Cover Release for AMY WU & THE AMAZING BAO & Giveaway!
Category: #OwnVoices
Jason Reynolds’ Track Series and Best Series Award
I think there should be Newbery type of award for middle grade book series. Have you noticed that there are no awards for book series? Why is that? I’d make the criteria: The book series has to be completed. The book series must have between 3-7 books. (I hate those endlessly long series that are…
A Selection of #OwnVoices Native American Stories & 3 Book GIVEAWAY!
I’m so happy to be kicking off 2019 with #OwnVoices. I am going to focus my blog on #OwnVoices children’s books and in a few months, you’ll know why! Today, I have Anthony Perry as my guest author. He writes as a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation and the United States, as well as an immigrant…
Native American Residential Schools #OwnVoices Book List
The recent family separation of some 14,000 children is not a new policy for the United States. Involuntary assimilation was a policy during the late 19th century when the U.S. and Canadian governments forced nearly 150,000 Native American and Indigenous children into Residential Schools reminiscent of Oliver Twist’s orphanage. In fact, the Residential Schools’ conditions were…
SUMO JOE Illustrator Nat Iwata
Did you know that picture book authors and illustrators do not communicate until the project is completed? I think it’s to give the illustrator some creative space to bring the words to life. No one likes to be micromanaged by someone else’s vision. My debut picture book, SUMO JOE, with illustrator Nat Iwata is not…
#OwnVoices Children’s Books for Latinx Heritage Month
As I read all these #OwnVoices books, I noticed that many revolved around the importance of family and food. In fact, they are intertwined together. Family recipes passed down over generations. Grandmother cooking if not grandmother actually cooking. And it’s always love that binds the generations as well as the secret sauce for why the…
#OwnVoices Controversy
There has been a lot of tweets lately about #OwnVoices and who is writing diversity in children’s books after a controversial TedTalk by Nora Raleigh Baskin. I found this article by The Good Men Project that puts everything into perspective. In this post: I will lay out why racism is the foundation for #OwnVoices controversy…
#OwnVoices Half Filipino Character Face Off
I wanted to share a robust conversation that I had with two middle grade authors recently after posting this video that compared their two characters — both half-Filipino. One author is #OwnVoices and one is not. I have been tracking Filipino-American children’s books because I’m shocked and dismayed how few there are. This is especially…
Native American Folklore & Creation Stories by Native Americans
You might have missed the drama caused when Nancy Bo Flood was invited to join the “Indigenous Experience in Children’s Literature” panel. Native American children’s book blogger, Debbie Reese objected: “As regular readers of AICL know, I’ve been studying the ways Native peoples are depicted in children’s literature for decades. In that time, I’ve come…