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On Friday, June 4th, Zetta Elliott and I were in San Francisco for the 2016 Association of Children's Librarians of northern California's annual institute. If you're on twitter you can find some of the gems from the daylong conference using the hashtag #ACLInst2016. Our remarks were taped. Here they are:

• Hi-ho, folks. Well, there’s a nice little second part to that interview I did with Kidlit TV last week.  Basically, if you’ve ever wanted me to predict the Newbery and Caldecott on air or offer up my assessment of the worst written children’s book of 2014, you are in luck.  I think there may even be some additional free copies of WILD THINGS: ACTS OF MISCHIEF IN CHILDREN’S LITERATURE in the offering as well.

• In other news, I wouldn’t call this next link workplace safe.  Not because it’s gross or inappropriate in any way.  More because it’s going to make you laugh out loud, probably in a rude snorting-like fashion.  The kind of sound a hippo might admire.  When I worked the children’s reference desk there were certain websites I was not allowed to read because they’d make me give great gulping guffaws and scare the little children.  And a close close examination of Goodnight Moon?  Yep.  That would be dangerous.  Ditto the author’s previous post on Knuffle Bunny.

• Hey, New Yorkers! Those of you who happen to find yourself with time to spare this Sunday and need somewhere to be.  You like author Gregory Maguire?  You like Tuck Everlasting?  You like the idea of actually seeing Natalie Babbitt for yourself live and in person?  Well Symphony Space is having a heck of a cool event with all these elements put together, and I cannot help but think you’ll have a good time if you attend.  Just sayin’.

• I come home from work the other day and my husband says, “So. You heard about that J.J. Abrams / Mo Willems thing, right?” Come again?  What the which now?  Yes indeed, there was a story going around the news about a case of mistaken identity between Mo Willems and Mo Williams.  It’s a funny piece, but I do wish they let us know if Abrams ever actually got in touch with Mo.

• Full credit to Zetta Elliott.  She has created a list of all the 2014 African American Black-authored middle grade and young adult novels were published in the US in 2014.  She found 40.  An incredibly low number, but the list should prove useful to those of you preparing for some African-American book displays in your libraries and bookstores.

New Blog Alert: With two small children in the house (slash taking up valuable cranial real estate) I haven’t indulged in my blog readings like I used to.  I miss things.  So a picture book blog like Magpie That can exist for lord only knows how long before I see it.  And talk about content!  Or a beautiful layout!  If the plethora of illustrators providing magpies along the side are any indication, this site’s been up for a while. A lovely thing to stumble upon then.

Oo!  Thing!  So recently PW was kind enough to write up my last Children’s Literary Salon on the topic of science fiction for kids (as in, why the heck don’t we have any?). Now I know that some of you are planning on coming to NYC for the SCBWI Conference at the beginning of February.  I’m sure you have a lot on your plate, but if you just happen to be free on Saturday, February 7th at 2:00 p.m., take a stroll over to the main branch of NYPL for my (free!) Children’s Literary Salon on “Collaborating Couples“. The description:

Living together is one thing.  Working together?  Another entirely.  Just in time for Valentine’s Day, join married couples Andrea & Brian Pinkney (MARTIN & MAHALIA) and Sean Qualls & Selina Alko (THE CASE FOR LOVING), and Betsy & Ted Lewin (HOW TO BABYSIT A LEOPARD) as they discuss the pitfalls and pleasures of creating collaboratively.

For a full roster of my upcoming Salons (more are in the works) go here.

title: The Deep

author: Zetta Elliott

date: 2013; Rosetta Press

main character: Nyla

The Deep continues the stories of Nyla, Keem and D that began in Ship of Souls. While Ship of Souls was D’s story, The Deep is Nyla’s. We knew something happened to Nyla in Germany and now we find what it was and how that terror stole Nyla’s sense of self. She moves to Brooklyn with her stepmother and begins covering herself in an array of body piercings, spiked hair and black clothing. In appearance, she is oddly matched with Keem, an attractive athlete, but he seemed to give her the space and respect that she needed. She is as impulsive in her decision-making as any 14-year-old would be.

As a character, I found Nyla difficult to like just as I imagine a real life Nyla would be. A smart black girl struggling with so many personal issues, would indeed take some special love if you didn’t know her. This girl managed to build a thick, protective covering around herself that didn’t manage to interfere with her sense of independence or her core values.

Before leaving for Brooklyn, Nyla rhetorically asks if she could indeed belong in Brooklyn. Identity and fitting in are themes in this book and they’re themes that shape the lives of many nerdy black girls who rarely find themselves represented in American media. Nyla finds that she has a special purpose, a unique calling that comes from her mother; the woman who walked out on her and her father when she was 4 years old.

Elliott creates a strong sense of place as the Brooklyn landscape plays a prominent role in Nyla’s fate. Prominent public locations become portals that transport Nyla into the deep and deliver important messages to the characters. As D, Keem and Nyla ride the trains, visit the pizza shops and hangout out in the parks we feel such a strong connection to this place that we want to believe this is where they all belong. But our Nyla is being pulled away.

These three friends are once again confronted by powers from below the ground that  bring many threats, not the least of which is the threat to end their friendships. Nyla struggles with her new-found powers and with so many major elements in the book, yet Elliott lets these teens remain teens. Each of them wants to know how to maintain  relationships with parents, friends and lovers. And, each of them wants to find their place in the world. Well, D and Nyla do. We still need to hear Keem’s story!

Elliott continues to self publish imaginative and provocative young adult speculative fiction. Her commitment to her readers is evident in the honest portrayals that she gives them. Zetta sent me a copy of this book back in December when I was knee deep in BFYA reading. I never committed to when I would read The Deep and honestly, I didn’t want to read it because I didn’t want to not like it. I shouldn’t have doubted her skills.

Yesterday, my nutritionist mentioned that she could not believe we were already in mid November. Time can get away from us can’t it? I like what Zetta Elliott does every December. She creates an annual retrospective pulling information from her blog and FB posts which helps her see all she has accomplished during the previous year. Looking over what we post in blogs or journals, write about in emails or have taken photos of during the year is a much more powerful statement than the book that didn’t get finished (whether we were reading or writing it!), the project that never got started or the trip that got postponed yet again. Let’s look at what was there and see what was accomplished.

I had pretty much the same thoughts earlier this week when I read and commented on a blog post addressed to John Green and the lack of diversity in his books. I wrote a quick impulsive response, thought about it and wrote another one and still don’t think I said it quite right.

I don’t think John Green should have to include characters of color in his writings no more than I think Coe Booth or Malin Alegria should have to include Whites or Asians in theirs. Authors write best when they write what they know. If they know an all white or an all Latino world, then write that. I may wonder how a neighborhood that I know to be rich in diversity can be portrayed as being so very White, but I know people don’t all seek or have the same experience. I know there are Blacks and Latinos who live in monolithic worlds just are there are Whites who do so. The problem I have is that those white readers can easily find books that reflect how they perceive their world while black and Latino readers have a very hard time find books written by those who understand their world and can write about it. While it amazes me that people can continue to live lives that lack diversity with respect to the types of people they interact with, foods they eat or books they read, I have to accept that there are people who question why anyone would want any type of diversity in their lives. Sure, we could argue that books are the perfect arena to introduce people to different thoughts and ideas, there are readers who don’t want that. They read for other reasons than to explore the world around them.

Why do you read?

Publishers Weekly recently released it’s best of 2013. Looking at the list of children’s books, I am wow-ed by the wide variety of literature on the list. The list includes British fiction, GLBT teens, a character with dyslexia, a female action lead character in a graphic novel, 16th century Scandinavia and monsters in Victorian London. Books by or about people of color are the following.

Boxers and Saints by Gene Juen Yang; Lark Pien

P.S. Be Eleven by Rita Williams-Garcia

The Thing about Luck by Cynthia Kadohata

Courage Has No Color: The True Story of the Triple Nickles America’s First Black Paratroopers by Tonya Lee Stone

These books stand as markers of what was published in 2013. Do you think they’re the best?

The Hispanic Division and the Center for the Book of the Library of Congress will honor Sonia Manzano for The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano (Scholastic) with the America’s Award for Children’s and Young Adult Literature by the Consortium of Latin American Studies Program on Monday 23 September in Washington DC.

First Book made headlines this past summer when they targeted purchases from two publishers to increase the availability of diverse books for young readers. After distributing books from HarperCollins and Lee and Low around the country, First book has announced the second phase of their program.

So what’s next for First Book? In June, the group unveiled at the Clinton Global Initiative America the planned next phase of the project, a “Commitment to Action” that includes outreach to 30,000 new schools and programs, special collections of diverse and multicultural titles, matching grants for educators, and an influential council of authors to help inspire new books and stories.

In the past few weeks, I’ve noticed a growing dynamic in the demand for diversity in characters and authors in YA lit. Sure, it may be just another phase that the industry is experiencing, but I feel a real commitment from the individuals who are speaking up. They’re making statements that express concerns and beliefs they live with all the time. School Library Journal recently held a virtual conference “Embracing Diversity” which resulting in an article full of diversity resources.

The mosaic on Elephant Rag blog is a great place to find new books that reflect the world around us.

From authors Kelbion Noel and Zetta Elliott

Everyone deserves to see themselves in the pages. That’s what Diversity Reads is all about. Allowing youth the opportunity to enjoy speculative fiction featuring characters who look and deal, just like them. The non-profit is introducing a quarterly series, featuring multicultural authors of speculative fiction works, featuring main characters of color. Stay tuned for an event near you!

Their first event, “Black Magic” is in Toronto on 21 Sept.

Author Carole Boston Weatherford visited the Brown Bookshelf to discuss her book, Birmingham 1963 which pays homage to the four girls who lost their lives in a church bombing 50 years ago.

Lisa Yee is publishing on Paper Li.  STET, Good Books and Bad Dogs and Outer Space Stuff is brought to you daily.She’s much better at that than I am! I have a weekly publication but all I news I manage to collect comes from YALSA. I’m working on it!

Author Cynthia Leitich Smith will be presenting a Graphic Novel Writing workshop in Austin on 5 Oct. To prepare for this event, her blog recently featured an interview with her conducted by Samantha Clark, Austin SCBWI’s regional advisor, Why did she take her Tantalize series to graphic format?

The Tantalize series struck me as a great fit for graphic format. The books are genre benders–Gothic fantasies with strong elements of romance, mystery/suspense and some humor. They’re high action, rich in setting – an alternative Austin; Dallas; Chicago; small-town Michigan; Montpelier, Vermont – and offer diverse protagonists and visually arresting creatures (angels, vampires, werearmadillos).

Me? I’m working at the reference desk today! I’m looking forward to my first visit to Rose Hulman’s library this week to hear a speaker that’s part of the Muslim Journey bookshelf on which we’ve partnered. And, I’m reading reading reading for BFYA! With regards to BFYA, I’m really excited to have identified several ways to distribute the books I’ve been receiving. Of course, some have been going to the Indiana State University library! Advanced copies have been going to area teachers for their classroom libraries. Others will soon ship to the Boys and Girls Club of Burbank and in March I hope to distribute the remaining hundreds to school libraries here in Indiana. Thanks to a wonderful suggestion from Suzanne Walker, the Children’s Librarian for the state of Indiana, I’m planning a mini-grant program to send the books to the neediest libraries in the state. Hopefully, I’ve found a way to get it funded as well!

You?!! I hope you have a fantastic week and that your favorite team wins, unless they’re playing the Colts!

It is WAY too late in the day for me to be only starting a Fusenews post now.  All right, guys. Looks like we’re gonna have to do today double quick time.  Sorry, but I’ve a ticking time bomb in the other room (sometimes also known as “my daughter”) and I gotsta gets to bed before midnight.  Here we go!

• How does one receive the news that they won a Caldecott?  Peter Brown gives us the rundown.

• February means only one thing.  The Brown Bookshelf has resumed their 28 Days Later campaign.  So stop complaining about the fact that black writers and illustrators aren’t better acknowledged and actually read all about them!  This is your required reading of the month.  And no, I’m not joking.

• Some sad Obit news.  Diane Wolkstein, storyteller and picture book/folktale author passed away after heart surgery in Taiwan.

• Happier news.  My mom, the published poet, gets interviewed by Foreword Magazine.  Note the copious Little Women references.

• The happiest news of all.  This will, if you are anything like me, make your day.  Delightful doesn’t even begin to describe it.  Thanks to Robin Springberg Parry for the link.

• Were you aware that there was an offensive Flat Stanley book out there?  Nor I.  And yet . . .

• Hat tip to the ShelfTalker folks for actually putting together the top starred books of 2012.  Mind you, only YA titles can get seven stars because (I think) they include VOYA.  Ah well.

• Breaking News: People use libraries.  In a related story, sun is hot and water is wet.  Sheesh.

I thought I’d counted very carefully, honest guv’nor, but somehow one extra ghost snuck in there – I’m not sure which one – and I’ve ended up with a ‘Reader’s 10′. (If you’re not sure what a Reader’s 10 is, you’ll need to look at Janet Wong’s Top 10: Multicultural Poetry Picks (2002-2012)). So here’s a list of my favorite ghost encounters – they cover a range of age-groups and genres. Some of the ghosts are friendly, some make you ponder, and some are just plain terrifying…

~ The Young Inferno by John Agard, illustrated by Satoshi Kitamura – I’ve blogged about this modern take on Dante’s Inferno for a teen audience here and here.  It sends shivers down my spine every time I read it.

~ Takeshita Demons by Cristy Burne – Miku has just moved from Japan to the UK and it soon becomes clear that several yokai demons have followed her there.  When her little brother is kidnapped, her empty, snow-bound secondary school unexpectedly becomes a battle-ground… this will have you on the edge of your seat!

~ Ship of Souls by Zetta Elliott – I read this earlier this year on a very choppy ferry crossing and was so riveted that I remained oblivious to the scene of sea-sick desolation around me – yes, I loved it.  Read my review here.

~ Ghosts in the House by Kazuno Kohara – it was love at first sight here with both the illustrations and the sweet story of a witch and her cat who move into a new house that’s full of ghosts.  Imagine putting ghosts through the washer and hanging them up as curtains!

~ Hannah’s Winter by Kierin Meehan – Hannah meets more than she bargained for when she goes to stay with Japanese family friends for the winter – and readers might just have to sleep with the light on after being carried along through the pages into the small wee hours!

~ Just In Case by Yuyi Morales – in this gorgeous sequel to the equally funny and delightful Just A Minute, the ghost of Zelmiro “helps” Señor Calavera to find twenty-two (Spanish Alphabet) presents for Grandma Beetle’s birthday – and tricks him into giving her what she wants most…

~ Requiem for a Beast by Matt Ottley – there are many ghosts in this tour de force combining spoken and written text, graphic narrative, and music that blends Australian Aboriginal song and movements from the Latin Requiem: both in the lost memories of the stolen generation, and at the end of a young man’s physical and psychological journeys to come to terms with his family’s past.

~ Home of the Brave by Allen Say – a man’s kayaking excursion suddenly brings him into a bewildering, dreamlike encounter with the ghosts of Japanese-American children incarcerated during the Second World War, and jolts him into insight of his own family history.

~ The Barefoot Book of Giants, Ghosts and Goblins retold by John Matthews, illustrated by Giovanni Manna – as might be expected from a Barefoot anthology, this is a beautifully presented and the nine stories from all over the world make great read-alouds. Most notable among the ghosts is the love-sick Cheyenne “Ghost with Two Faces”.

~ The Secret Keepers by Paul Yee – I have to admit, I had real difficulty deciding which one of Paul Yee’s ghost stories to choose for this list… They are all compelling books that are impossible to put down so I’ve gone for The Secret Keepers for purely personal reasons because I was there at the launch and heard Paul reciting the opening.

~ The Ghost Fox by Laurence Yep – a small boy has to use his wits to save his mother from the evil Ghost Fox intent on stealing her soul.  Vivid descriptions and attention to detail; plkenty of tension and some humor too.  Favorite quote: (Fox speaking to servant) “Fool, you don’t celebrate a great victory with turnips.”

And P.S. If you haven’t yet seen our fabulous 10th Anniversary Giveaway, announced yesterday, go here right now!

Author Zetta Elliott has a new book out, SHIP OF SOULS, and in it she answers the question she asks herself when starting a new novel: “Whose voices do we not hear?”

SHIP OF SOULS by Zetta Elliott

Michele Howe Clarke talks to me about the fine art of “Facing Forward” after living through an unusual bout of cancer that left her disfigured, but not discouraged. W.A.R., author, Matt de la Pena talks about his recent trip to Tucson, AZ, and what it feels like having your well-received novel pulled from the bookshelves. Lastly, author Zetta Elliott, sheds light on the Trayvon Martin case – the not so fun reaction to the HUNGER GAMES movie; as well as some highlights from her latest novel, SHIP OF SOULS.

As most of you already know

…last week I hosted a symposium at my school: A Conversation About Books, and  for some reason - the more I reflect on it - the more I think about how much it reminded me of a blog.  Meaning…it had EVERYTHING!  

Here are some snippets from Zetta’s speech.

There were questions to ponder; a speaker who shared her story; publishers who shared their new releases. There were books and resources to share, and attendees who shared their feedback.  And while I am on a share ‘tear’,  there was also FOOD…to share!  *smile*

Why did it take me a week to write about my feedback?

Quite honestly, I wasn’t sure if it was well received.  We’re our own worst critics. (((More about that in Part 2.))) 

So it took a week for me to process all of this, and then something out of no where hit me like a bat! POW! Conferences/workshops/panels/speeches – all of these professional development opportunities are rapidly changing and they are NOT at all the way they used to be.  They are no longer static! I guess it’s the nature of the beast when you’re in a world filled with sharing and sharers. 

It’s organic, yet unpredicatable, when entering today’s forums, what will be the expectation. That said, the 21st century conference goers MUST appreciate that just like the rapidfire ways that are changing: books, schools, technology, social networking, teachers, etc., Today’s conferences are changing, too! Are we ready?!

So not to overwhelm you, today, I will the symposium outline and the feedback. That way you will fully grasp my own feedback, as to how I feel it went.  I don’t mean to milk this. I just want it to be crystal clear.

You’ll also notice that I have removed the W.A.R from my headline. I did this because I believe, and as a result of the symposium, next steps are in order. Next steps meaning, YOUR STORY, MY STORY, and why Zetta’s story was an important one for attendees to hear.

(((Part 1 – My thank you letter which was sent last Friday, included the attendees’ feedback. You’ll see, really good stuff emerged!!! Also, if any of you are interested in joining my growing committee, send me an e-mail. We will have another symposium in the fall – fingers crossed.)))

Hi, everyone!

Thank you so much for visiting Hewitt and participating in A Conversation About Books! It was a terrific start to what I am sure will be an ongoing discussion for educators everywhere.

As promised, here are your responses from the symposium questions, which are pretty provocative. And for those who were unable to attend, here is the link to the packet of resources.

In the coming weeks, I will be assembling a small committee to discuss ways to continue the conversation…If you ar

Like Anne Frank, Genna Colon, in Zetta Elliott’s A WISH AFTER MIDNIGHT (Rosetta Pres, 2008),  has left an indelible mark on me. 

It’s speculative fiction at its best. It’s also a story that will take any teenager (and adult) on the ride of her life! Just watch the trailer.

Genna has dreams. She’s smart. And Zetta has masterfully woven an old soul into this fifteen year old girl. Adults can appreciate Genna’s maturity, while young people can learn a great deal from her bravery and knowledge.  Having a young, African American girl, who to me, is a heroine in this story, could EASILY be a role model for our young people. Yes – we need more role models of color that our kids can relate to.

“I like really old things, things that were made thirty, fifty, or a hundred years ago. In the garden, all the old things still look new because people take care of them. Nobody sprays graffiti all over the place, and you almost never see trash lying on the ground.” A WISH AFTER MIDNIGHT (Rosetta Pres, 2008)

Genna wants what we all want out of life – an opportunity for success. But her life is a struggle. It’s such a struggle that she finds herself wishing and wanting to escape her realities of family struggles, bullying and  a typical teenage with a boy named Judah.

There’s love, adventure, history, and family drama, all rolled up into a story whose sequel I cannot wait to read.

“I crawl out from under the weeping hemlock and try to stand, but my legs are weak and I fall back to the ground just as a cart rolls up with two security guards. I have the impulse but not the energy to run, so I stay as I am and wait to see what they will do.” A WISH AFTER MIDNIGHT (Rosetta Pres, 2008)

For teachers of American History and English, AWAM is the perfect piece of historical fiction that will force students to think about not only the plot, but the elements creating the plot. Hence the speculative fiction being threaded throughout the novel.

AWAM also comes with well-thought-out discussion topics and activities in the back of the book.

Believe me, your students will be riveted by Genna’s tumultuous and magical journey back through time, who she leaves behind, and how she gets back.

I just added Cheryl Willis Hudson’s blog to my blogroll and can’t believe I didn’t have her here sooner. Cheryl is editorial director of Just Us Books, Inc., an independent publishing company that focuses on Black interest books for children and young adults.

Anyway, she has a fantastic post today which I saw via Zetta Elliott’s wall.

Hudson writes in Publishing in Color:

“White and Whatever…
Harlem Book Fair: Why, in 2010, when the nation has elected its first African American president, is the book publishing industry still not meeting the need and demand for books that explore the width and breadth of our country’s multicultural experiences?
A panel of professionals will explore the complex issues and suggest solutions to a problem that is garnering a lot of attention. Please tune in on July 17, 2010 via C-SPan Book-TV for this discussion.” 

Needless to say, I’ll be tuning in.

But the irony is just yesterday  – after receiving Fall 2010 catalogs – I sent an e-mail to the publisher (who I won’t name) requesting a multicultural selection of books to review, since I couldn’t find many in their catalogs.

Again…no response yet.

(Photo and bio blurb comes via CHERYLWILLISHUDSON.wordpress.com)

Today is the release day for Zetta Elliott’s A WISH AFTER MIDNIGHT (encore edition). Since I can’t be there (NYC) to help celebrate her at the launch party, I will have a cupcake here in her honor. A little background on the book, Zetta self-published AWAM in 2009 under her own Rosetta Press through Amazon’s self-publishing program. After selling over 500 copies on her own, she was approached by Amazon’s publishing company, Amazon Encore, to redesign and package the book and be sold through all Amazon avenues, Kindle, paperback, etc. As you may already know, I had the honor of illustrating Zetta’s first picturebook, BIRD, and helped design the original cover for AWAM (I say helped, because Zetta supplied the vision and pictures for the original cover). It has been a pleasure watching this book grow and I am looking forward to seeing how far Zetta soars~

Congrats Z.

See the AWAM blog to keep up with all the happenings. For more information on Zetta and her books visit her website at www.zettaelliott.com, where you can also access her film and writing blog Fledgling.

A Wish After Midnight by Zetta Elliott. AmazonEncore Editions, 2010. Reviewed from CreateSpace edition, won in September in the Color Me Brown Challenge.

The Plot: Genna Colon, fifteen, lives in a one bedroom apartment in Brooklyn with her overworked mother and three siblings. It's not an easy life: roaches in the apartment, her brother Rico hanging out with drug dealers, sister Toshi doing who knows what, but Genna keeps trying. She gets straight As in school, dreams of college, and finds love with Jamaican born Judah. One night, after a fight with her mother, Genna runs to the local gardens and makes a wish at the fountain.

Suddenly, she is back in time. Still in Brooklyn, but as for the time? It's the Civil War. She's dazed, confused, and hurt. The first people who find her don't help; instead, they are two white men who assume she's a runaway slave.

The Good: What a page turner! Genna is so engaging, and she is faced with so many challenges as she struggles to survive in the past. Having twenty first century sensibilities in the face of nineteenth century racism? "Hard" doesn't even begin to describe it, as she tries to build a life and friendships in her new time. I don't want to give too many of the plot points away, because seeing the obstacles Genna encounters and how she climbs over, goes around, or moves it is part of the reason this is a page turner.

Time travel to the past is a great device to use in looking at the past because it allows the reader to learn about history, yet there is no fear of anachronistic viewpoints because a modern day person is interpreting, reacting to, and weighing in on the past. So, here, the reader learns about life in Civil War era Brooklyn and sees the points of view and attitudes of a variety of characters, but there is always Genna's modern sensibilities weighing, judging, understanding.

The Brooklyn of the past comes alive; both in terms of setting (houses, landmarks, waterfront) but also in terms of how people think and act and believe. Part of me wants to go on a A Wish After Midnight tour of Brooklyn; then I remind myself, I don't drive in the city. Genna ends up working as a servant for an Abolitionist family. Happy ending? No; she finds out quickly that just because a person believes in freedom and the end of slavery, doesn't mean that person believes in equality or respect.

Elliott is working on a sequel; part of it is posted at her website. Also at her website? Links to additional information on the history found in the book, perfect for readers like me. An interesting point -- Genna's story is not set in the present (i.e., now), but rather in 2001, and it's clear that September 11 is going to be a factor in the sequel.



Amazon Affiliate. If you click from here to Amazon and buy something, I receive a percentage of the purchase price.

© Elizabeth Burns of A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy

For the 11th question of her What a Girl Wants series, Colleen Mondor asked a number of us one of her typically challenging questions: What does it mean to be a 21st century feminist, and on the literary front, what books/authors would you recommend to today's teens who want to take girl power to the next level?

Lorie Ann Grover, Laurel Snyder, Loree Griffin Burns, Margo Raab, and Zetta Elliott all came through with reliably interesting responses. I was caught up in a series of corporate projects and could not respond in time.

Today, however, I'd like to put my two cents in by recommending Elaine Showalter's A Jury of Her Peers: Celebrating American Women Writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx to readers of any age, gender, or race who wish to understand and celebrate just how hard women have had to work to put their voices on the page—and how women's voices have and will continue to shape us.

Anne Bradstreet, one of this nation's first women writers, entered print, in Showalter's words, "shielded by the authorization, legitimization, and testimony of men." In other words, Showalter continues, "John Woodbridge, her brother-in-law, stood guarantee that Bradstreet herself had written the poems, that she had not initiated their publication, and that she had neglected no housekeeping chore in their making."

No vanity allowed, in other words, and no leaving those dishes in the sink.

Showalter's book—which yields insight into the stories of Phillis Wheatley, Julia Ward Howe, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Emily Dickinson, Edith Wharton, Willa Cather, Dorothy Parker, Zora Neale Hurston, Pearl Buck, Shirley Jackson, Harper Lee, Sylvia Plath, S.E. Hinton, Grace Paley, Joan Didion, Lorrie Moore, Jayne Anne Phillips, Sandra Cixneros, Amy Tan, Louis Erdrich, Jhumpa Lahiri, Gish Jen, and so many others—is itself a piece of history, for it is, unbelievably, the first literary history of American women writers.

Showalter suggests that the development of women's writing might be classified into four phases: feminine, feminist, female, and free. Anyone who wants to know just how we got to free (and to ponder, with the evidence, whether or not we're really there) should be reading this book.

Hey Baltimore! Come out this Sunday to see yours truly and Zetta Elliott at the 14th annual Baltimore Book Festival. We will be presenting BIRD, Sunday, September 27th at 1:00PM. Look for us at the Children’s Bookstore Stage. Now, to find that top hat and cane….

Coretta Scott King Book Award Acceptance Speech July 14, 2009

I am 6 ft 3 inches tall.
I know a lot of people start with “when I was little”.
Well, I was never little.
Growing up I was always big for my age…always the tallest.
Other girls were small, little, cutesy, itsy bitsy even….come to think of it, most of the boys were too.

But feeling big, the bigness that one feels inside, that took a little longer to settle into.
I always felt it in the loving circle of my family.
I felt a glimmer of it in the moments of some of my favorite stories—like when my mother asked God for a child, when David beat Goliath, when Peter woke up to a snowy day, when Manyara won her prince.

I think that 40 years ago, a group of people understood what feeling big is, with the hope of giving it to ALL children, and today, the people who continue to carry the torch still inspire children to be a little bigger, a little taller, a little stronger.

Bigness…I felt it again my first day of high school, going off to college, living abroad, getting into grad school, and being offered a manuscript named “Bird”…but winning the John Steptoe award has made me feel not just big, but giant. A giant with wings to go even higher. Thank you so very much for this tremendous honor.

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The 40th Coretta Scott King Award Ceremony was more than I hoped it would be. I shared the stage with some of my favorite artists and authors and was uplifted by librarians from across the country. I was especially excited to see a lot of familiar faces from the Brooklyn Public Library and the New York Public Library. New York represent! Thank you to everyone who made this possible. Here are a few pictures from the ceremony.

CSK Ceremony Water (that's Sean Qualls, this year's illustration honoree, sitting to the left of me)

Kadir Nelson (this year's author winner and illustrator honoree)

the point of it all

Once more pics are sent to me, I will post away. Now, off to bed, I’m wiped out. I’m looking forward to doing this again sometime!