Zetta Elliott's Blog, page 79

this made my day

Today was EXCELLENT! I thought I might be late, and since I demand punctuality of my students, I was horrified at the thought of being late for class myself. But the insanity on the train subsided, there was no mile-long line for the elevators at school, and all three of my classes were fantastic. I love students who show up ready to learn—and to share! We discussed Wish in my neo-slave narratives class and the students had some really interesting insights. In between classes I checked my email and found a request to republish my essay on African Canadian writers. I also found I had been cc'd on this lovely message from the awesome librarian at yesterday's school. Here's some of what she said:

THANK YOU for bringing Zetta Elliott to our school yesterday!
The program was a huge success. We had over 200 students from both campus schools…in the auditorium together. Zetta kept them engaged for 45 minutes with her interactive presentation.
After the official program ended, she stayed and interacted informally with students in the auditorium and then accepted an invitation to visit their classroom on the 3rd floor, where I found her reading aloud from her new book to a group of enthralled 6th grade students.
Today, students have been coming into the library all morning requesting her books.
I highly recommend her presentation. I hope you are able to bring her to other schools.
I would also welcome the opportunity to have her return to our school to work on other projects with our students. Please keep us in mind.
Thank you again for providing our students with this valuable experience.

Tomorrow I go to a school in Bed-Stuy that I've visited several times before, and then I spend the weekend planning our launch party! I've made a flyer, which you can view here: launchflyer. More details to come…

gold star

Had another amazing school visit today! Walked back to the train with a big smile on my face and as soon as I got home, I ordered some copies of my poetry book for the kids in Ms. Mosby's class who shared their moon haiku with me. This was the largest group I've ever presented before—200 kids!—and I think I do better with smaller groups, but it was still a lot of fun. My second visit at this school in Cobble Hill was just as great as the first, and the kids were just as sweet and impressive. I think 6th graders might be my favorite age group—they're young enough to still have a sense of wonder, and yet they're still respectful and even a little bit shy. After my presentation in the auditorium I went upstairs to one sixth-grade classroom and spent some time with a small group of students (and their two awesome teachers). Another class gave me the poster they made after reading Bird, and before leaving the school I was presented with a certificate of achievement—my first gold star in years! I came home to 27 emails in my inbox…my head felt like it was about to burst today, but this has been a really productive week. We're almost ready to announce our launch party for Ship of Souls. I'll post details soon…and yes, there will be cake!

quiet

This introvert is taking a much-needed day of silence…yet as I walked around the park this morning, baseball cap tipped against the blowing snow, I marveled at the kindness of others. I did three "meet the author" presentations this week, and every time I left a school, I said a prayer of thanks for the Brooklyn Public Library. I feel so blessed to have the opportunity to share my work with so many students and educators—eight schools altogether, with one hundred students in the audience each time. On Monday the assistant principal in Sunset Park worked tirelessly to get me the equipment I needed for my powerpoint presentation, and then sat at the laptop herself and advanced the slides so I was free to interact with the students. On Wednesday I arrived at the school in Spring Creek and two members of the book club were waiting at the door, cameras poised to capture the moment. After my talk the librarian and parent coordinators hosted a nice reception that included *quite* a spread—and I got a call later asking me about how to order books for the school. Yesterday I was in a new school with a stunning auditorium, and the librarian filled it with a range of students—some top performing classes, some special ed. classes, some kids with special needs–and she, too, sat at the laptop so I was free to move around. Afterward as many teachers as students came up to thank me for my talk and to express interest in Ship of Souls. Those kind of moments always make me thankful for my early years in Canada—the warmth and openness of Americans wouldn't mean so much to me if I didn't come from a culture that's markedly different.

Back at my job, my students were understanding when I had to rearrange our class schedule on Tuesday to accommodate a radio interview with Pia Lindstrom; I'm not sure whether we taped a twenty- or thirty-minute segment because the time flew by and I got to talk about SoS, my belief in magic, my love of history, and I even squeezed in a quote by Audre Lorde (whose essay I'd taught earlier that morning).

Now I have to turn my attention back to my conference paper for France. I found a grant that might help to pay for some of the expenses, but I need to submit the conference program and I can't ask for that when the organizers are still waiting on my overdue paper…time to make the most of this day of silence—time to write.

step one

Have you heard about the Children's Book Council's new Diversity Committee? Elizabeth Bluemle has also written an account of the committee's first event:

Last year, a group of children's book editors desirous of actively talking about and tackling these issues started gathering for lunch discussions. Over time, this grew into a full-blown initiative spearheaded by the wonderful people at the Children's Book Council. Last week, I was overjoyed to have a chance to attend the kickoff celebration for the CBC Diversity Committee, which describes itself as "dedicated to increasing the diversity of voices and experiences contributing to children's literature. We endeavor to encourage diversity of race, gender, geographical origin, sexual orientation, and class among both the creators of and the topics addressed by children's literature. We strive for a more diverse range of employees working within the industry, of authors and illustrators creating inspiring content, and of characters depicted in children's literature."

I'm skeptical, of course, and don't see any mention of their intent to *measure* progress, which I think is important. But it's a start, and big change can come from taking a small step forward. The following is from their blog:

We plan to achieve these goals by taking the following actions:



Recruitment

Participate in high school and college career fairs.
Visit high school senior level English classes to discuss careers in publishing.


Resources


Maintain an up-to-date blog consisting of industry news, book spotlights, CBC Diversity event information, the personal stories of Committee members, and other ready resources for publishing individuals.
Provide a Goodreads CBC Diversity profile that exhaustively curates front and backlist books by CBC member publishers in order to raise awareness of the diversity-friendly content already in existence.

Keeping the Conversation Going

Hold safe space meetings at which industry employees can discuss the obstacles to diversity that they have encountered within the children's publishing world.
Host panel discussions at which different industry arms can communicate the challenges they face in selling and promoting diverse books, and can work together to develop solutions to these problems.

freezing time

Sometimes when it's cold outside you don't really notice. By the time my walking tour ended yesterday, my imagination was ablaze—and my feet were frozen. But I didn't become aware of that fact until I headed back to Brooklyn; I was too busy scheming and dreaming up another book! Cyrus Forman, park ranger at the African Burial Ground National Monument, gave a fantastic presentation yesterday that included a powerpoint presentation at the visitor center followed by a guided tour of the sites in lower Manhattan that were part of Maritcha Lyons' world. Cyrus stopped traffic and led us through the streets surrounding the African Burial Ground; Maritcha was born where the ugly Manhattan Detention Center now stands; her grandmother had a home and a bakery there, and once welcomed Frederick Douglass as a guest; Maritcha's father, Albro Lyons, ran the Colored Seamen's Home at 330 Pearl Street (picture here), which was attacked in the New York City Draft Riots of 1863 (he also once lived in Seneca Village, the mostly black community destroyed to make way for Central Park). Carla L Peterson joined us for the tour (pictured with Cyrus above); she's the author of Black Gotham and the great-grand-niece of Maritcha Lyons! There are lots of other great events planned for the rest of February, including another walking tour on 2/25. Check out the AFBG's new social media site, and you can find a list of their Black History Month events on the CES blog.

I gave my first presentation on Ship of Souls last Friday. The students and staff at the North Star Academy were wonderful, and the kids were definitely intrigued by the chapter I read aloud. This morning I'm heading over to Prospect Park to take photos for my powerpoint presentation. Then it's back to work on my conference paper. No one can stop time, but it's so easy to lose yourself in the past when you're walking around this city—the parks, the schools, the brownstones—all serve as reminders of another time, other generations who walked these same streets and dreamed their own dreams…I came home from the walking tour yesterday and found an email from my father's cousin; I had searched for her unsuccessfully online, but found someone on Facebook that I thought was her brother…I sent him a message, he forwarded it to his sister, and she emailed me to offer the assistance I need to piece together my father's family history. It's hard to set the shovel aside once you start digging, but time doesn't stop just because you're caught up in the past. The semester's off to a good start, I've got a radio interview on Tuesday, and three more school visits this week. Sometimes I feel like the sankofa bird—facing forward but always looking back over my shoulder…

avoiding annihilation

My essay on African Canadian authors is up on the FedCan blog:

If the Canadian publishing industry only opens the gate for two black novelists each year, what happens to all the other talented and aspiring writers? Twenty novels written by twelve African Canadian authors have been published in Canada since the start of the twenty-first century – and only two of the twelve were first-time authors. A rather astonishing percentage of those novels have won or been nominated for major literary awards, including Esi Edugyan's Half Blood Blues, which won the 2011 Giller Prize. Yet can you name three black Canadian women novelists under the age of forty? I couldn't do it when I emigrated in 1994, and I still can't do it now that I'm nearing forty myself. I can name black women novelists from the United Kingdom (e.g. Helen Oyeyemi, Diana Evans, Zadie Smith) and the United States (e.g. Jesmyn Ward, N.K. Jemisin, Heidi Durrow). I adore the novels of Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie, an amazingly talented writer from Nigeria. But when I think about young black Canadian women novelists, I draw an unsettling blank.

My scholarly field, Ethnic Studies, is very much in the news these days since the Tucson Unified School District complied with an order from the Arizona state superintendent for public instruction to terminate the Mexican American Studies Program. It infuriates me to know that books are being banned – books that empower so many students of color by opening doors to an alternate, more inclusive view of the world. I know from experience – both as a student and educator – how it feels to finally find yourself in a classroom where people who look like you take center stage. How often does this happen in Canada for black children or children of color more generally? How can it happen when gatekeeping in the Canadian publishing industry keeps the flow of diverse voices to a trickle?

My longer conference paper is still under construction, and I'm thrilled that at least five authors responded to my request for an interview. Now I just have to knuckle down and pull it all together…

at last!

our first starred review for Ship of Souls!

Ship of Souls got its first *starred* review! Here's what the reviewer for Booklist had to say:

Eleven-year-old Dmitri, aka "D," doesn't fit in anywhere. After his single mother died three months ago,

he was taken in by an elderly white foster mom who also cares for a crack-addicted infant. At school, D's

the smartest kid around, yet worries constantly that he's not "black enough." So it's an oddball twist of

fate the afternoon he finds himself birdwatching with pierced military brat Nyla and basketball star,

Hakeem. A bond of friendship is solidified when D confides in them a secret: he has found a one-of-a-kind

"bird," though it's really not a bird—it's a being named Nuru that has asked D to help her rescue the souls

of dead soldiers located at Manhattan's African Burial Ground. Urban fantasies are nothing rare, but few

mesh gritty realism with poetic mysticism so convincingly. By turns sad, joyful, frightening, funny, and

inspirational, Elliott's second novel is a marvel of tone and setting, creating a universe where angry

corpses and rock-monsters are every bit as expected as dirty subways and bag ladies. Issues of war,

poverty, racism, Islam, and 9/11 do not bog down the telling but instead enrich it. Different readers will

take away different messages, all of them powerful—quite an accomplishment for so few pages.

— Daniel Kraus

To my knowledge, there weren't any dead soldiers buried in the African Burial Ground, but other than that, I'm *thrilled* with this review. Found out today that Kirkus passed because they didn't have enough lead time…but hopefully more great reviews are yet to come.

the proper channels

I don't want to talk about the situation in Arizona—the white woman governor poking her finger in the president's face, the need for brown-skinned immigrants like me to carry ID at all times, and now the banning of books that do nothing more than tell the TRUTH. I wrote about the dismantling of the Mexican American Studies Program in a post I've submitted to a Canadian government blog—if it gets published this week, I'll let you know. I wrote about Wednesday's "Teach-in" in emails to my colleagues at work. I plan to talk about it when classes start tomorrow because I doubt my students are aware of the pressure across the country to do away with Ethnic Studies in schools AND universities. But I'm sorry to say that right now I don't want to blog about it here. I'll just point you to Edi's fabulous list of links, which includes the important work Debbie Reese is doing over at AICL. I've asked my college to order a copy of Precious Knowledge and will screen it this semester as part of our Ethnic Studies Film Series. It's not enough, but it's a start. Because we all have a choice at moments like these: do something, or do nothing.

 

rewarding excellence

The Youth Media awards were announced yesterday at the midwinter ALA convention. You can find a recap of all the winners and honorees at the ALA site. The Coretta Scott King Award recipients are listed below. I'm eager to see Kyra Hicks' analysis of the CSKs—each year she points to trends that force us to ask just what the award does to promote excellence in African American children's literature. If the same people win the award year after year, are we really making progress? If the pool of black-authored books isn't expanding, do we really know what excellence looks like? And are the CSKs making a difference? I'm still working on my analysis of black Canadian authors and it's clear that since 2000, despite some black authors winning major literary prizes, only TWO debut authors entered the publishing arena. This would seem to disprove the theory that recognizing excellence leads to greater opportunities for all writers of color…

  

Coretta Scott King (Author) Book Award recognizing an African American author and illustrator of outstanding books for children and young adults:

Kadir Nelson, author and illustrator of "Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans," is the King Author Book winner. The book is published by Balzer + Bray, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

Two King Author Honor Book recipients were selected: Eloise Greenfield, author of "The Great Migration: Journey to the North," illustrated by Jan Spivey Gilchrist and published by Amistad, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers; and Patricia C. McKissack, author of "Never Forgotten," illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon and published by Schwartz & Wade Books, an imprint of Random House Children's Books, a division of Random House, Inc.

Coretta Scott King (Illustrator) Book Award:

Shane W. Evans, illustrator and author of "Underground: Finding the Light to Freedom," is the King Illustrator Book winner. The book is a Neal Porter Book, published by Roaring Brook Press, a division of Holtzbrinck Publishing Holdings Limited Partnership.

One King Illustrator Honor Book recipient was selected: Kadir Nelson, illustrator and author of "Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans," published by Balzar + Bray, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

Coretta Scott King – Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement:

Ashley Bryan is the winner of the Coretta Scott King – Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime achievement. The award, which pays tribute to the quality and magnitude of beloved children's author Virginia Hamilton.

Storyteller, artist, author, poet and musician, Bryan created his first children's book in first grade. He grew up in the Bronx and in 1962, he became the first African American to both write and illustrate a children's book. After a successful teaching career, Bryan left academia to pursue creation of his own artwork. He has since garnered numerous awards for his significant and lasting literary contribution of poetry, spirituals and story.