As the daughter of a Chinese immigrant, I feel compelled to write in support of Amélie Wen Zhao. She immigrated to the U.S. at age 18 from China. Chasing her dreams, she wrote while a professional in finance, and won from a YA Pitch on Twitter, a 3 book deal from Delacourt worth in the neighborhood…
I did not attend the ALA Midwinter Conference 2019 but I follow it, like all KidLit bloggers, to see who won the ALA book awards. In following the tweets, I saw some ugly racism that I want to cover today: 1. Let’s start with a baseline of whiteness in librarians versus the general population of…
Jay Asher, author of Thirteen Reasons Why, has recently filed a defamation lawsuit against SCBWI and Lin Oliver. Mr. Asher’s career imploded when he was accused of sexual misconduct, and the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators announced that he had violated the professional organization’s anti-harassment policy. The repercussions were swift: His literary agency…
Today, I wanted to tackle why the children’s book publishing industry is giving a pass to sexual misconduct authors and illustrators who were not written up in major publications? It’s as if publishers have conspired with School Library Journal to scrub the comments on their article, Unpacking Anne Ursu’s Survey and the Fallout, with Changes…
I invited my guest author to respond today, Sandra Neil Wallace, on the Wall Street Journal Op Ed piece, “Reading From Left to Left at Barnes & Noble.” The author, Dave Seminara, objected to a book display of Inspiring Books to Empower Young Readers because it was too liberal. He writes: Unless you lock your children in a…