Tag: children’s book industry

Book Covers, ARCs, and Author Photos…Oh, my!

Remember how my last post promised updates? Here they are!

First, my ARCs (advanced reader copies) came in the mail from Chronicle Books and I was excited enough to try an Instagram reel speaking direct-to-camera. Uncomfortable? Perhaps. Authentic? Definitely. Please follow me there @annawritedraw

I had a blast sitting for my author photos with National Geographic photographer, Becky Hale. Because I knew her in another capacity, I felt very comfortable and she turned out photo after photo that were just stunning. Here’s one of my favorites. I’m so grateful!

Credit: Becky Hale

The ARCs don’t have the final book cover, but I’m thrilled to share that with you today. Illustrator Marco Guadalupi created this fun cover that captures both the similarities and differences of Shira and Esther. I love how he subtly transmits Shira’s vigor and Esther’s studiousness. The Idylldale tenements and the story landmarks of the theater, The Heights, and the synagogue all become a theatrical background framed by the canned spotlights and the title marquee. More on the cover soon!

After so many years of working on the manuscript for SHIRA AND ESTHER’S DOUBLE DREAM DEBUT, it’s amazing to see the book–the thing that people will hold in their hands and actually read– becoming a reality. If you preorder the book from my local indie bookstore, Politics and Prose, you’ll get a signed book and additional swag! The book is also available for preorder anywhere you buy books.

Honoring Many Voices and SCBWI

If there’s one lesson learned from last year’s activism and protests, it’s that silence is complicity. In that spirit, I share some thoughts about the children’s book community, diversity, and SCBWI. 

SCBWI is a family business. As with many family businesses, a few people who were friends and family worked hard at a thing they loved, taking no money for a time. Eventually, they found other people with the same passion, and the organization grew from mimeographed newsletters to an organization with international digital communications and conferences. As the original founders aged, they gave the organization to their children and so it has grown for 50 years. In order to grow, they also needed a small army of volunteers.

That’s right. The Regional Advisors who liaise with members, book hotels, coordinate schedules, plan menus, develop mentorships, judge scholarships…all unpaid. There are also one-and-done volunteer opportunities for event registration, driving industry professionals, etc.

The volunteers in charge of big events recruit already low-paid editors and agents and authors for a small stipend and sometimes travel and lodging reimbursement. No industry professional is getting rich off of these events considering they often put in many hours planning panels and reviewing manuscripts and portfolios to “give back” to the children’s book community with the hope that they’ll find a diamond in the rough.

Back to the volunteers. They are compensated with complimentary entrance to regional and national conferences and VIP events where they might grip and grin with Children’s Book royalty in the hopes that it might further their careers. It’s no surprise that the “it’s who you know” proverb is important in any industry.

Now, doing all this organizing takes a lot of time and energy. The active volunteers are often whiter and wealthier, but there are exceptions. There are some diverse creators who have been working diligently to grow the organization. Some volunteers are not at all wealthy and their sweat equity gets them into places of which they would be otherwise priced out. 

Does this sound familiar? Interns in the children’s publishing world have also been historically whiter and wealthier because they can work unpaid and still live in NYC. Just as interns become industry professionals, Regional Advisors sometimes end up on the Board of Advisors after they have given many years of service.

I was an SCBWI-NE conference co-director in 2008, and co-director of the New England “Many Voices” conference in 2009. I was a Regional Advisor from 2009-2011. In that time, I advocated for scholarships, conferences, and keynoters that would increase diverse representation. It is because I gave so much energy to the organization, that I care about its future. Let me also say that I am writing this with information that was true at the end of my own tenure. If you know of Regional Advisors who are being paid, please say so in the comments.

It is my humble opinion that we will not see lasting change in the organization until the rank and file members are diverse and that diversity is reflected in the regional staff. THAT will not happen until volunteers are replaced by paid staff who are hired to answer to the many voices of its members.

#WNDB: supply and demand in education.

Throughout my tenure at Books of Wonder, my responsibilities shifted and evolved. When Covid-19 forced the store to close and left me jobless, the work was perfectly in line with my personal values. I had become the school outreach manager—a job that seamlessly wove together school & library marketing, professional development trainer, and event planning .

I collaborated with parent volunteers and our school book fair book buyer to create book fair events unique to each school community. I created timelines for the events, handled logistics, and managed sales staff for the book fairs.

I booked authors for school events and created an educator night at the store for publishers to pitch their newest titles.

But the aspect of my job that I really loved was meeting with teachers and administrators to talk about the importance of diverse books. We talked about the Lee & Low Baseline Survey and the CCBC statistics and infographic. I pitched the newest #ownvoices titles and made a few sales. We had honest conversations about parents who might throw up obstacles to LGBQIA+ content. (Most often, the administrators who invited me in said, “Send them to me.”)

Now, I’m thrilled to see that lists (that have existed for a long time) of #ownvoices books are making the rounds on social media. Educators are jumping in and that’s a great thing because increasing and constant school & library demand for these books will ensure that they continue to be published.

I have long advocated for changes to required reading lists to include newer and more diverse titles but there are a series of arguments that keep these lists frozen in time. (BTW: You can replace “lists” with “classroom libraries” in all of the following arguments.) Some of these lists are frozen in time with the excuse that the books on them appear on state and national tests. Some of them are frozen in time because the school has class-sets of those books and has not/will not allocate resources for new titles. Some say they cannot change the list because the books are “classics.” (I urge those teachers to ask themselves, classic for whom?) Some think that because their classrooms are filled with majority white students, that their lists are just fine. Some say they just don’t have the time.

But some of them are frozen in time because educators are used to teaching those books or feel like an imposter teaching other books.

A couple of stories:

  1. I once taught at a school where a teacher had a file of 180 index cards each with her daily teaching plan. She was a veteran teacher, and while I don’t know how long she’d been using those cards, she didn’t deviate from her plans in the five years I taught at that school. That meant any student-led inquiry had to be contained within her box of index cards.
  2. I advocated for new more diverse literature to be added to my son’s AP English required reading in 2017. My plea started when I saw the list at an open house and continued back and forth with the teacher and my school board member until the teacher finally emailed this:

Teachers, at least teachers like me, select art from an extremely personal place. I am not capable of teaching certain books well, because I don’t have a deep connection to them. 

AND:

Since your question at open house I have been trying to nail down why I don’t teach more authors of color; why I don’t feel a strong enough connection to many authors who are not white Europeans. The answer is simple: I’m a white woman, educated in Canada and Europe, with a focus on Slavic languages (still white, though).  The literature I know I can teach well (which may be different from the stuff I read) comes out of those European traditions.

AND Finally:

The other truth that rushed in before I shut the door on this insight was that what we need isn’t so much white, middle-class ladies teaching about the African or Hispanic or Asian experience to our very white population, which always seemed a little fishy to me–what we need is to hire teachers of color. That is the perspective we are actually missing, in my opinion. 

Absolutely, schools that hire all white faculty need to do better. But in my opinion, that is not an excuse to rob all children from reading widely. To me, teaching literature, teaching anything really, is not about knowing everything. It is about curiosity, passion, lifelong learning, and being vulnerable to new learning in a way that inspires your students to do the same.

If your reaction to updating your required reading lists, your classroom libraries, and your curriculum is, “I don’t know enough about these books,” here are some suggestions.

  • Use this summer as an opportunity for professional development and take a Black, Latinx, LGBTQ+ literature class at your local university.
  • Read more.
  • Research more.
  • Invite local scholars to talk to the class and pay them.
  • Plan virtual visits to museums that highlight the author, history, or the culture depicted in the text.
  • Plan virtual author visits and pay the authors.

Or…say to your students on day one. “This year we are changing our required reading list and I’m learning too. Over the next three weeks we will come up with a list of criteria together, do research, and change this list to reflect diverse, high-quality, literature.” Students are amazing. They are demanding change.

And where there is demand, there needs to be supply.

Call for PAL published, mid-list, #kidlit authors

#Kidlit writer/illustrator friends! I took the summer off from blogging for my own WIP and the many transitions happening in my personal world, but great books came out all summer long.

Come September, I’ll be Back-to-School Blogging and would love to focus on your mid-list PB, MG, or YA read that didn’t get enough attention because it was a late spring/summer release. I’d like to post interviews, anatomy-of-an-illustration posts with process drawings, what’s-the-seed-of-your-story posts, and more. Ideally, I’d have enough to post M, W, F throughout September starting 9/5/18. I’ll be prepping these in the next two weeks.

If you are interested in taking part, pitch me your book/post idea with a Facebook message or email. annaeleanorjordan at gmail dot com

VCFA alumni get first dibs so mention that in your note.
If I have space for fall releases I’ll add those in.
SCBWI PAL published books only.

Happy Multicultural Children’s Book Day! #readyourworld Book Reviews

Happy Multicultural Children’s Book Day!

Children’s reading and play advocates Valarie Budayr from Jump Into a Book and Mia Wenjen from Pragmatic Mom teamed up in late 2013 to create an ambitious (and much needed) national event. Today, January 27th, 2015, they are hosting yet another Multicultural Children’s Book Day as a way of celebrating diversity in children’s books.

While #weneeddiversebooks focusses on changing the face of children’s literature by encouraging writers and illustrators from a variety of backgrounds to submit their work and urging changes in the publishing industry, #readyourworld seeks to get multicultural books into classrooms and libraries.

Despite census data that shows 37% of the US population consists of people of color, only 10% of children’s books published have diversity content. Using the Multicultural Children’s Book Day, Mia and Valarie are on a mission to change all of that. Their mission is to not only raise awareness for the kid’s books that celebrate diversity, but to get more of these types of books into classrooms and libraries. Another goal of this exciting event is create a compilation of books and favorite reads that will provide not only a new reading list for the winter, but also a way to expose brilliant books to families, teachers, and libraries.

Here are some ways you can celebrate Multicultural Children’s Book Day:

  • Visit The Multicultural Children’s Book Day website and view the booklists, reading resources and other useful multicultural information.
  • Visit the Multicultural Books for Kids Pinterest Board for more reading ideas.
  • Have children bring in their favorite multicultural book to school on this day and all this week and share it with the class.
  • Watch for the #ReadYourWorld hashtag on social media and share.
  • Visit MCCBD sponsors Wisdom Tales Press, Satya House Publications, DARIA (World Music with DARIA, Rainbow Books and others to discover new books to read.
  • Create a Multicultural Children’s Book Day display around the classroom or library.
  • Visit The Multicultural Children’s Book Day website on January 27th to view and participate in our huge blogger link-up, multicultural book reviews, giveaways and more!

MCCBD team hopes to spread the word and raise awareness about the importance of diversity in children’s literature. Our young readers need to see themselves within the pages of a book and experience other cultures, languages, traditions and religions within the pages of a book. We encourage readers, parents, teachers, caregivers and librarians to follow along the fun book reviews, author visits, event details, a multicultural children’s book linky and via our hashtag (#ReadYourWorld) on Twitter and other social media.

Today, I’m happy to share with you three of my favorite multicultural picture books to read and share.

First up, the Ezra Jack Keats Award winning, YESTERDAY I HAD THE BLUES by Jeron Ashford Frame, illustrations by R. Gregory Christie (Tricycle Press, 2003). A boy starts by exploring his “deep down in my shoes blues, the go away, Mr. Sun, quit smilin’ at me blues,” and goes on to explore other feelings as they relate to colors. His Daddy has the grays, his friend Sasha has the pinks, Talia has the Indigos, Gram the yellows and Mama the red. The author uses a jazzy string of strong and active nouns and verbs to describe each feeling and color. “Sasha says she got the pinks. The shiny tights, ballet after school, glitter on her cheeks pinks.” Jeron Ashford Frame’s poetry is toe tapping and R. Gregory Christie’s illustrations, while uniquely his, reminds me of Romare Bearden and William H. Johnson.

Next, OUT OF THE WAY! OUT OF THE WAY (Tulika Publishers, 2010, Groundwood Books, 2012), words by Uma Krishnaswami and pictures by Uma Krishnaswamy. One day, a boy finds a baby tree on a well worn path. He protects it with rocks and the path and people curve to avoid it: the bullock-cart man, the bicycles, people and animal feet. As the tree grows and spreads wider above creating a home for birds and small animals, the traffic and the town below it grows too. Krishnaswami captures the constant movement of people, carts, tires with the phrase “here to there and back again.” Soon the path is a lane and then a paved road. Krishnaswami is a master of refrain with her “Out of the way!” phrase.  The illustrator, Krishnaswamy, gives us a glimpse into the bustle of Indian culture with a lovely combination of line work and bright color.

I love this book as a multicultural substitute for that other tree book. (You know the one with the tree who tells the boy to go ahead and cut it down for his own purposes.) This one respects the interaction and connection between tree and human. It suggests that while humans grow and need, they can give space and respect to each other and to nature.

Set in old Peking, THE ELEPHANT’S PILLOW (Frances Lincoln, 2003) by Diana R. Roome and illustrator Jude Daly, tells the story of a spoiled merchant’s son named Sing Lo. Never satisfied with what he has, Sing Lo asks his rickshaw man, “What is the greatest sight of all?” Thus begins Sing Lo’s quest to see the Emperor’s elephant and to cheer him up. In the process, Sing Lo must rise to various challenges (through three tries) and transforms into the hero we knew he could be. The illustrations find their roots in the triptychs of Asian scrolls with saturated reds, blues, and oranges offset by pale yellows. It is a wonderful read aloud that is sweet and relatable. In the end, the elephant behaves much like a content puppy when it wants to be rubbed behind the ear.

You can bring books like these to children who need them by donating to First Book! 

Through First Book, MCCBD is having a virtual book drive.

A special thank you to the Children’s Book Council (CBC) for their support with Multicultural Children’s Book Day (MCCBD)!

Platinum Sponsors: Wisdom Tales Press, Daybreak Press Global Bookshop, Gold Sponsors:  Satya House,  MulticulturalKids.com,   Author Stephen Hodges and the Magic Poof, Silver Sponsors: Junior Library Guild,  Capstone Publishing, Lee and Low Books,  The Omnibus Publishing. Bronze Sponsors:Double Dutch Dolls, Bliss Group Books, Snuggle with Picture Books Publishing,  Rainbow Books,   Author FeliciaCapers,   Chronicle Books   Muslim Writers Publishing ,East West Discovery Press.

Our CoHosts: We have NINE amazing Co-Hosts. You can view them here.

Multicultural Children’s Book Day January 27th

This post is reblogged from Pragmatic Mom. You can follow the author, Mia Wenjen on Twitter @pragmaticmom, on Pintrest, or on Facebook.

Multicultural Children’s Book Day

January 27, 2014

Our mission is to not only raise awareness for the kid’s books that celebrate diversity, but to get more of these of books into classrooms and libraries.

 Children’s reading and play advocates Valarie Budayr from Jump Into a Book and Mia Wenjen from Pragmatic Mom have teamed up to create an ambitious (and much needed) national event.  On January 27th, Jump into a Book and Pragmatic Mom will be presenting the first ever Multicultural Children’s Book Day as a way of celebrating diversity in children’s books.

Despite census data that shows 37% of the US population consists of people of color, only 10% of children’s books published have diversity content. Using the Multicultural Children’s Book Day, Mia and Valarie are on a mission to change all of that. Their mission is to not only raise awareness for the kid’s books that celebrate diversity, but to get more of these types of books into classrooms and libraries. Another goal of this exciting event is create a compilation of books and favorite reads that will provide not only a new reading list for the winter, but also a way to expose brilliant books to families, teachers, and libraries.

Meet your hosts and co-creators of Multicultural Children’s Book Day.

Valarie Budayr

Valarie Budayr of Jump Into a Book is a best-selling children’s author of The Fox Diaries: The Year the Foxes Came to our Garden and The Ultimate Guide To Charlie and The Chocolate Factory. She is passionate about making kid’s books come alive and is proud to be a play and reading advocate. Valarie’s mission is to inspire children,families, and communities, to experience and create our world together while having fun.

MiaMedium

Mia Wenjen from Pragmatic Mom is a Harvard grad with a love  of children’s books (picture books through YA) and sneaking in teachable moments in art, science, math, foreign language and language arts. Mia is passionate about getting kids excited about reading and helping parents ensure that their child is successful at school.

Here are some ways you can help us celebrate Multicultural Children’s Book Day

  • Have children bring in their favorite multicultural book to school on this day and share it with the class.
  • Have a special Multicultural Children’s Book Day book read aloud time.
  • Create a Multicultural Children’s Book Day display around the classroom or library.
  • Read Around the Continents and Countries. Great resources list at JumpIntoaBook.com and PragmaticMom.com
  • Visit The Multicultural Children’s Book Day page at Jump Into a Book.
  • Visit our Multicultural Books for Kids Pinterest Board for more reading ideas.
  • Do a craft or activity presented on Jump Into a Book or Pragmatic Mom which relates to the many cultures in our world.

VCFA/Goldblatt: Angela Johnson Scholarship for New Students of Color or Ethnic Minority

I mention my MFA alma mater Vermont College of Fine Arts a lot. My time at VCFA was a life-changing experience. By 2009, I had already spent a good eight or so years on writing for children. I had a few dollars in my pocket from selling my poetry to wonderful magazines such as Ladybug, Babybug, and Highlights High Five. I was steeped in New England SCBWI and had attended numerous conferences asking many questions of fine faculty. In fact, that year I was the Director for the annual spring conference. (more on that later) But the letters I got from agents and editors were maddeningly similar. Basically they all said… there’s good writing here but you don’t quite have the craft down yet.

VCFA was all about craft and nothing about business. Coming from SCBWI this was frustrating, but eventually it was freeing. After the first residency at VCFA I realized that I hadn’t had enough knowledge to even know what questions to ask. The community, the award-winning faculty, and the program helped me to climb away from my plateau and make my work better. After VCFA, I read differently, I wrote differently, I taught differently, I was supported differently, and I supported others differently.

One thing that really bothered me at VCFA was that the faces of the students in the WCYA program did not look very diverse. Diversity in children’s literature is an ongoing issue. That SCBWI conference that I’d been planning for two years was titled, Many Voices and sought to include more people of color in the faculty and participant pool. If you’ve been following the CBC Diversity blog, or Anne Sibley O’Brien’s Coloring Between the Lines, or reading Christopher Myers article in Horn Book, you know that the issue of diversity in children’s books is a huge problem. (See Tina Kügler’s great info graphic below.)

Infographic by Tina Kügler originally for Illustration Friday

What is to be done? Many people think that the answer is in enrolling more people of color at great MFA programs like VCFA. To that end, the agent Barry Goldblatt established a scholarship in honor of Angela Johnson, the critically acclaimed African American poet and author of more than 40 books for children and young adults. She has won the Coretta Scott King Award three times, the Michael L. Printz Award, and received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2003. Her work explores the lives of characters of color of all ages, in historical and contemporary settings and celebrates a myriad of experiences growing up in America.

In addition to honoring Ms. Johnson, this scholarship will help to fill the void of multi-cultural voices in the world of children’s and young adult literature by providing scholarship assistance to minority students attending VCFA.

The recipient of the scholarship is in no way obligated to submit works to, or seek representation by Barry Goldblatt Literary, LLC.

Here are the details of the scholarship directly from the VCFA press release. If you fit the eligibility criteria, please apply. You have nothing to lose and the world and its children have so much to gain by hearing your voice!

Award Amount

One or two scholarships of up to $5,000 will be awarded annually and will be applied to the student’s tuition costs.  The maximum scholarship awarded will not exceed $5,000.

Eligibility  Criteria

Qualified applicants will meet the following criteria:

  1. A minority, defined as a person of color or a person of ethnic minority in the VCFA community
  2. Demonstrates talent, promise, and commitment to a career as a writer in the children and/or young adults field of literature.
  3. Has strong financial need.
  4. Priority will be given to incoming students.

Application Process

Eligible applicants must submit an essay (see below) by April 30.  Essays are to be emailed to:  Melissa Fisher, Director, Writing for Children & Young Adults  at melissa.fisher@vcfa.edu  with the words “Application for Angela Johnson Scholarship” in the subject line. Essays emailed after April 30 will not be considered.

Essay are not to exceed 350 words and should describe the applicant’s:

  • Commitment and or passion for the literary field of children’s and young adult literature;
  • Extenuating or financial challenges.

A Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form must be filed by April 30.

Questions?

Email Melissa Fisher, Director, Writing for Children & Young Adults at melissa.fisher@vcfa.edu.

Three Links to Great Web Content: August 4-10, 2013

When I was about eight years old, I used to sit on the landing and listen to the adult conversations that went on at dinner parties my parents would hold. I’m sure my parents thought I was asleep, and sometimes I would indeed fall asleep on the landing and they’d have to carry me to bed. The point is, that I didn’t want to miss anything. Sometimes Twitter and social media reminds me of this. With the incessant stream of tweets and updates I’m bound to miss out on something crucial.

The fact is, there is so much information out on the web that you can’t, and shouldn’t, try to keep up with it. I thought I’d post a few great links from my week and would love to see your favorite links, and a few sentences about them, in the comments.

First off, Ingrid Sundberg. Ingrid Sundberg is a fellow VCFA alum. She recently posted a fabulous series taken from her thesis on story architecture. If you only saw bits, or missed the whole thing, bookmark this page which includes the links for the entire series. Organic Architecture: Links to the Whole Series

If you are a parent or an educator, and haven’t found PragmaticMom.com, you should take a look. In addition to crafts, education, and parenting tips, she is an avid children’s lit reader with wonderful book lists. Her Multicultural Books for Children: 40+ Book Lists are an amazing collection of books broken into various helpful categories.

Lee Wind and the amazing SCBWI blog team were super busy last weekend at the LA Conference. Sadly, I wasn’t able to attend this year (I’m planning to go in 2014), but I was able to get the juicy tidbits on the Official SCBWI Conference Blog. If you are searching for an agent, you may want to read the many agent profiles. Illustrators will want to check out the winning portfolio images, and writers will be inspired by the encapsulated keynote speeches.

Again, I’d love to see your favorite links of the week– interesting industry news, and craft discussions that you retweeted, reblogged, tumbled or pinned that my readers might have missed. I’ll be watching the comments. 

Huge News! Pen New England Susan P. Bloom Children’s Book Discovery Award Winner– ME!

I am pleased thrilled ecstatic to announce that on April 1st I was informed that my YA manuscript about a rower who has a secret romance with her crew coach, CONTROL. CRUSH., won the PEN New England Susan P. Bloom Discovery Award! I’m sure that this was not an April Fools joke because soon after, I began to get wonderful congratulatory notes from other writers in our community whose work I respect and admire.

So what’s the big deal about this award and what is PEN New England anyway? The Susan P. Bloom Children’s Book Discovery Award honors emerging writers and illustrators and is given to a New England resident for an unpublished work. This year, the award was given to TWO emerging writers. I’m so happy to say that I’ll be sharing this award with Katherine Quimby. I’ve known Kathy for many years through SCBWI. Kathy and I share an alma mater, she’s in her third semester at Vermont College of Fine Arts; I graduated in July of 2011 – we’ll share this award! 

Kathy and I will read from our manuscripts at the awards ceremony tentatively scheduled for Sunday, May 19th at 6:30 pm at Lesley. If you are in the Boston area, I hope you’ll come. If you’re not able to make it, don’t worry. We’ll both be at the NESCBWI Annual Conference in Springfield. Please stop me and say hello!

As part of the award, our manuscripts will be submitted to a participating publisher. I’m so thankful to the committee for this opportunity to get my work in front of industry professionals. I’ve been on this journey for over ten years – long enough to know that I’d write even if I never got published. Perhaps that’s the moment when things begin to change for a writer. Still, I can tell you that I’ve had plenty of dark and doubting moments when I thought I should just give it all up.

There is something to be said for making your dreams known the universe, for putting yourself out there, for taking a chance. I’d wanted to submit manuscripts for this award for the past three years and missed the deadline. This year, the deadline snuck up on me again. Luckily, through a snafu, I was able to get my work to the committee, and I’m so glad I did! The email about this award came at the perfect time, and I couldn’t be happier.

PEN (poets, playwrights, essayists, editors, and novelists) New England is the most active chapter of PEN American Center which is part of PEN International– a literary community celebrating literature and protecting free expression. “The P.E.N. Club,” founded in London in 1921 by Mrs. C. A. Dawson Scott, a Cornish novelist, and John Galsworthy, a well-known literary figure, was borne out of Mrs. Dawson Scott’s “unshakable conviction that if the writers of the world could learn to stretch out their hands to each other, the nations of the world could learn in time to do the same.”