GCBA 2015!

Every year, UGA's College of Education hosts the Georgia Children's Book Awards and Conference on Children's Literature (or GCBA), an exciting, informative gathering that brings together authors, illustrators, teachers, librarians, and, happily, grad students.  In case you didn't know, I love smaller conferences because they provide great opportunities to spend time with friends, meet new people, enjoy interesting presentations and workshops, and just savor a nice weekend.

A lot happens at the conference, including the announcement of the year's award-winning picture book (grades K-4) and chapter book (grades 4-8).  Students and teachers around the state vote for their favorite books, and this year's picture book winner was Ol' Clip Clop: A Ghost Story, written by Patricia C. McKissak and illustrated by Eric Velasquez -- no big surprise, since lots of kids love spooky tales.  (I wish Niño Wrestles the World had won, but we can't have everything we want.)

The highlight of the conference for me, though, was meeting artist/author Shonto Begay and hearing him speak about his experiences growing up in Arizona, attending the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, and creating sumptuous paintings that capture the desert, Navajo cultural practices, his family and neighbors, and the "harsh realities of modern reservation life."  His art is "about praying, about sending out a universe of prayer," he said, and each swirl of color is "the visual representation of a chant, the syllables of prayers."  And he can Etch-a-Sketch like no other.

Mr. Begay also discussed his time at a boarding school -- school officials literally kidnapped him while he was tending his family's sheep and took him to the "brutal institution," where government teachers attempted to "cleanse" children of their language, religion, and cultural identities.  While he didn't go into much detail about his "educational" experiences, Mr. Begay did emphasize that these schools left "a whole generation traumatized" and that his time there greatly influenced his work.  The tragedies of Indian boarding schools are so often ignored by history, so I'm grateful that he shared his memories.  We need to confront this past, even if it's painful.

Later that day, I found a treasure in the bookstore (because yes, this conference has a bookstore!) -- Navajo Long Walk, illustrated by Mr. Begay and written by Joseph Bruchac.  A counter-narrative to the glorified story of European-American westward expansion, this book privileges the Navajo perspective on the Long Walk, a 450-mile forced march from a reservation in Arizona to the Bosque Redondo in New Mexico.

I've been studying depictions of American Indians in nonfiction children's books and have observed that the telling of American Indian histories is dominated by White historians (Wilson, 1996).  Traditionally, it's been somewhat difficult to find histories written and/or told by Native people about their own tribes and nations.  Furthermore, books about American Indians written by non-Native authors are often filled with harmful stereotypes, biases, oversimplifications, and generalizations (Noll, 1995; Reese, 2007) -- either that, or authors romanticize Native people, minimizing their humanity by depicting them as magical, "relentlessly ecological," noble savages (Slapin, Seale, & Gonzales, 1996, p. 20; Stewart, 2000).  Navajo Long Walk, however, is a history created by two Native people and gives voice to people who have long been silenced while avoiding stereotypes.  Highly recommended.

If you're interested in exploring Shonto Begay's other children's books, take a look at this Goodreads list.  Have fun!

References

Noll, E. (1995). Accuracy and authenticity in American Indian children’s literature: The social      responsibility of authors and illustrators. The New Advocate, 8(1), 29-43.

Reese, D. (2007). Proceed with caution: Using Native American folktales in the classroom. Language Arts, 84(3), 245-256.

Slapin, B., Seale, D., & Gonzales, R. (1996). How to tell the difference: A guide for evaluating children’s books for anti-Indian bias. Sonoma, CA: Oyate.

Stewart, M. P. (2000). How can this be Cinderella if there is no glass slipper? Native American    “fairy tales.” Studies in American Indian Literature, 12(1), 3-19.

Wilson, A. C. (1996). American Indian history or non-Indian perceptions of American Indian       history? American Indian Quarterly, 20(1), 3-5.

Authors vs. Scholars, or Questions from the Decatur Book Festival

Last Saturday, I took a jaunt down to Decatur, Georgia, to attend my first Decatur Book Festival.

This year's poster by Tony Diterlizzi

I love attending literature conferences and book fairs, and I was especially excited to sit in on an author panel about diversity in children’s literature and publishing, since, as you know, exploring issues of multiculturalism in kidlit is my one true academic love. The panel didn’t disappoint – the authors and moderators came from different backgrounds, had diverse experiences in the literary world, and have written about various and sundry topics. Here’s the roll call and some of the authors’ well-known books:

• Cece Bell – El Deafo (just released yaaaay!), the Sock Monkey series
• Carmen Agra Deedy – 14 Cows for America, Martina the Beautiful Cockroach: A Cuban Folktale, The Library Dragon
• Varian Johnson – The Great Greene Heist, My Life as a Rhombus, Saving Maddie
• Andrew Smith – Winger, Ghost Medicine, The Marbury Lens 

During the panel, the authors discussed several questions, but I want to focus on one particular query from an audience member.  As the session was drawing to a close, a young woman stood up and asked the authors whether it's OK for her, as a white person from Alabama, to write about Korea.  She's long been passionate about Korean culture, she said, but she's been told that it would be wrong to portray Korean characters and cultural practices since she's an "outsider."  Varian Johnson quickly responded, "You have the right to write whatever you want to write.  But make it reflect the real world."  The other authors nodded in affirmation.

This opinion popped up several other times during the session, and it became very clear that the authors agreed (or at least said they agreed) with this perspective: Authors are welcome to write about a culture that is not their own, as long as they portray complex characters and cultures naturally, honestly, and respectfully.

Left to right:

Varian Johnson, Carmen Agra Deedy, Andrew Smith, Cece Bell, 

Becky Albertalli (moderator), and Soniah Kamal (moderator)

I've heard that opinion before -- the visiting authors at the National Latino Children's Literature conference said that same thing, and several of my friends have affirmed that they've heard it at literary and publishing panels as well.  For these authors whose main focus is on writing, publishing, and book publicity (I'll just call them "Authors" for the purposes of this post) it seems so easy to agree on authorship and cultural authenticity, that anyone can write about other cultures provided that they do their homework, stay away from stereotypes, and write a great story and complex, realistic characters.

As a grad student, however, I've read a lot of scholarly works about portraying cultural authenticity and the cultural identities of authors, and the opinions presented by the researchers and children's authors who wrote these scholarly pieces (I'll call them "Scholars") often differ from the opinions of the Authors I mentioned above.

For example, in her essay titled "Who Can Tell My Story?" writer Jacqueline Woodson (1998/2003) wondered why white people would want to write about people with different cultural identities, especially given the flood of "negative misrepresentations" of black people in books and films created by white people in the past and the subjugation of black voices by white voices (p. 43).  While she did not dismiss the possibility of white authors writing about other cultures, she continued, "We [African-American writers] want the chance to tell our own stories, to tell them honestly and openly" (p. 45).  

Thelma Seto ("Multiculturalism Is Not Halloween," 1995/2003) went further when she wrote, "I feel very strongly that it is morally wrong for Euro-American writers to 'steal' from other cultures ... unless they have direct, personal experience in the country where that culture originates -- more than simply being a tourist or doing research in the library" (p. 93).  Moreover: "Euro-American writers cannot understand Asian American culture if they have not grown up in Asian American homes ... When Euro-Americans 'take on' one of my cultures, I feel quite violated.  It is a form of cultural imperialism -- that euphemism for cultural rape" (p. 95).

Meanwhile, Henry Louis Gates presented a different point of view in "'Authenticity,' or The Lesson of Little Tree" (1991/2003): "[It's] not that our social identities don't matter.  They do matter.  And our histories, individual and collective do affect what we wish to write and what we are able to write.  But that relation is never one of fixed determinism.  No human culture is inaccessible to someone who makes the effort to understand, to learn, to inhabit another world" (p. 142, emphasis added).  Also, Jane Yolen (1994) worried about the ways in which these debates over storytelling "[draw] rigid borders across the world of story, demanding that people tell only their stories" (p. 705).

That's a lot of different perspectives, and there are books and articles filled with even more opinions.  But I'm not trying to enter the debate right now.  What I'm trying to do is point out the difference between what Authors say at conference and book fair panels and what Scholars say in more "academic" arenas.

Basically, the Authors whom my friends and I have encountered always seem to reach a consensus that anyone can write about any cultural group as long as they're careful and respectful; but in scholarly circles, the debate about this issue rages on.

Why?

Are Scholars overanalyzing issues of diversity?  Are Authors not analyzing these issues deeply enough?  Is debate not encouraged in the "real world" of publishing and book marketing?

I'm not sure.  All I know is that I'm seeing a mismatch between Authors and Scholars, and I want to explore it further.

That was a lot of words, so HERE'S WALDO!

References

Gates, H. L. (2003). "Authenticity," or the lesson of Little Tree. In D. L. Fox & K. G. Short (Eds.), Stories matter: The complexity of cultural authenticity in children's literature (pp. 135-142). Urbana, IL: NCTE.

Seto, T. (2003). Multiculturalism is not Halloween. In D. L. Fox & K. G. Short (Eds.), Stories matter: The complexity of cultural authenticity in children's literature (pp. 93-100). Urbana, IL: NCTE.

Woodson, J. (2003). Who can tell my story? In D. L. Fox & K. G. Short (Eds.), Stories matter: The complexity of cultural authenticity in children's literature (pp. 41-45). Urbana, IL: NCTE.

Yolen, J. (1994). An empress of thieves. The Horn Book Magazine, 70(6), 702-705.

Celebrating Cuentos: Lessons from the National Latino Children's Literature Conference

Well, I'm back from the National Latin@ Children's Literature Conference at the University of Alabama, and HOLY COW IT WAS GREAT.  I was dazzled by the campus, the Gorgas Library (where the conference was held), and -- most of all -- the connections I made with talented, gracious authors, illustrators, librarians, publishers, teachers, and scholars.

Not bad.

Really not bad.

Unfortunately, I had to miss the first day of the conference, but I was there alllll daaaay yesterday, and I have plenty to share!  In this post, though, I'm going to stick to the highlights, and I'll discuss other issues in more detail later.  Get ready for a bulleted list:

• During her keynote address, author Margarita Engle introduced her new book, Silver People: Voices from the Panama Canal, and talked about her difficulties getting her works translated into Spanish (although they've been published in Korean and Japanese -- go figure).  Can you imagine being a bilingual/bicultural author wanting to share stories of Cuba and the Caribbean and having a publisher limit you to one language?  Margarita described her two languages and cultures as two wings that bring her balance and allow her to fly, so only being allowed to express herself in one language must be so stifling.

• Lila Quintero Weaver discussed Darkroom (go read it now!) and described growing up as a child of Argentinian immigrants in Alabama when the Latin@ population was "the minute minority."  Hearing her story of losing Spanish made me ache, but I appreciated her humor.  ("I barely speak English now," she admitted.  "I speak Southern.")  I also treasure her book because it provides us with a different perspective about the Civil Rights Movement.  Over the years, we've heard stories from African Americans, whites, Southerners, Northerners, Civil Rights leaders, segregationists, and ordinary Americans; but I've never encountered the perspective of a young immigrant girl, an "outsider" who arrived in Alabama at age five and recoiled from the foreign practice of segregation.  Darkroom is honest, refreshing, and wonderfully different.

• During her talk, publisher Teresa Mlawer brought up the statistic that only 3% of children's books reviewed were by or about Latin@s, which prompted author Meg Medina asked a great question: What can we do to change that statistic?  Teresa suggested that we -- authors, scholars, readers -- write more reviews of Latin@ children's books so that librarians and teachers are more aware of their presence.  (Additionally, she admitted that publishers need to do more to publicize these books and promote Latin@ authors.)  Meg then responded that librarians could create attractive displays for award-winning books so that library patrons can see winners of multicultural awards (like the Pura Belpré and Coretta Scott King honors) side-by-side with better-known awards like the Caldecott and Newbery; and another conference attendee mentioned that we can attend conferences in other education disciplines -- science, social studies, foreign language, etc. -- and spread the word about Latin@ books by discussing how teachers in all subject areas can incorporate children's literature into their lessons.  Some great, practical ideas!

(Meg also has some blog posts about taking steps toward greater diversity in children's lit, so go take a look.  I'm super miffed that I wasn't able to attend her keynote on Thursday.)

So there you have (some of) it -- more later!  I would highly recommend attending next year if you can, and I'll leave you with a picture of Neil, my random little alpaca mascot, showing off books by some of the authors & illustrators I met.

And a gratuitous picture of Vilano Beach near St. Augustine, FL (because I did that last week too).

This Texas girl was happy to see an attractive beach for once :)

Past and Present: Indigenous Children's Literature

This past Saturday, I gleefully attended the JoLLE (Journal of Language and Literacy Education) Conference, which was masterfully organized by some of my colleagues here at UGA.  Many great scholars and educators presented at the conference, and I was able to attend one session that particularly fascinated me -- a workshop focused on Indigenous children's literature from Canada.

The presenters, Drs. Kristiina Montero and Spy Dénommé-Welch, discussed the current state of education for Aboriginal (First Nations, Métis, and Inuit) students in Canada and then had us look through a selection of picture books by Indigenous authors.  One book that stuck out to me was When I Was Eight, by Christy Jordan-Fenton and Margaret Pokiak-Fenton.

This story chronicles author Margaret Pokiak-Fenton's experiences attending a Canadian residential school as a young girl.  Margaret desperately wants to learn how to read, and she is unaware that the true purpose of her school is to "cleanse" her of her Inuvialuit identity so that she can assimilate into mainstream (white) Canadian society.  Initially unwilling to submit their child to this treatment, her parents resist sending her to the institution, but Margaret eventually gets her wish, only to endure the cruelty of the teachers who run the place.  A follow-up book, Not My Girl, relates ten-year-old Margaret's return home, where her family -- seeing the way that the school has changed their daughter -- holds her at arm's length.

These are tales so tragic that they're almost unbelievable.  But the same thing happened here in the United States at American Indian boarding schools, where educators sought to "kill the Indian and save the man" by severing Indigenous students' connections with their cultures and languages.

Tom Torino, a young Navajo man, before and after attending 

Carlisle Boarding School in Pennsylvania (image via American Indian Issues)

Disseminating these stories is crucial so that we don't forget past injustices, which caused so many Indigenous people pain through the loss of their culture and identity.

Toward the end of the conference session, one of my colleagues pointed out that there didn't seem to be many books about contemporary Indigenous characters in the room, and Drs. Montero and Dénommé-Welch agreed that it's fairly difficult to find these types of books.

While we need to remember the past, we also need to acknowledge the present and understand that Native people are still here.  Their lives and cultures aren't just relics hidden in history textbooks, museums, and heritage sites.  Fortunately, several authors (listed below) write beautiful, nuanced books about contemporary Indigenous characters, but we need more.  So if you know any Native writers who want to share their stories, encourage them!  We need to see more of the past and the present.

Some children's & young adult authors who have written about contemporary Indigenous characters:

• Cynthia Leitich Smith
• Eric Gansworth
• Jorge Argueta
• Sherman Alexie
• Tim Tingle