We Need Diverse Books!

Recently, at the SCBWI conference in Los Angeles, I learned about a group organized to promote diversity in books.  In my view, diversity is anything new and different from my own life. Cultures, countries, past, present, yes, even future.  The list is endless. All fascinate me.   

SALT, A Story of Friendship in a Time of War,  by Helen Frost, Frances Foster Books, Farrar Straus Giroux, 2013

This well researched novel in verse is set in the Indiana Territory in late summer of 1812. It is told from the point of view of two twelve year old boys who are like many boys their age today, content to spend their time hunting, fishing, and exploring the forest around their homes.

Anikwa’s ancestors have lived in the Miami village of Kekionga for centuries.  James is the son of a trader who sells supplies to both the Native American community and the soldiers and their families who live inside the fort known as Fort Wayne. Salt is one of the most prized commodities for both sides of the stockade.

Such a peaceful picture changes when the British and Americans lay claim to the land of Anikwa’s forefathers.  Warring factions assemble. James’s father must close his trading post and move his family inside the fort.  The supply of salt ends abruptly for the Miami tribe.

The boys, who are fictional, tell their stories in a distinct verse form. The author tells us Anikwa’s poems are “shaped like patterns of Miami ribbon work,” James’s poems began as an image of the stripes on an American flag. In the author’s words, “As I discovered the two voices, the pulse-like shape of Anikwa’s poems wove through the horizontal lines of James’s poems, and the two voices created something new that held the story as it opened out.” Here and there, as if to bring out the flavor of the boys’ friendship and surroundings, the author places poems about salt, how the deer leads man to find it, how man uses it, and how it tastes in the tears of those impacted by war.

Helen Frost is the award winning author of  Keesha’s House, a Michael L. Printz Honor Book, and Diamond Willow which won the Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award. She lives in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

 

A glossary of Miami (Myaamia) words is included and the author gives credit and thanks to the Myaamia Center  a rich source of maps, language, and historical and cultural information located at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.

This is a diverse book. I think we need more. What do you think?

 

 

Unforgettable

Some stories melt your heart.

HALLEY, by Faye Gibbons, NewSouth Books, 2014

Halley is 14. She was born at the wrong time in the wrong place, during the depths of the Depression in a struggling mountain community in north Georgia. That’s just the setting for this gritty novel.

As if the times are not punishing enough, when Halley’s beloved father dies suddenly, she and her mother and younger brother Robbie are forced to move in with her hell fire and brimstone preacher grandfather, Franklin. Franklin never liked Halley’s father and takes that dislike out on his daughter and her children. He thumps his Bible and quotes Scripture to suit his own purposes, and those purposes turn the women of his family into powerless servants.

Whatever Halley prizes, her grandfather seems determined to hold hostage or take away from her. Halley believes an education will give her control over her own life and be a salvation for her family.  Her wily grandfather knows the power of education which is the very reason he stands in her way like a mile high wall of bricks. Women of today will applaud Halley’s stubbornness—or so it was considered then.    

This book offers so many springboards for discussion, I hardly know where to begin.

Gender roles. Respect for elders. Faith issues. Forgiveness. Readers at your house will be thinking, discussing, and tapping into some surprising wells of emotion inside themselves.   

Author Faye Gibbons is a master story teller. It will be a long time before you forget Halley.       

 

Tough Times, Tough Characters

Legendary writer Sid Fleischman said a strong villain is the writer’s best friend. The main character must become stronger to overcome the monstrous villain. A stronger villain and a stronger main character make the story stronger. The same could be said for obstacles.

EVERY DAY AFTER by Laura Golden, Delacorte Press, 2013

Author Golden has created conniving, bad-tempered villains and painful obstacles to challenge her main character, 11 year old Lizzie. The year is 1929, harsh for everyone. Her father leaves, abandoning his wife and Lizzie. This pushes her mother into leaving, too, mentally and emotionally.  

Lizzie is not an orphan. Or is she? Dad could return. Lizzie is sure he will be back in time for her 12^th birthday.  Mom could get well. If she doesn’t, it won’t be because Lizzie didn’t try—hard.

One of Lizzie’s classmates wants to see her shipped off to an orphanage. This gal is so jealous of Lizzie, she bleeds green. The reader will wonder what sets this villain off.

The bank wants to take the house. Lizzie’s grades, a source of pride for her father, begin to drop.

There are good characters willing to help but they don’t know Lizzie needs help. To let them know would, in Lizzie’s eyes, be letting down her father.

Lizzie writes in her journal, looks at her father’s face in the heirloom locket he left her, and wonders why he left and what will happen if he doesn’t come home. These are tough times for everyone in Bittersweet, AL, but Lizzie also suffers from isolation, keeping out those who could do something to make her life better. The reader, pulling harder and harder, page by page, for Lizzie to triumph, wonders when Lizzie will realize that her father has let his family down.

Every Day After is author Golden’s first novel but it won’t be her last. Her inspiration for this one was her paternal grandmother who lost her mother at the age of 12. She was left with a strict father in circumstances similar to the ones Lizzie endures.

Historical fiction helps us see how far we’ve come. If you are trying to train your tweens to sort and wash dirty clothes at your house, Lizzie’s laundry chores will make everyone thankful for your washer and dryer. They might even help you cheerfully.  

 

 

 

Ode to the Office Water Cooler

Some picture books appeal to children of all ages. That includes parents and grandparents who are in touch with their own inner child.

DEAR WANDERING WILDEBEEST and Other Poems  from the Water Hole, by Irene Latham, illustrated by Anna Wadham, Millbrook Press, 2014

Day begins. Illustrator Wadham wakes up the book, the reader, and an assortment of animals with the warm colors of morning. It’s a time to meet, greet and gather the news of the day.

Poet Latham, in the first of 15 engaging poems, extends an invitation: “To all the beasts who enter here.”

While the illustrator uses backgrounds to advance the day, the writer plays with a variety of poetic devices to bring each animal to life as it meets daily needs for food, shelter, and safety.

 

Pacing is prime when author Latham describes the impala, the picture of grace. The meerkat is bright eyed and disciplined and so are its stanzas. A snake slithers across the painted page while letters drape and sounds delight.

A change of pace allows a break for a commercial, an ad for the efficient cleaning service run by the enterprising oxpeckers.  “Oxpecker Cleaning Service.” Clean is guaranteed!

When day comes to a close, it’s time for a bath. Be careful how you handle “Dust bath at dusk” if you decide to read this poem to an imaginative child. You might have to explain why a dust bath is not an option for a non-elephant, a.k.a. the child in your lap.

“What Rhino Knows” is about your typical loner. You may have one in your family, the one your mother’s sisters are always trying to marry off.  Rhinos are not friendly to other rhinos. If one crowds another at the watering hole, the protestor could charge, kick up dust, or, worst of all, simply ignore the other. But, between rhinos, being ignored may not matter.

 

Second and third grade readers will lap up the fact filled sections. Call these blocks of sprightly text another type of watering hole. A glossary and other books add breadth to knowledge.

Irene Latham  has written 3 collections of poetry for grown-ups and two novels for kids, Leaving Gee’s Bend and Don’t Feed the Boy.

Illustrator  Anna Wadham lives in England in a flat with a rooftop view.

While you read Dear Wandering Wildebeest dozens of times to your eager little listener, recall the office water cooler. Which co-worker is which animal? Which animal are you?