By diversity, they mean “books by and about all kinds of people… boys, girls, all different colours, all different races and religions, all different sexualities and all different disabilities and anything else you can think of – so our books don’t leave anyone out.”
Benjamin Zephaniah whose Terror Kid is the Guardian Teen Book Club choice says:
“I love diversity. I love multiculturalism… It makes Britain´s music interesting. It makes our food interesting. It makes our literature interesting and it makes for a more interesting country … To me it’s not about black, white, Asian; it’s about literature for everybody.”
And there you have it: the criterion must be the quality of the literature. I see little value in writing or publishing books to satisfy some sort of quota to reflect the percentages of ethnic or racial populations or other minorities.
The Guardian published
a list of 50 books chosen to represent all manner of cultural diversity, from the amazing Amazing Grace by Mary Hoffman to Oranges in No Man´s Land by Elizabeth Laird.
Here are a few of my favourite books that are outstanding in every way and that also open windows on to different ways of seeing the world.
The Arrival, by Shaun Tan, is a wordless book about the experience of emigration/immigration, following the lonely journey of a man to a new country where everything is different and inexplicable. (He signed my copy when he spoke at a Children´s Books Ireland conference a few years ago and it is one of most treasured possessions.)
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, is a graphic novel based on her experiences during the cultural and political upheaval of the Iranian revolution after the overthrown of the Shah. This is a real eye-opener from the first pages showing tiny girls swathed in unfamiliar and unwanted veils in their school playground.
My Dad´s A Birdman, by David Almond, illustrated joyfully and colourfully by Polly Dunbar, is a terrific book about a young girl and her dad who is so overwhelmed with grief that he goes off the rails. It is suffused with love and tenderness and faith in the act of flying as Dad and daughter take part in a madcap and magical contest to sprout wings and fly across the river.
Wonder by R.J. Palacio is the story of Auggie, a boy with a shocking facial disfigurement who is
starting 5
th grade after years of home schooling: imagine how he is dreading it - “I won´t describe what I look like. Whatever you´re thinking, it´s probably worse.
I would like to add two more joyful books to the mix:
From Tangerine Books, a wonderful
picture book, Larry and Friends, by Ecuadorian illustrator Carla Torres in collaboration with Belgian/Venezuelan writer Nat Jasper celebrating the modern melting pot that is New York.
Larry, the New York dog, holds a party for all his amazing immigrant friends among them Magpa the pig from Poland who became a tightrope artist, Laila the Iranian entomologist, Edgar the Colombian alligator street musician, Ulises, the Greek cook and a host of other talented and tolerant newcomers to the city – all apparently based on real people and how they met up.
The book project was successfully funded by kickstarter – see more about it
here.
As you can see, the illustrations are divine - this is Layla, the Iranian entomologist who works at the museum.
And finally, another great classic is The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats (1963), possibly one of the earliest American picture books to feature a young African-American hero – although this is never mentioned in the text. It simply tells the story of a young four year old boy discovering snow in the city for the first time.
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My Dad always said I should open a bookshop and although we disagreed a good deal about what I should do with my “education” he was absolutely right about me and books. I have been very lucky to have had a relationship with the Newham Bookshop since 1983 after we had set up home in East Ham. It was also around this time that I met Vivian Archer who then ran the Paperback Centre in nearby Green Street and who in 1987 moved over to the shop in the Barking Road where she has presided ever since. I initially worked part-time in the shop but when our second child came along I returned to social work.
It was Vivian who encouraged and supported me to return to bookselling when John and Jean, stalwarts of the children’s shop, began to plan for their retirements. I have never regretted the move for one moment and despite the almost ceaseless changes within the publishing industry I never ever wake up reluctant to go to work! I love living and working in a vibrant and diverse part of London where I spend most of my day enthusing and sharing information about books and reading. My mission has always been to try to bring the best books to the community and to endeavour to ensure children see themselves in the stories and pictures. I value the conversations I have with customers of all ages and the feedback I receive on what worked and what did not! We have been privileged to have been supported by our local community as we look ahead to our 34th year of trading in 2012.
There is a process which I have been involved in on countless occasions. It begins with the arrival of a manuscript or proof copy which I usually open with all the excitement of a child anticipating a long awaited birthday present. It can then lead to attending a launch event where it might be possible to congratulate the new author and wish them and their book well. An event might follow which wherever possible is carefully planned and executed in an effort to ensure everyone benefits from the experience. If all goes well there may be other events with a successive title or even a new series. The venue may need to change to accommodate a bigger audience. The quality and quantity of questions may then encompass matters relating to plot or characters rather then simply the usual round of probing for details of earnings accrued or how long it takes to write a book.
We have been supported by many authors over the years who have regularly returned for events and signings. One of our earliest and most important supporters was the writer and compiler of oral histories Gilda O’Neill who very sadly passed away last year. Gilda was always generous with her time and never missed an opportunity to point people in our direction. Benjamin Zephaniah and Michael Rosen have also been hugely supportive of what we do and our work with them was inspirational in giving us the confidence to develop the events work which is now integral to our business. It is a must for bookshops to cultivate relationships with authors and illustrators and develop mutually supportive ways of working together. It is also vital to have contact with sales reps and it is sad to witness them becoming a diminishing part of the trade. I always look forward to being shown new titles and love the fact that this will often spark off ideas for promotions and activities both within and outside the shop!
Some years ago now Bali Rai was being his usual entertaining self in an event at the central library here in Newham. A young and dedicated teacher had managed to persuade three teenagers who were not keen readers to come along to the after school session. As B
Today is National Poetry Day, and Britain's favourite top three poets are, in order, T.S.Eliot, John Donne and Benjamin Zephaniah. So far so good.
Thomas Stearns Eliot I first discovered as part of my English Literature degree, and my battered and well-thumbed copy of his Collected Works is full of impenetrable studenty scribblings such as 'theological beliefs also fragmented throughout but imagery becomes predominant here.' Nowadays I prefer to savour his words out loud, letting them linger on my tongue and relishing the sound of them falling into silence. Poetry, for me, is a pleasure of both eye and voice.
John Donne was also a degree course discovery--and again, my copy of his works is annotated by my secondhand interpretation of that long-ago tutor's ideas on the metaphysical. Those were the days of frantic deconstruction, and it took me a while to shake off the dust of that horror from my feet. One of my favourite poems of all time is
Goe and Catche a Falling Starre--something about its hypnotic, spell-like rhythms speaks to the soul of my imagination, and I even tried my own tribute to it, thus:
Spellsong
(for John Donne 1571-1631)
Go and save a dying star,
Seek magic from an ash tree root,
Ask me where the Fair Folk are,
Grasp a firebird's feathered foot.
Treasure up a seal's soft singing,
Hold fast to a nettle's stinging,
And find
What wind
Blows spellsongs at a wizard's mind.
As for Ben Zephaniah, my
May blog about him will tell you that I am a huge admirer of his work, and I am delighted that the people who entered the poll obviously feel the same way. He is passionate, funny, delightful, controversial, honest, challenging--all the things a poet should be in this modern age.
But you will see that the title of this piece is 'National Poetry Disgrace?' Why? Because a less happy headline today has been that 58% of primary school teachers (yes,
58%) cannot name more than two poets and just 10% could name 6--the number asked for. Although the article is in the
Daily Mail (not usually my paper of choice), the study was a joint one done by Cambridge, the OU and Reading Universities--all reputable bodies. We are also told by
Scholastic Magazine that more than a quarter of parents have never sung or read a nursery rhyme to their children. In combination, these two reports lay bare a devastating lack in our children's education. Poetry--and nursery rhymes are also poetry--teach rhythm, rhyme and pattern--all important developmental building blocks for young ones. Luckily Booktrust's
Bookstart has made a beginning attempt at addressing this disgraceful situation by distributing one million books with 8 favourite rhymes in them--and also promoting storytelling, song and poetry sessions all over the UK, I just hope it's enough to start us on the long steep road to recovering our poetic heritage for the next generation.
How many children now read printed poetry for pleasure? Did they ever? Or is it just one of those things that has to be got through at school and then forgotten forever? I don’t think so. Poetry is part of all our lives. We start off as babies being sung to—not all of us, but most. Lullabies, nursery rhymes—all poetry. All of us can remember some of those, and we probably pass them on to our own children. They are part of the fabric of our family lives. But what happens later on? Certainly there are many excellent teachers who inspire and encourage children to write poetry, and it is taught to GCSE and A level (though the curriculum collections are not terribly exciting according to my son). However, most children I talk to find conventional written poetry totally irrelevant to their daily existence, even though they’ll listen to songs (poetry and music) all day on their i-pods—and maybe even learn the lyrics. They would read a book for pleasure—but a book of poetry? Forget it! That’s, like, homework or something. As a poet myself, writing for both children and adults, I find this deeply discouraging, and yet I will not stop writing poetry because of it.
For me, writing a poem is the most sublime of literary experiences in miniature. Every word—where it goes, what it is next to—every comma and full stop and colon or the lack of them, matters to me, whether it is ‘fun’ poetry such as limericks and modern nursery rhymes, or something more serious and deep. But—and this is important—what matters to me as a poet is not necessarily what matters to my readers. When I was doing my MA at Edinburgh, we did something called ‘deconstruction’ as a form of literary criticism. This was supposed somehow to give students an insight into the mind of the poet and his or her meaning. Deconstructing John Donne ruined his poems for me for years (and I think that Jacques Derrida, the inventor of deconstruction, should be consigned to Purgatory, but that is another discussion!). In my opinion (and please feel free to disagree), the essence of a poem will be experienced differently by each and every reader. However the one thing that will be held in common if it is a good poem is that the heart or mind have been touched by some sort of recognition, some sort of ‘oh yes—I have felt/seen/done (or whatever) that’ moment. My own adult poetry writing is triggered by all sorts of things—a walk, emotions high and low, a heard word, the colour of grass, the lines on my mother’s hand to name but a few. I write it for me, because I simply have to get that particular part of me down on paper. I fiddle and wrestle and reformat and layer meanings one on the other until I feel it is perfect of its kind—whether triolet or sonnet or free form. I no longer have to make it rhyme—though I do sometimes. What matters is the baring of my soul, and very often these poems are private and never shown to anyone. They don’t necessarily need any audience except me. My children’s poetry is different. That’s what I have fun with, play with, and hopefully sell. But it’s just as important to me to get it as perfect as I can. This applies to all my writing of course—but because a poem is shorter by its nature, every word is weighed and balanced, every syllable must count or out it goes.
In my own small way I do my best to get a very ancient form of poetry over to the next generation with my
bardic poetry workshops—and I am eternally delighted with the incredible creativity shown by the many children I work with in schools. I know that Michael Rosen, Benjamin Zephaniah and a myriad other poets both sung and unsung do a fantastic job on the road, and that poetry is manifested in many other ways—listen to rap lyrics for some very good modern examples of ‘non-conventional’ poetry. But I do despair that our children are not reading, discovering and enjoying some of the older stuff—or even the more modern—for themselves outside school. I don’t want to sound like a Grumpy Old Writer (though I fear I do), but I’d love it if the next book of poetry published could cause as much noise, gossip and fanfare and receive as much coverage as
Byron’s ‘Don Juan’ did when it appeared in 1819. It’s ‘a thousand pities’ that it probably won’t.
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What an inspiring post! Long may booksellers like YOU continue!
What a lovely and positive post to read on a gloomy Sunday morning, John! Especially now I've discovered that Newham bookshop isn't too far from occasional visits to Wanstead. Thank you for your continuing optimism about school and library visits, as well as authors & books. (Enjoyed the Bali Rai story too.)
John, it's people like you who keep the book trade so vibrant, and the energy you have put into the Newham Bookshop has reaped huge rewards for your community. I've seen you in action, and all I can say is long live your independent bookshop and the relations you forge with the book trade, schools and authors.
A bookshop like yours is a gem - I wish I lived closer!
Hear, hear to the previous comments! And what a joy it is to read this piece, John. As a writer, reader, parent and bookshop-customer... it's inspiring on all fronts. The photo is wonderful: an Aladdin's cave & magical glade in one! May the Newham Bookshop go from strength to strength. I just wish I lived round the corner...
Your bookshop sounds such fun, and your enthusiasm for books and readers really shines through. Thanks for taking the trouble to tell us about yourself and the shop, and I hope you go from strength to strength!
More power to your elbow, John!
Oh, can you please open a branch in Henley, John?
Nice post, John - great photo! I can still remember the lovely review you gave "I am the Great Horse" so it's good to have this chance to thank you (very, very much!) I know it's been a while since that one, but I have now found a lovely new publisher in Templar, so more books are on their way...
Great stuff John, keep up the excellent work!
Fantastic, your dedication and enthusiasm really comes through, and how cool is that photo?! Love the vibrancy of the colours on the wall. This was a real joy to read.
Great portrait, verbal and visual, of a Man At Work.
We writers complain a lot - but perhaps sometimes we have the less complicated end of the deal? All we have to do is write the stuff. Getting it to the right readers is a far more complicated process, and definitely no more a nine-to-five job than writing is.
Anyway, thank you for the fantastic reminder of what it is privilege to work with dedicated and professional booksellers.
What a wonderful 'grotto' of books and a place to lose oneself in! As Michelle says it's good for writers to be reminded of what goes into enthusing readers once the book is out there. I'm going to definitely pop across to experience that wonderful space, John. Thank you for a lovely blog.
What a wonderful place. Just wish I didn't live do far away!
Great article John. Welcome to the world of online publishing.
One other thing that John doesn't mention here - he has fantastic taste in books. If you chat to him for a few minutes, you'll come away with a list of titles and authors that you feel inspired and determined to read.
What a shop! You are such a little squirrel, John, with all those wonderful books around you. We writers just have our bookshelves but you have rooms full of books. I know it's hard work but what joy! Thanks for being such an inspiration.
I'm so pleased to read you still enjoy opening up those proofs, John! I'm sure your enthusiasm passes on to your customers. May you weather the economic storms splendidly!
Just looking at that photo makes me want to step inside your shop! Maybe I will manage it on my next trip South.
I'm working with a local independent bookshop tomorrow on a children's event - and it's lovely to be able to focus on my side of things, interacting with the childre, knowing that the book-selling is looked after by somebody else. It's great to think that events can work, and can be a way for booksellers and writers to come together and provide a really great experience for readers.