{Guest Post by Jessica Powers}
One of the best parts of my job as a publisher of African writers is being able to encourage people to check out the diverse writing for children by African writers or those who are part of the African diaspora.
This has been a sorely neglected region in American publishing but with recent surges of interest in sci-fi or fantasy with a basis in African culture and/or mythology (such as Nnedi Okorafor’s books and/or Tomi Adeyemi’s series), we hope to see a surge of interest in all genres of children’s and young adult books that celebrate the continent that is the birthplace of humans.
If you’ve never read a children’s or young adult book by an African writer or about Africa and you don’t know where to start, we have just the event for you!
During the first full week of December (this year December 6-12), the fourth annual #ReadingAfrica week, we encourage readers to participate fully: you can mention books you’d like to read or books you’ve read and would like to celebrate, and/or keep track of the hashtag on your favorite social media site to find new books. Follow along with the hashtag to celebrate favorites and explore new writers.
Some places to get started #ReadingAfrica:
- Africa Access publishes regular reviews of children’s and young adult books by African writers and/or about Africa. They act as a fairly comprehensive base for books published in North America.
- The Children’s Africana Book Award offers an award for the best books about Africa published in the United States on an annual basis.
- The Global Literature in Library Initiative (https://glli-us.org) posts reviews of global literature in their blog and offers awards for global literature for children, including African-authored books.
- My own Catalyst Press, though small, is proud to publish several award-winning children’s authors from South Africa
- Cassava Republic regularly publishes both young adult and children’s books with a strong emphasis on Nigerian writers (https://cassavarepublic.biz)
Jessica Powers, publisher of Catalyst Press (www.catalystpress.org), writes for children and young adults under the name JL Powers. She is the author of five novels for young adults, a picture book, and editor of two collections of essays. Catalyst Press was launched in 2017 to publish African writers and African-based books.