Educators & Librarians

We Need Diverse Books…and Let’s Not Stop There

Posted by Sarah L. Thomson on May 17, 2019 in American History, Educators & Librarians, Race | 0 comments

Yes, yes, we need diverse books. We need books with black kids and brown kids, trans kids and gay kids, poor kids and not-so-poor kids, able-bodied kids and kids with disabilities. Kids of all kinds. I’m there, I promise.

But. But.

What happens next? What happens when the art is created and the words are written? What happens when we’ve created the books that act as mirrors (so every kid can see him/her/theirself reflected in the pages) and windows (so every kid can experience what life is like for people who don’t look or sound or pray like him/her/them?)

I’m a little worried about this part.

When I tried talking with the principal of our local elementary school about the fact that my daughter will have been there six years and will graduate without learning a thing about the Civil Rights movement or the Underground Railroad or the suffragettes or Native American tribes in our state, he pointed me toward the school and classroom libraries and encouraged me to channel my activism into getting diverse books on those shelves. Okay, good, I can do that.

But. Are the books getting taken down? Are they getting read? If they are read, are they getting discussed? Are kids finding ways to apply what they read to their own lives?

When I ran a before-school books and breakfast club and we read and talked about Wonder, my kid could relate the way Auggie was treated to unkindness a classmate was suffering. When we read Marvin Redpost: Is He a Girl? and talked about stereotypes, another mom told me that her second grade daughter quickly got adept at spotting them.

But that was because we talked. We discussed. We engaged.

What happens without that context? What happens if you read Freedom Summer without talking more about the civil rights movement and its heroism and struggles and triumphs and ongoing challenges? What happens if you leave young readers knowing that a town would rather fill its swimming pool with concrete than let brown and black and white kids swim together–and that’s all that those kids end up learning?

Yes, we need diverse books. We need diverse curriculum too. (And diverse teachers in our classrooms!) And once we have the books, we need to talk about them. Discuss, argue, praise, weep, think. Think hard.

Diverse books can’t save the world. Diverse readers just might.

#WeNeedDiverseBooks

#WeNeedMoreThanDiverseBooks

Final Thoughts

Posted by Sarah L. Thomson on Mar 28, 2019 in Children's Literature, Editing, Educators & Librarians, Race | 0 comments

Diversify publishing? Egads!

Okay, I promise this is my last post (for a while) about this issue–books (Blood Heir and A Place for Wolves) being cancelled pre-publication because of online outrage.

You know what the real solution is? Or rather, what the vast unspoken problem is? That publishing and its sister professions, reviewing and librarianship, are overwhelmingly white and female.

That’s what needs to change. We need writers of color, LGBQTetc. writers, immigrant writers–that’s a need that’s been talked about for a long time. But we also sorely, sorely need editors and reviewers and librarians (and teachers, let’s not forget teachers) who are not white and female and mostly middle class. We need publishing professionals who can bring a huge variety of experiences and backgrounds to the table, selecting and promoting books and authors who are similarly diverse.

But that’s a long term process. It takes time and effort and money. (Paid internships with housing stipends would be a start, publishers.) Far easier (but much less effective) to outsource the effort of diversifying literature to Twitter and then to ask authors to bear the financial brunt of it by pulling books and cancelling contracts.

#WeNeedADiversePublishingIndustry

Artists at Eldredge

Posted by Sarah L. Thomson on May 18, 2018 in American History, Educators & Librarians, Events, School Visits, Secrets of the Seven, SERIES: Secrets of the Seven | 2 comments

Last week I was visiting schools in East Greenwich, RI. At Eldredge Elementary some very talented artists had created posters for me based on the first three books of the Secrets of the Seven series. Marvelous! I love seeing books inspire creativity.

The Eureka Key

The Eagle’s Quill. Note very faithful representation of the three main characters–Marty with her glasses, Sam in a cool tye-dyed sweatshirt, and Theo (very tall!)

The Ring of Honor. In this poster, Alexander Hamilton has joined our three heroes in a search through Manhattan for his grave. Cool and slightly creepy!

How to Do a School Visit Right

Posted by Sarah L. Thomson on May 11, 2018 in Author Visits, Educators & Librarians, Events | 0 comments

The author’s parking spot!

Last week I went to Biddeford Intermediate School to talk with the third, fourth, and fifth graders about poetry. If you want to try being a rock star for a day, you should be the visiting author at Biddeford Intermediate.

They reserve a parking space out front “for the author.” All the kids line up to clap as you walk into the building. (For real!) They brought me snacks (yes, I am a sucker for chocolate) and an actual gift bag with goodies and a new blank book and a gorgeous pair of earrings. !!!

Wow! And I needed a new journal. How did they know?

This sounds like a school just needs to offer me earrings and chocolate to melt my heart. (This is partly true. Earrings are optional.) But it’s not the whole story.
The kids just vibrated with excitement when they came into my workshops. They called my name in the hall and waved and a few of them jumped up and down. When I made eye contact their faces glowed. They were excited about words, about books, about poetry. Their teachers treat a visiting author like a celebrity and that fills the kids up with passion for writing and art and creativity.

The kids wrote incredible poetry.

Some of the poetry the kids created, based on the images from Imagine a Night. This was before I even arrived!

That’s why the gifts and the parking space and the chocolate are important–not because I need these things to enjoy a school visit (although, again, chocolate does not hurt) but because they are visible symbols of the commitment of the teachers at BIS to helping their kids care about literature. They are the real rock stars.