June 2012
101 posts
The Children's Book Council Recommendations →
cbcbooks.org
Highlighting cultural diversity at the CBC.
May 2012
79 posts
May Books
and Bruce Lee reblogs: 1, 2, 3.
(There should be no other gifs after #2 was made.)
Here’s what May brought:
- Tar Beach by Faith Ringgold (Crown, 1991)
- Gilberto and the Wind by Marie Hall Ets (Viking, 1963)
- The Dreamer by Pam Munoz Ryan, illustrations by Peter Sis (Scholastic, 2010)
- Chirchir is Singing by Kelly Cunnane, illustrated by Jude Daly (Schartz and Wade, 2011)
Okay, this is a short list, but these books are all gems in my eyes. Quality, not quantity this month!
“Gatsby is a book that has come to mean something to peoplethat sometimes feels disconnected from the book itself. Fitzgerald great trick was to write about two people who wanted each other, but not write a love story. Of course I root for Daisy to leave Tom every time. But my rooting is wrong, and by the end of the book, Fitzgerald has really shown you why. Daisy is the one that got away—except you have no idea what that means. That “one” isn’t some better future. She is a person—a indelibly flawed American. Like you.”
—Ta-Nehisi Coates, on The Great Gatsby. (via theatlantic)
"A Prayer to the Silent" excerpt by Cynthia Leitich Smith
Here’s what Cynthia Leitich Smith has to say about creating more diverse characters in kids lit. The woman is not messing around about this at all.
If you live in the world, you’re in this conversation—and, yes, staying quiet is a statement, too. What that silence means may vary from writer to writer, but for far too many, it’s a product of fear.
You, the fearfully silent, I’m talking to you. Have you ever thought “I’ll mess up” or “they’ll reject me,” and then set aside a story or character or plot line?
…I can’t promise that you won’t make a mistake or be unfairly criticized. But all writing stems from courage. If writing for and about all children requires more courage, then hunt it down.
Own your awesomeness and redefine this conversation. We’ve been self-congratulating, self-flagellating, cycling, and choir preaching too long. Make me less bored. Please.
Open your teeth and roar.
The whole article is here at the CBC Diversity Blog, a very nice place to roam on the web.
Plus, you can find more Cynthia Leitich Smith on her wowsa website and blog.
Neil Gaiman: Pocket Con: A one day convention for Chicago Teens →
neil-gaiman.tumblr.com
Big plug for Pocket Con, in Chicago. July 7th, 12-6pm. It’s free for teens, and the adults who accompany them.
What is Pocket Con?Pocket Con is a single day convention for Chicago Teens. It focuses on work by artists of color, particularly African American authors and artists, as well as…
“For me, it was almost like winter didn’t count. Summer was what mattered. My whole life was measured in summers.”
—Jenny Han, The Summer I Turned Pretty (via timetravel-teacup)
Play
Get Your Read on with Lambda Literary's My Story Book Club →
lambdaliterary.org
Covering many genres including fiction, memoir and poetry,My Storyis a place where LGBT youth and their supporters can read a story like their own and participate in an open discussion with like-minded readers. Focused on providing an open and welcoming atmosphere online,My Storyexposes diversity in the positive and creative conduit of literature.
Each month, we will introduce a LGBT work geared towards young adults with compelling discussions, polls, play lists, author commentary and trivia each week led by a guest youth moderator. At the end of the month, the author will participate in an hour-long Q&A with readers.
May’s title is What They Always Tell Us by Martin Wilson.
June will be Name All the Animals by Alison Smith.
Find them at Goodreads too.
Play
“I think people are often quite unaware of their inner selves, their other selves, their imaginative selves, the selves that aren’t on show in the world. It’s something you grow out of from childhood onwards, losing possession of yourself, really. I think literature is one of the best ways back into that. You are hypnotized as soon as you get into a book that particularly works for you, whether it’s fiction or a poem. You find that your defenses drop, and as soon as that happens, an imaginative reality can take over because you are no longer censoring your own perceptions, your own awareness of the world.”
—Jeanette Winterson, Paris Review - The Art of Fiction No. 150
“We are torn between nostalgia for the familiar and an urge for the foreign and strange. As often as not, we are homesick most for the places we have never known.”
—Carson Mccullers (via rushofgold)
“Terabithia was their secret, which was a good thing, for how could Jess have ever explained it to an outsider? Just walking down the hill toward the woods made something warm and liquid steal through his body. The closer he came to the dry creek bed and the crab apple tree rope the more he could feel the beating of his heart. He grabbed the end of the rope and swung out toward the other bank with a kind of wild exhilaration and landed gently on his feet, taller and stronger and wiser in that mysterious land.”
—Katherine Paterson, Bridge to Terabithia
“I really hate to bring this up, but there is no Huck. No Bilbo Baggins. No, not even a Scarlett O’Hara. The most real character who has ever existed in a novel is merely a linguistic construction, a house made not out if cards but of words. So why do we celebrate when they triumph? Suffer when they suffer? Because words matter.”
—Thomas C. Foster, How to Read Novels Like a Professor.
