children & libraries
June is over and I managed to write just under 16K words. Not bad, but not enough to finish The Return. I took a break on Wednesday to write a new picture book story and for research purposes, went up to Harlem this morning to attend Drag Queen Story Time. Harmonica Sunbeam had a small group of rowdy boys and three quiet girls—and she handled them like a pro! I was very impressed and know just how it feels when you prepare for one age group and then show up to find kids of a different age.I had a chance to talk to the youth librarian and Harmonica afterward and understand now why I’m better at writing workshops and book talks. 300 kids in an auditorium? No problem—because that’s the same kind of dynamic as the classroom. But story time is a *performance* and Harmonica admitted that her experience onstage, improvising and reading her audience, helps when working with kids. Did the kids leave story time understanding what a drag queen is? No. But she was a great reader and did a fun activity with them afterward. Maybe that’s a start.
On Friday I received a stack of letters from the 3rd-5th graders I met last month at Explore Charter School. These are a few of my favorites. I’ve decided to use “the queen of books” as my professional title from now on.
Last week I also learned that an article I wrote last fall about the inspiring week I spent in the Twin Cities was published in the summer issue of Children & Libraries, a publication of ALSC (Association for Library Service to Children). Here’s a short excerpt from “I Am Not Beyoncé:”
I’m grateful for every invitation I receive as an indie author because I recognize the risk a professor, librarian, or educator takes when he or she opens the door to someone deemed by many to be “not quite legitimate,” “unaffiliated,” and/or “too provocative.” The invitations I do receive invariably come from people who share both my commitment to social justice and my love for children from underserved communities who are also underrepresented in children’s literature.
A last-minute invitation is better than no invitation at all, right? I’ll be heading to Toronto at the end of this month for the biannual congress of the International Research Society for Children’s Literature (IRSCL). Our roundtable, “The Medium & the Messengers: Local Artists, Globalized Genres, and Transnational Audiences,” includes Shauntay Grant, Vivek Shraya, and Rukhsana Khan. It’s Canada Day today and I love that my Facebook feed is full of articles about #Resistance150 by First Nations activists:
#Resistance150: a project intended to highlight the many ways Indigenous peoples have historically resisted, and continue to resist, what many see as discriminatory and assimilationist policies of the Canadian government, such as those regarding pipeline construction, access to drinking water and child welfare funding gaps. Perhaps most importantly, the Indian Act itself.
I suspect my “Face in the Mirror” post from May is the reason I’m being invited—for the first time—to participate in this conference. I certainly haven’t been on any Canadian kid lit scholar’s radar for the past decade. As always, I feel anxious about heading back to Toronto, but the example of Indigenous artists helps me know that it’s not just okay but necessary to tell the truth about Canada—a country that’s progressive, but far from perfect…
