Being mixed-race and children's books

There's an article in the Guardian by Laura Smith about being mixed-race in Britain that gives some insight and provocative perspectives. She notes the growing number of mixed-race people in the UK:

The last national census counted 680,000 mixed race people, accounting for 1.2% of the overall population and nearly 15% of the ethnic minority population - and that is widely believed to be an underestimate.

And also the lack of representation or understanding in the media and other public discussions:

Despite our growth in numbers and our incredible visibility, we are utterly absent from any public debate on race.

Which made me think about the children's books available. People like Rudine Sims Bishop have written about how important it is for children to see themselves mirrored in the world around them. So how many children's books available today provide that opportunity for children who have parents from different ethnic backgrounds?

I worked on one such book when I was at Children's Book Press. Two Mrs. Gibsons by Toyomi Igus was about a girl's relationship with the her different Mrs. Gibsons: her African American grandmother and her Japanese mother. It was based Toyomi's experiences growing up. When that book came out (1997), we weren't aware of many other books featuring a mixed-race child. And looking at the resource page from Cynthia Leitich Smith - Interracial Family Themes in Picture Books - it looks like most of the books she lists came out around the same time. I still don't know of many novels available.

Interestingly, academic Karen Sands-O'Connor wrote about Two Mrs. Gibsons along with a few other picture books showing mixed-race children, with her concern that focusing on difference in these books in some ways undermines their attempts to show the experience - the article, "Why Are People Different: Multiracial Families in Picture Books and the Dialogue of Difference" is in The Lion & the Unicorn.

I am less aware of what's available in the UK, but would guess there is very little published. Mary Hoffman spoke at the recent Diversity Matters conference about an early book she created featuring a mixed-race family, in which race was not the focus of the book (it was about being a middle child - sorry, I missed the title in my notes from the event). She said that she thinks books today don't reflect the kinds of families most children have. I know that Tony Bradman also created a picture book featuring a mixed race child and parents, and had problems getting a co-edition in the US because there was discomfort about the whole mixed-race thing. Does anyone know of others? And what about novels - are they out there and I just haven't come across them?

If this really is a growing group of people, then isn't it time for public discourse, and the books published, to reflect this reality? I'd be curious to hear other people's thoughts on this, and of titles of books published in the US, the UK, or anywhere else for that matter. Are we moving forward?

Guardian Award to Philip Reeve

Thanks to Achuka for the alert about the winner of the Guardian Children's book Award (with photos and everything). And major congratulations to Philip Reeve - one of my favorite authors writing for young people today.

The four books, starting with Mortal Engines, are highly original, creating a totally convincing futuristic world existing in pre-technologicalish times (I've heard the genre is called 'steam punk'). He's got great characters, including Tom who works with the historians on the movable city of London. And Hester, a disfigured and fiery teenage girl with anger issues. She's one of my favorite ambiguous heroines, with complicated emotions and motivations. Reeve won the award for the final book in the quartet: A Darkling Plain. All four books have wonderful covers, by the way. I love the retro, colorful look.

So, if you are going to be anywhere near London on Saturday, 11 November, there's an even more compelling reason to come to the 13th annual British IBBY/NCRCL MA conference. Reeve will be our last speaker of the day. The theme of the event is Time Everlasting: Representations of Past, Present and Future in Children's Literature, and Reeve was our first choice as an author. He'll be in conversation with NCRCL (National Centre for Research in Children's Literature) tutor Lisa Sainsbury. I'll have to contact his publisher and see if we can do anything to celebrate his win. I'm very excited (can you tell?)... Book your place early, because this event usually sells out, and I'm sure it will this year.

Here's the Guardian's original announcement, the article published the next day, and another the day after (in which Julia Eccleshare waxes lyrical about Reeve's books).

New Carnival

Just wanted to link to the latest Carnival of Children's Literature #7. Read and enjoy!

Random Call/Scissor Sisters - London Schools and the Black Child

OK, I know I haven't written in ages. But something happened today that I just had to share.

I've been working away on various freelancey things, feeling a tad overwhelmed. Was in the middle of editing an article that has been accepted for an IRSCL collection, mine is about how my experiences working in editorial departments made me more aware of how the publication process can modify cultural expression (all very serious stuff).

So my mobile phone rings, which is a rare event since no one but my husband usually calls (bring in the violins here). And on the other end of the line, and man's voice asked if this was Laura Atkins. Yes, I replied. And he said that this was a fairly random call, that he was John Garden , the keyboard player from the band called The Scissor Sisters.

As if I hadn't heard of The Scissor Sisters!

As I thought to myself, yeah, right, he went on. Turns out the band are really keen readers, and that they keep a library when they're on tour. They want to find regional and national organizations working in areas such as children's books and reading, and somehow incorporate them into the show, raising their profile, etc. How cool is that? I love The Scissor Sisters. Plus, they have a song called 'Laura', so how could I not?

I suggested Book Trust, which run the fantastic Bookstart Scheme. I love that the UK government funds this project, which provides free books for every baby born in the UK. My friend Tash is the London regional officer too, which makes them even cooler. And when he told me they'd be playing in Newcastle, I said they should consider Seven Stories, Centre for Children's Book, since it is one of the most wonderful and playful museums for children's books that I've been to. If you live in England and haven't been, then book your trip now. I took a bunch of serious academics there as part of the last Child and the Book conference, and people's eyes lit up like they were little children again.

He liked those ideas, and said he'd check them out. He said that he saw I'd published an article on creepy kids in film, which he thought would appeal to the band's aesthetic (not that they're asking me to come on stage and design anything...). But, how totally and amazingly cool! And I've done a bit of web searching on John and found out he's also the son of Graeme Garden from the Goodies.

When I asked how he found me, he said through my website. So it's doing its job! I also emailed him after we talked with some other ideas, such as including Jacqueline Wilson, the current UK children's laureate. And for a potential Brighton-based project, to include the Rockinghorse Appeal which is raising money for the Alexandra Hospital for Sick Children. Fantastic author/illustrator Raymond Briggs designed their logo, and I thought he would appeal greatly to the band's sensibilities. He thanked me for the suggestions and said he'd pass them on.

So there you go. It pays to have a website.

I've meant to write about an event I went to two weeks ago: London Schools and the Black Child. Someone said there were 3,000 people there, and I can believe it. This is a wonderful event funded by the city of London, and strongly supported by the mayor, Ken Livingston. And it's the brain child of MP Diane Abbott. The keynote speaker was Tim Campbell who won the first UK Apprentice TV show. I would say that of the 3,000 people there, probably 2,800 of them were black or Asian. It was interesting to be in the minority, with the odd white face sprinkled through the room. Alison Morrison from Walker Books (and the Diversity in Publishing Network) was there. They were the only children's publisher to be smart enough to have a stand. Here is a huge market or teachers looking for books with diverse characters and stories. And if Francesca Dow of Puffin's statistics come true (see my notes from the Diversity Matters conference), then by 2010, one in five school children will be from Black and minority ethnic (BME) backgrounds in the UK.

I took copious notes and meant to put the highlights here, but I just haven't had time. If I do, I'll post them. But I encourage everyone to keep this conference in mind. It's free, and there were many excellent and thought-provoking speakers. If you want to be sure to be alerted when it's coming, join the Diversity in Publishing Network. That's how I found out about it. Plus, they're just a good organization to support.

William Nicholson at The Space

I went to an event run by The Space on Tuesday night this week. The Space is a Brighton-based media networky event that happens monthly, and they bring different local speakers to address the creative types who seem to be drawn to this southern part of England. My husband did sound with his company Out Post Sound (little plug - for all your professional audio needs...).

William Nicholson spoke first, and he delivered an excellent, entertaining, and inspiring talk (ostensibly an interview, though he made the interviewer's job very easy by giving long, lucid answers). Nicholson is a children's book author who also has written for TV, film (screenplays for Shadowlands and Gladiator), and directed a film as well. I actually was working at Orchard Books in the US when we were sent The Wind Singer, the first Slaves of the Mastery book to consider taking as an import. The editor had several of us read the book, and all of us absolutely loved the first three chapters (who can forget - 'wiss, wiss'). Though when we asked for the rest of the book, many thought there could be additional work done (I can't remember all the details, but this speaks to what I've heard is often a difference between the US and the UK, that the US is more editor-intensive, for better or for worse). In any case, they found an eager buyer in Hyperion and the book (and the whole trilogy) were a big success. They also had wonderful covers by Peter Sis (in the US).

Nicholson spoke of his many 'failures', how he got his first novel published in his mid-30s, but it wasn't well-received. And he gave his advice to people who want to get published:

• Write. A lot and frequently. He said he has many people who already have the jacket blurb for their novel written, or their biography. But it takes lots and lots of writing. And if you find you get stuck/overwhelmed by the critical voice telling you that everything is crap (not a direct quote), then write notes. He said that notes can be loose, you don't have to worry about grammar, and usually after you've written notes for 15 minutes you'll find that you are actually writing the book rather than just notes.
• Rewrite. This speaks for itself, but he said it is critical. Go from beginning to end and make sure it works, edit, etc.
• Take criticism. And listen to it. Some won't be good, but then you can figure out why you disagree with it. Here was my favorite quote of the evening: 'You don't have to be smart to give criticism. You just have to not be the writer.' OK, so there's a split infinitive, but you get the idea.
• Finish a piece of work.
  
• Keep sending it out. And do your research, make sure you know what a publisher produces, and use your covering letter to point out why your book is appropriate to that publisher. Be persistent and don't give up.
  
• Use everything around you. Go to events run by your friend at the pub, write for your local newspaper, get exposure and network. Use all your contacts and pour your energy into it. And here's my second favorite quote from the evening: 'Geniuses aren't discovered by chance. They shove - they push.'

I thought that ideas could be useful for the creative writing course I'll be running starting in October, so wanted to be sure to write it all down. And I talked to William Nicholson afterwards about possibly speaking at the Brighton Children's Literature Festival which I'll hopefully be running on April 21st, 2007. I need to go to him again and check the date, but he said in principle he'd be open to it. It's clear he could speak about anything, and has a wealth of experience behind him. A wonderful speaker, and nice to find a children's literature person speaking at a media-type event.

The other speaker, Tim Pope, was also very good (just a bit less related to my area of interests). He's a director of music videos and ads, having worked extensively with The Cure, Neil Young, Iggy Pop, and more recently with The Kaiser Chiefs and KT Tunstall. He was charming, self-effacing, and quite critical of the big move towards commercialism in the music video world, where record companies have much more power and influence now than they did when he was making videos back in the 80's.

You can find short biographical information about both speakers here.