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Casual Diversity in a New Graphic Novel

July 28, 2021 by Valarie Budayr

{Guest post from Debbie Dadey}

When I was a librarian, I was determined to find the perfect book for even the most reluctant reader who stepped into my library. I believe J.K. Rowling was right when she said, “If you don’t like to read, you haven’t found the right book.” So that was my mission, but for some kids, I found the books weren’t there.

One young black girl wanted a picture book that had a black kid on the cover. A new one every week. That was easy . . . for a few weeks. There was a need for more. In fact, in 2012 only 7% of books published were about people of color.             [Read more…]

Filed Under: Guest Posts, Multicultural Booklist Tagged With: #ReadYourWorld, Author Sponsors, author visit, book review, diverse picture books

A Book Chat With Karin-Fisher Golton

December 10, 2020 by Valarie Budayr

{Guest post by Kristi Bernard of Kristi’s Book Nook}

 

Karin Fisher-Golton is a children’s book author, editor, and poet, with a background in education. At her website she shares her musings, poetry, books, and editing services for writers. Her book “My Amazing Day” is a 2015 BAIPA Book Award winner and was a finalist for the 2013 ForeWord Book of the Year. Karin is new to the MCBD Board of Advisors and you can learn more about her here.

 

MCBD: Hello Karin. Thanks so much for being a part of the MCBD Board of Advisors. We are so excited that you are here. What made you say “yes” to being a part of this event and cause?

Karin: Thank you! I’m thrilled and honored to be part of the MCBD Board of Advisors. There were so many reasons to say “yes.”

Some of the reasons MCBD means so much to me are rooted in my own childhood. I grew up in Berkeley, California, just a few years behind Vice-President-Elect Kamala Harris, in the same school district with its now-famous experimental bussing program. The environment I grew up in was very conscious of how race, economic status, gender, and other factors could impact one’s experience and opportunities. I was paying attention to those things for almost as long as I can remember. My own family had a mix of Jewish, Swedish, and other heritages and traditions. I often did not see myself represented in books nor in other people’s assumptions about how one was spending holidays. I brought these perspectives with me as I became an adult, went to teaching school, and taught children of diverse backgrounds and abilities in a range of settings.

I know from these experiences as well as ones I’ve had as an author, a parent, and a friend how very important it is for people, and especially children, to see themselves and the true diversity of the world in books. I believe that representation is a crucial step in bringing peace and justice to the world.

I love the MCBD hashtag #ReadYourWorld because the “your” both means “read your own, personal world”—as in “see yourself in books” AND means “read your real, diverse world”—as in “see the reality and breadth of the world in books.” Both are important.

I love that MCBD helps move these ideas forward in the form of a celebration. I’ve been involved with MCBD for five years, and I’ve appreciated the spirit and sense of shared vision that all of you who started the event and have kept it going have brought to it.

MCBD: Do you feel that this event has changed the mindset of publishers and agents so that they will actively seek out more authors who write stories of diversity and inclusion?

Karin: Most definitely, I do. In the early 1990s, so almost thirty years ago, when I was studying in an elementary education program that focused on using literature in the classroom, I remember discussions about the lack of diversity in children’s books. In some ways it is shocking and in some ways, it is not, that this is still such an issue today.

The publishing industry is giving this issue much more attention in the past five to six years. A real wake-up event was the March 2014 twin publications of Walter Dean Myers and his son Christopher Myers’s opinion pieces in the New York Times with their perspectives on the lack of diversity in children’s books. Both pieces were prefaced with information from the University of Wisconsin’s Cooperative Book Center’s study, which showed that in 2013 just 93 of the 3,200 books published that year were about Black people. MCBD was just a few years old at that time. It may have helped make the publishing industry more ready to hear those messages. MCBD has certainly been part of spreading the message. The participation in MCBD and the seriousness with which publishers and agents take its message has blossomed abundantly in these recent years.

MCBD: On your website, you share your poetry. You have written books and you’re an editor, you’ve been a graphic designer and teacher. I am sure all of this has kept you busy over the years. If you had to pick one, which would be the one you enjoyed doing the most?

Karin: That’s a tough question. When I think about it different images come to my mind: taking a walk and coming up with a line for a poem that I realize works on multiple levels; reading back a manuscript I’ve written and revised, and experiencing it evoking the feelings and thoughts that I hoped it would; hearing the excitement in editing clients’ voices when they are inspired and know what revision steps they want to take; and seeing a classroom full of energized students working on poetry projects in a variety of ways (sitting, standing, talking!). The common thread is that I love being involved in the creative process.

MCBD: What inspired you to write “My Amazing Day” which shares the wonders of everyday life?

Karin: My friend, graphic designer Elizabeth Iwamiya called me one day and told me that she and her friend photographer Lori A. Cheung (now my friend too) wanted to write a book to help babies and toddlers start lifetime habits of gratitude. She asked if I would consider joining the project as the author. I loved that idea. I already knew that gratitude had made happy times in my life more joyful and helped shift my mood in very hard times of my life. I loved the idea of sharing that with very young children and their families. It was an interesting challenge to consider how to convey that abstract concept to such a young audience. I decided to start from a place of wonder, which comes naturally to people who are new to the world and to end in an ritual of gratitude, because that is how we form habits.

MCBD: You have retold Aesop’s Fables for readers with dyslexia. One of my all-time favorites is the Tortoise and the Hare. Why take on a project like this and how does it help those readers who are dyslexic?

Karin: There are so many great Aesop’s fables! It was very fun to look into many variations of them and then come up with versions that worked for the format.

I was approached by Susan Barton of the Barton Reading and Spelling System, which is a program that tutors used to teach children and adults with dyslexia to read. Susan wanted real books that students could read at the end of each of the earlier levels of the program. For the first set of books I wrote, this meant books written almost entirely in one-syllable words with a consonant-vowel-consonant pattern and regular vowel sounds. Luckily there were a few sight words like “the” and “said.”

When I asked about the audience for the books, I learned that readers would be anywhere from third grade through adult and that some of them would be reading a book on their own for the first time—what an honor! I chose to adapt folktales because they appeal to a wide range of ages, and I liked the idea of a classic story being someone’s first book.

MCBD: When you work with writers and help them edit their book projects, what are some of the things you find are common mistakes?

Karin: When I work with writers, I’m always thinking about how I can better help them achieve their visions and connect with young readers. We start with a conversation so I can understand what that vision is. I really don’t think of what they do as mistakes, but I provide ideas for improving what they’ve done.

Even correcting what might be called “grammar errors” has a larger purpose, which is to keep writing aligned with common practice so that the text is easy to understand. And sometimes we break those rules for effect.

One area that I often find myself commenting about is the point of view—usually, young readers find it easiest to relate to a single point of view that is that of a child. Authors who get to know all of their characters can easily jump into the heads of characters other than the protagonist.

I also often look at vocabulary—I like to help authors find a balance of using interesting words without having so many that are challenging that kids will be distracted from the story.

And, of course, I definitely look at how the books represent the diversity of the world we live in.

MCBD: What three pieces of advice would you give a person who is thinking about writing for children?

Karin: 1. Read, read, read—read lots of books in your genre. Get to know your library and local independent bookstore! MCBD on January 29, 2021, is a great way to discover books.

  1. Write, write, write—just like anything else writing is a skill that will improve if you practice, so write drafts, journal, write character sketches, write poetry. A useful exercise for new children’s book writers is to type up the text of existing books so you can get a feel for what text looks like and how it reads in manuscript form.
  2. Get critique partners—not only can you benefit from their feedback, but reading others’ work and identifying and verbalizing what is working and not working is very valuable. Remember, though, that the author is the author–a critique is just one person’s input.

And I’m going to sneak in a #4 here: Join the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. It has a multitude of helpful resources for new and established children’s book writers and illustrators.

MCBD: What are you currently working on?

Karin: I’m currently working on a bilingual picture book in Yiddish and English. Yiddish is a language that was almost lost in my family because of the Holocaust and assimilation. When I started learning Yiddish, I was deeply moved to hear it spoken, not just the isolated words that are in the popular culture, and particularly Jewish culture—but as a language with a sound and rhythm. I’m writing a book so that children can experience and enjoy hearing the language. I see it as a sort of love poem from the ancestors.

MCBD: On a final note. What more do you think MCBD could do to keep the momentum of this event moving throughout the year? We would love to hear your suggestions.

Karin: As a new member of the Board of Advisors, I am just starting to think about that question. My first thoughts are that there might be ways to organize the website to make it an easier-to-use resource throughout the year and give teachers, parents, and kids each their own clear route to find books and explore what it means to “read your world.”

MCBD: Karin thank you so much for taking the time to answer all of these questions. We’ve learned so much more about you and you are amazing! You are invested in seeing more books geared towards diversity and inclusion and are creating them as well. Thank you for all that you are doing for readers and writers.

Karin Fisher-Golton is the author of the award-winning board book, My Amazing Day: A Celebration of Wonder and Gratitude, four folktales for a reading program for people with dyslexia, and poems in several anthologies. As a freelance children’s book editor, she helps authors realize their visions and reach young audiences effectively. She’s given particular attention to how children’s books reflect our world since studying children’s literature in an Elementary Education program, almost thirty years ago. Her writing life has been interspersed with teaching children in a variety of lively settings, most recently as an afterschool poetry teacher.

Karin worked with the MCBD team to change the yearly date of MCBD so that it would not conflict with International Holocaust Remembrance Day, a day designated by the United Nations “to instill the memory of the tragedy in future generations to prevent genocide from occurring again.” Read more about that here: https://multiculturalchildrensbookday.com/tag/karin-fisher-golton/.

Based in the San Francisco Bay Area—just a few miles from Berkeley, California where she was raised—Karin feels fortunate to live in one of the most diverse areas in the world. Learn more about Karin and her work at: https://karinfisher-golton.com.

Filed Under: Author Visits, Guest Posts Tagged With: #ReadYourWorld, author visit, Children's Book Author, Multicultural Childrens Book Day Board of Advisors

An Online Book Festival for National Book Month! Louisville Book Festival

October 8, 2020 by Valarie Budayr

It takes a village…

At a time of worry and uncertainty, one ambitious mom has turned her concern for the lack of quality children’s books in her community into an exciting initiative.

Free to the public, Louisville Book Festival (October 23rd and 24th via Zoom) is on a mission to promote the love and benefits of reading, writing, and literacy throughout the community.

The Louisville Book Festival

“Getting books into the hands of young readers is among the dozens of reasons why I founded The Louisville Book Festival,” shared CEO and founder, Deedee Cummings. “I was raised in Louisville and I am a proud product of Jefferson County Public Schools. As a child, I loved to read, but I never found books with characters who looked like me or had a story similar to mine. I went on to work with Child Protective Services and eventually, I became a therapist, attorney, and author. My work has led me to the goal of seeing that every child in Louisville has at least twenty books at home, and hopefully, they will be able to see themselves inside of these books. There are more diverse books than ever, but still nowhere near enough.”

After creating her 501(c)(3) organization in 2018, Deedee’s belief in the power of literature grew even stronger. As a mom and therapist, she knew that many of the children who lived in her city had little to no access to a variety of engaging and diverse reading materials. This lack was leading to a larger number of difficulties including a word-gap between children in high-poverty areas, lack of confidence, lack of motivation, and self-efficacy.

“The Louisville Book Festival works daily to help combat these issues. Our It Pays to Read Program is exactly what it sounds like,” Deedee added. “Diverse books teach important lessons and help our students see that they, too, are capable of amazing things. Along the way, they also learn behavioral health goals, independent living skills, financial literacy, and the power of mentoring as they read and grow.”

Originally meant to be a large public event,  due to the pandemic some hard decisions needed to be made. Determined to create a community filled with buzz and enthusiasm for reading, Deedee decided to make her inaugural book festival a virtual one rather than wait for COVID-19 restrictions to lift.

The online event is being held online via Zoom on October 23-24, 2020–just in time to celebrate National Book Month. Go here to view the schedule and roster of amazing speakers and authors.

Festival Schedule – Day One (1)

“It is our hope that we can use the power of books and stories to cultivate a positive and vibrant community.”

Meet a few of the Authors and Speakers of the Louisville Book Festival!

Keynote Speaker, Tomi Adeyemi!

Tomi Adeyemi

Other Authors and Presenters

 

Speakers and Authors of the Louisville Book Festival

-Vince Vawter
-Chantelle Agbro
-Cathy Fyock

Authors and Speakers of the Louisville Book Festival

-Shawn Pavey
-Deedee Cummings
-de de Cox

There will be many more to come as well! Follow the Louisville Book Festival on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to stay in the loop on LBF news and updates. AND, you will also be the first to know when we do our Extra Special Keynote Speaker reveal!

Save the date for our virtual festival on October 23-24. ❤️📚

NOTE: Louisville Book Festival founder, Deedee Cummings, is also a long-time supporter and Sponsor of Multicultural Children’s Book day! Read more about her books and her company, Make A Way Media, here.

Make a Way Media

Filed Under: Author Visits, Events Tagged With: #ReadYourWorld, author visit, benefits of reading, It Pays to Read Program, The Louisville Book Festival, Tomi Adeyemi

SUPERHERO SECRETS Guest Post by Author Jacqueline Jules

February 7, 2019 by Valarie Budayr

What happens when you get your wish?

That’s the question the students in my library inspired me to answer. I was working as an elementary school librarian in a Title I school in Northern Virginia. Every day, students came in asking for books on superheroes. There were not enough on their reading level to go around. Or even available on the market to purchase. It frustrated me. Like any school librarian, I wanted to meet my students’ needs.

Zoom! Zoom! Zapato Power!

In the Zapato Power series, a boy named Freddie Ramos lives out a fantasy many elementary school students secretly imagine. What if you had superpowers? What would you do? Would you keep them a secret? Would you use them for your own benefit or help others?

Freddie faces many dilemmas. His super speed is a thrill to use when he is alone. But when he is playing basketball with his friends, he feels like he is cheating. The most recent title, Zapato Power #7: Freddie Ramos Hears It All, shows Freddie managing the new power of super hearing. What should he do when he overhears information? Should he act on it? Can he use his super hearing without being a super snoop?

The Zapato Power series invites students to consider what it would be like to have a superhero dream come true. While I was writing it, I imagined my own students and how they would handle having a superhero secret at our elementary school. How would you get away with running in the hallways? How could you help others without revealing your superpowers? I quickly realized that my character would need to be enveloped in Zapato Power smoke, making him invisible every time he ran. Invisibility was a practical solution for Freddie Ramos. He still had social-emotional issues to consider. How would Freddie feel about being an anonymous hero? Would his superpowers make him feel isolated? And could they complicate the problems he faced in everyday life?

Zapatow Power

All of the characters in the Zapato Power series are named after children I taught as a school librarian. Freddie lives in an apartment complex behind his school, just as many of my students did. When I began the Zapato Power series, I wanted to do more than simply write a story for my students, I wanted to write about them. These kids were special to me for many reasons.

First off, as a school librarian, I had the pleasure of seeing them grow up and visit me each week in the library from their days as Head Start students all the way through sixth grade. Secondly, my students connected me to my own memories of childhood. I was a child of an immigrant myself. I understood when my students said they didn’t eat turkey on Thanksgiving because I had not either, as a child. And I understood when they looked at the floor, listening to a parent speak to a teacher in a heavy accent, because I did, too, as a child. Some things about being a child of an immigrant are universal.

Freddie Ramos is Latino, just like the majority of my students were.

How could I have created a character inspired by my students (and literally named after them) and ignore their cultural heritage? However, Freddie’s family and economic circumstances are the backgrounds of his story. As a school librarian, I was tired of the books on my library shelves which only presented the lives of minority children in the context of the problems they faced. Who wants their existence to be solely portrayed as a problem to be overcome?

When we write about minorities, we can’t limit their stories to the hardships they face. We need to write about who they really are. Loving, happy kids who have the same desire to be a superhero as anyone else.

Looking for some Zapato Power Activities? I have a bunch on my website HERE~!

author Jacqueline JulesBIO: Jacqueline Jules is the award-winning author of 40 children’s books, including the Zapato Power series, the Sofia Martinez series, Unite or Die: How Thirteen States Became a Nation, Duck for Turkey Day, Never Say a Mean Word Again, Feathers for Peacock, The Hardest Word, and Pluto is Peeved. Also a poet, Jacqueline is the author of three poetry chapbooks. Her poems have appeared in over 100 publications, including Cricket, Cicada, Germ Magazine, YARN, The Poetry Friday Anthologies, and One Minute Till Bedtime. She lives in Northern Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C. Visit her website www.jacquelinejules.com. Connect on Facebook at www.facebook.com/BooksbyJacquelineJ/ Twitter @jacquelinejules

Filed Under: Multicultural Booklist Tagged With: #ReadYourWorld, Author Sponsors, author visit, book review, Children's Book Author, diverse picture books, multicultural children's book day sponsors, Zapato Power

How a book inspired the stories I want to tell {Guest post from Anne Glick}

December 20, 2018 by Valarie Budayr

Guest post from the co-founder of Globe Smart Kids, Anne Glick

No better way to start a new year than with Multicultural Children’s Book Day right around the corner! Excited to be a returning author sponsor with 10 diverse friendship stories, all bundled in a virtual library: One Globe Kids

Stories about relatable others lay a foundation for exploration

The idea for One Globe Kids was born one afternoon while I read the children’s book Joyce’s Day to my then 3-year-old son in our apartment in New York City. The book was printed in South Africa in 1974 and given to me as a newborn present by my Aunt Joan in 1975. Its photos and simple text made Joyce’s day in South Africa relatable to me, a young, white girl living in small-town Illinois.

From beginning foreign language study in middle school to studying and working abroad, I strongly feel that my preparation for life in a diverse globalized world can be traced back to the simple curiosity I had for Joyce and her family.

I went looking for more “Joyce-like” books for my son Sebastian and found several beautiful, but basic, mostly illustrated, books about children in other countries. I did not find the personal, intimate, rounded stories that would make these children more familiar than foreign for him. And thus began my journey to make the international story series that I want to share with my kids, Sebastian and his two brothers, Willem and Josef. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Author Visits, Book review, diversity in children’s books, Guest Posts Tagged With: #ReadYourWorld, Anne Glick, author visit, Children's Book Author, Globe Smart Kids, MCCBD Sponsor, Multicultural Books for kids, One Globe Kids

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