CBC Diversity

For the past year or so, I've been meeting about once a month with a group of children's book editors from other houses. Founded by Nancy Mercado of Roaring Brook, we called ourselves DIBS (Diversity in Books), and we were hoping to help increase the diversity within the publishing industry, and also in the authors, illustrators, and books published. We started getting a website together and grand plans of doing school visits, job fairs, conferences, and more. But, of course, we were all so busy with our jobs and lives that it was hard to get things going. Well, a conversation at a Children's Book Council cocktail party brought these two groups together, and the CBC Diversity Committee was formed. We had a small kick-off party last week for agents, media, and publishing folks, and we talked about our mission, the importance of it, and what everyone there could do to become a CBC Diversity Partner. Here's a picture of me speaking:

I talked about not being able to fully see myself in the books I was reading as a child.

Diversity is a mission I am absolutely passionate about--it's important not only for children to be able to see themselves represented in the books they read, but also important for children to be exposed to other experiences and viewpoints. It increases empathy and tolerance. And as I said at our kick-off, I hope to live in a world where we can have an Asian Harry Potter or a black Bella without anyone even blinking an eye. We'll get there, I know it!

Please, won't you all join us? I linked above to our mission and how we can all help, and we'll be keeping the CBC Diversity blog active with at least two posts each week. I'm posting this week, so stay tuned!

The reality of our world

First, some random business.
-Our contest is still ongoing, so if you haven't commented for the chance to win books and cookies, you have until November 10th, so comment here!

-My company celebrated Halloween last Thursday in the office. To take a look at some of the great costumes (and to see who I dressed up as this year), check out my post over at bloomabilities here.

-The NYPL has posted the audio of last week's "Reflections on YA" panel. If you missed out on the discussion, hear what went on here.

And now on to our regularly scheduled program.

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There have been two blog posts that have lit up the internet (well, my internet, at least) for the past week that have both saddened and enraged me. One is this blog review of a Middle Grade novel, Penny Dreadful by Laurel Snyder. The blog's author, Noël De Vries, liked the book until she came to a depiction of a character who happily lives with her two mothers. De Vries finds some interviews online of the author's motivation for including these characters and writes:

As Snyder writes on her blog, "if more books represented diversity this way, simply, without it being a big issue all the time, more kids would understand that it isn‘t always a big issue. I’d like to think that children’s books are a wonderful way to begin the process of educating people about how varied human experience is, and about how all of it, all of it, is normal." (emphasis mine)

The only problem is, being a lesbian is not normal. It's not something that "just happens" to people, like being poor or brave. In fact, when you look through Biblical glasses, homosexuality is, well, an abomination.

Characters like Willa and Jenny, however, with their happy little family, show elementary-age readers that Christian beliefs are hateful and silly. Add these characters to the full-blown assault of politically-correct propaganda that is molding America's children.

The second blog post is a dating blogger named Maura for Marie Claire Magazine who wrote a post entitled "Should "Fatties" Get a Room (even on TV)?

She writes about the show Mike & Molly and answers this question that her editor asks her: "Do you really think people feel uncomfortable when they see overweight people making out on television?" 

She writes:

My initial response was: Hmm, being overweight is one thing — those people are downright obese! And while I think our country's obsession with physical perfection is unhealthy, I also think it's at least equally crazy, albeit in the other direction, to be implicitly promoting obesity! Yes, anorexia is sick, but at least some slim models are simply naturally skinny. No one who is as fat as Mike and Molly can be healthy. And obesity is costing our country far more in terms of all the related health problems we are paying for, by way of our insurance, than any other health problem, even cancer.

So anyway, yes, I think I'd be grossed out if I had to watch two characters with rolls and rolls of fat kissing each other ... because I'd be grossed out if I had to watch them doing anything. To be brutally honest, even in real life, I find it aesthetically displeasing to watch a very, very fat person simply walk across a room — just like I'd find it distressing if I saw a very drunk person stumbling across a bar or a heroine addict slumping in a chair.

Holy moly. Where do I start? First of all, I also read much of the comments on both blogs, and I have to say, the kidlit community is, for the most part, much more civil and reasonable, even when confronted with beliefs many found extremely offensive and disturbing. On the Marie Claire blog, on the other hand, a large chunk of people hoped that the blogger would die, and both sides resort to immature name calling.

What I'll say about both posts is that they are pretty clear examples of bigotry. And, mind you, I'm talking about what was written in the posts, not about the authors themselves. I'm also not suggesting that homosexuality and obesity are similar in terms of categorizing people, except in the sense that they are both demographic groups, and the groups under attack by these two blog posts.

Although there was much to object to in both posts, there was something that Ms. De Vries wrote in her own defense in the comments that particularly spoke to me. She said:

But my concern is the “writing in” of publicly visible “diverse” characters, when it is done, not because the characters are necessary to the story, but because an author likes “to think that children’s books are a wonderful way to begin the process of educating people….”

As a children's book editor, I can certainly understand how something in a work of fiction can feel forced or contrived so as to take you out of the story and affect your reading and enjoyment of it. That is something all authors strive NOT to do. Everything should feel very fluid and natural and realistic.

However, I cannot emphasize enough how important it is for authors (and TV producers, and movie directors, etc. etc.) to put in diverse characters to reflect the reality of our world. And yes, that includes overweight people. I've said it a thousand times, and I'll say it again: as an Asian American growing up in a very white community, I hungered to see depictions of characters in books and TV and movies that reflected my reality, and sadly there was very little.

When I became an editor, it became one of my missions to publish books featuring underrepresented people. So, I guess I became what the first blogger would call part of the "politically-correct propaganda that is molding America's children." Oh boy. Hide your children from the books I edit!  For a series I was working on a long time ago, I made the suggestion of adding in another minority main character, and the author responded with something to the effect of, Well, we already have this character and that character and this character and wouldn't it be a little too obvious/overkill to add in yet another? At the time, I let it go, because that wasn't the author's reality and if she had forced it in, it would have felt that way: forced (although perhaps not to the child of that ethnic group reading the book...). But the sentiment of it has always bothered me, because the answer is no, it shouldn't be too obvious or overkill, because that exists in reality--in my reality, in other's realities. I've always hung out with a diverse group of friends. A former colleague of mine who was Mexican-American said that when he was in high school, his two best friends were an Asian guy and a black guy. And that was how it was. That was their reality, not a fake depiction of diversity in a book or TV show. And so, as an editor, I now try to find a diverse array of voices whose realities reflect our diverse world.

Author Jackie Dolamore stated it very succinctly in her comment:

My books reflect the world around me. I only have one book published so I can't say there is a HUGE amount of diversity there, but I know wonderful people who are gay, I know wonderful people who are devoutly religious. I know lots of different people in life, so when I write, if I didn't reflect that, it wouldn't feel real to me. I don't think all writers who include gay characters are trying to push a pet agenda, many of us are just reflecting the world we live in, just as if I write about a devoutly religious character I'm not pushing a religion because I don't belong to one, I am reflecting my world which includes many wonderful devoutly religious people.

Sorry to be preachy, but to Noël and Maura, I will just say: we have all kinds of people in the world, and we need that to be reflected in our media. Please, just practice tolerance and acceptance. Or if not acceptance, then I'll settle for tolerance. If you don't want to watch, if you don't want to read, then just look away. But allow others who do want to read and do want to watch do so. And allow those of us who are lesbians or obese exist and be happy, even. Your reality is not my reality, but we have to live in the same world. As Roger Sutton stated so succinctly, "not everything is about you, dear."


Note: after writing this post, I came across author Laurel Snyder's excellent response to the review.

A new cover for LIAR!

Bloomsbury has just announced that they will be designing a new cover/jacket for Justine Larbalestier's LIAR, which I discussed last week. From Publisher's Weekly:

“In response to this concern, and in support of the author’s vision for the novel, Bloomsbury has decided to re-jacket the hardcover edition with a new look in time for its publication in October. It is our hope that the important discussions about race and its representation in teen literature continue. As the publisher of Liar, we also hope that nothing further distracts from the quality of the author’s nuanced and accomplished story, and that a new cover will allow this novel’s many advocates to celebrate its U.S. publication without reservation.”

I think this is the right decision, so good for them, and good for everyone pushing for them to do the right thing. I'll be so curious to see what the new cover looks like.

Update: looks like they have a new cover image up on PW now! Wow!

Lying covers, and the importance of diversity

If you haven't heard yet, there's quite the controversy going on regarding the U.S. cover image of Justine Larbalestier's new YA book Liar, coming out in October. Basically, Justine's protagonist is described in the book as being black with short hair. The girl on the cover is fairly obviously white with long hair that covers her mouth. Publisher's Weekly has an excellent article about the debate here, and read Justine's very thoughtful response here.

In a past post about book design, I talked about how difficult a task it is to design novel covers. There are SO MANY people to try to make happy. Working for a publisher, I know how a cover can change and morph and get watered down and/or far away from the original vision. And I know that the author rarely gets approval, let alone official consultation. So, on the surface, I can understand how the Liar cover could come to be--and on it's own, I find it to be a striking cover. I would pick up a book with that cover.

However, I do think it's disappointing and disheartening that the cover girl does not match the descriptions of the heroine in the interior, especially because of what's been said about the reasoning behind it. And on a surface level, too--as a kid, it always drove me batty when the cover didn't match the interior. Then, it generally had to do with hair color, not race, but as a reader, I think the cover should match the interior. And it saddens me what this particular discrepancy potentially says about the book market.

I can't comment on what happened behind the closed doors of the publishing house. I don't want to point fingers. And I have no idea either what the ethnicity of all of the key players involved was, but I feel confident in saying that something like this would have never happened at our publishing house, because we have such a commitment to the diversity both of our staff, and the books that we publish. I can't imagine someone even suggesting to me that to we put a white person on the cover of a book with an Asian protagonist. However, I can see NOT putting a face on the cover at all.

I have no idea if books with non-white characters on the cover have lower sales than covers with white characters. I don't doubt it, but I'm sure there is a huge array of reasons why it would or would not be the case. But if it is the case, then it's something that we should all work towards changing. Author Sarah Ockler had a great blog post earlier this year about looking at how diverse your bookshelf is. It's something we should all think about. Do you buy books featuring characters of a race other than your own? A lot or a little? Why or why not?

I have been successful in acquiring books by authors of many different backgrounds, featuring characters of the same. Some of the covers feature the faces of the characters, others do not. For example, Justina Chen Headley's first novel, Nothing But the Truth (and a few white lies) features a hapa (half Asian, half white) protagonist in the book and on the cover. Her second book, Girl Overboard, features an Asian protagonist but the cover image shows the back of a snowboarder (a beautiful stock photo). Her third book, North of Beautiful features a blond heroine in the interior and on the cover. It's her third book that has "broken out. " And although I can also argue that it's the best book she's written so far, and we've been able to build on the success of her first two novels, who knows. Things to ponder.

My favorite picture book as a child was The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats. I always use that as evidence that race doesn't matter, that if a little Asian girl could have a favorite book with a black boy on the cover, then it is possible that gender and race barriers in book choices could not exist. A friend once commented, however, that because I, too, am a "person of color," I am possibly more open to reading books about other people of color. I suppose that could be right, although I have to think that plenty of little white children called the book their favorite, too, right?

I believe in the importance of diversity. This post about bias from a while ago talks about a study that I feel proves that the more people see TV shows and movies and read books with positive depictions of people not like themselves, the more accepting we will be of all types of people. I laugh when someone says "but I have black friends" or "gay friends" or "Asian friends" to prove that they aren't racist or biased. That is no proof at all. But you know, at least it's a start. Because the more contact we have with people of other races, the less biased we'll all eventually become (I hope!).

Regardless of how all of this works out, I have to think that this is a "teachable moment"--just as President Obama referred to the incident where Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates was arrested in his own home. This article in the NYTimes was eye-opening as well. Let's learn from this, and all try to make sure that this type of thing doesn't happen in the future.