! booth. To show how useful specific college knowledge can be, we were in modern Chinese history together.

I talked to the people at Papercutz, which was exciting, because I'm a big fan of the Nancy Drew graphic novels. We had a nice talk about the movie, which the publisher had seen, but I haven't (yet)-- I think I might go this weekend.

Then, holy cow, the people at DC Comics? So awesome. DC also published Vertigo and Minx. I picked up an ARC of Good as Lily and a copy of The Plain Janes, which I really want to read. I also saw a copy of my long-awaited Fables Vol. 9: Sons of Empire. I asked them to sell it to me, but they didn't have any sale copies. I bemoaned how Amazon keeps pushing publication back. The nice lady at Vertigo was very confused because she said that it was out already. I was all AMAZON! WTF?! But, when I checked Amazon today? It's totally on my front porch, waiting for me to come home from class. Yippee! But we had a great talk about Fables, and, once again, I was told I need to read Y: The Last Man Vol. 1: Unmanned.

Then I wandered over academic land, and spent a lot of time looking at the Chinese language publishers. I fell in love with Companion. So pretty.

Then, I ran into my friend Ann.

Then, I went to hear Judy Blume read. I cannot believe she is almost 70! Also, be warned, Judy is a crier. I'm kinda PMS-y. I cried through the whole thing. She's writing more books, which makes me so happy. Her signing line was loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong. In line, I got to talk to the people around me and a really nice librarian GAVE ME her Deathly Hallows bag that I missed at Scholastic. GAVE ME! Librarians really are the nicest people in the world. Also, I got bonus points with Ms. Blume because I had her sign my copy of Forever, which is super-duper old skool.

The line was so long, and snaked around so much, I actually got 2 other books signed while in the Judy line! It was a pleasant surprise to go by the signing for The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears. I've heard such great things about it and am really looking forward to reading it. Plus, how can you pass up a book called It Hurts When I Poop!: A Story for Children Who Are Scared to Use the Potty. And, while I was in line, I ran into my friend Gillian, whom I grew up with.

THEN! I found out the Gene Luen Yang was signing, so I went over there. While in line, I found out from the good people at TOR, that there will be no more Yolen/Stemple Rock 'N Roll Fairy Tales. Very sad. (It just wasn't making enough money. Boo hoo hoo. They were really good.)

Then I ran into my boss. And I saw some pages from the new edition of Pippi Longstocking which is illustrated by Lauren Child! AND! THEN! I snagged an ARC of Seeing Redd, the sequel to The Looking Glass Wars.

This was all followed up by the delightful Book Cart Drill Team World Championships. I need to get involved in this. Fuse has some great video and pictures. Emcee and commentary was provided by Mo Willems and Jon Scieszka. Awesome.

Then I went home and collapsed.

My only regret? I didn't get to see Roger. He wasn't at the Horn Book booth by the time I got there. Ah well.

I woke up this morning very sore from lugging around all those books. But when I got to work, I got an email from Gail Gauthier, telling me I won her contest! Sweet!

Then, in class, we were shown Text Arc. Do you guys know about this? Check out Alice!