Marion Dane Bauer's Blog, page 25
December 29, 2015
Let Us Work Together
“If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time, but if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” Lilla Watson
December 22, 2015
In Which Their Own Faces Shine
Last time I wrote in this space, I talked about our need for diverse books, diverse books and diverse authors . . . a point on which, I assume, we all agree. All children, when they enter the world of books, need to be able to find their own cultures, their own families, their own […]
December 15, 2015
I Ask Myself
“In 1969, when I first entered the world of writing children’s literature, the field was nearly empty. Children of color were not represented, nor were children from the lower economic classes. Today, when about 40 percent of public school students nationwide are black and Latino, the disparity of representation is even more egregious. In the […]
December 8, 2015
On Needing Diverse Books
Recent weeks have been unsettling ones in the children’s literature community, unsettling and bewildering and discouraging, too. Good people—authors/artists/editors/publishers—have brought books into the world with good intentions. These books, in one way or another, touch upon racial issues. They are received enthusiastically by the professional gatekeepers whose judgment we all rely on, mostly white professional […]
December 1, 2015
The Next Time You Lose Heart
“The next time you lose heart and you can’t bear to experience what you’re feeling, you might recall this instruction: change the way you see it and lean in…. Instead of blaming our discomfort on outer circumstances or on our own weakness, we can choose to stay present and awake to our experience, not rejecting […]
November 24, 2015
A Great Book
“A great book, a book that adds to self-reflection and understanding, is different from an amusement: an amusement is meant to distract us from ourselves, where a great book is meant to open the honeyed cells of the inner life and freely nourish new thoughts.” Jack Gantos, from the 2015 Zena Sutherland Lecture What is […]
November 17, 2015
It’s a Hard Time to Be Human
“What if you felt the invisible tug between you and everything?… It’s a hard time to be human. We know too much and too little. Does the breeze need us? The cliffs? The gulls? If you’ve managed to do one good thing, the ocean doesn’t care. But when Newton’s apple fell toward the earth, the […]
November 10, 2015
On Being an Old Lady
I love being an old lady. I love the gifts age brings every single day. This is what rising to an old-lady day looks like: I am first up, and I motion our two little dogs into action. They tumble down the stairs ahead of me, eager for a brief encounter with the back yard, […]
November 3, 2015
Taking the Nation’s Pulse
“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” Martin Luther King, Jr.
October 27, 2015
First Draft, Second Draft, Third . . .
I wrote last time about revision, and I’ll return to revision here. It’s one of my favorite topics, because revision is one of my favorite activities. Yes, of course, the doing over can be frustrating. My first drafts have a way, initially, of seeming . . . well, not perfect—I always assume the need to […]
