Periodically at Reading While White, we will share links and/or short posts between longer pieces. But before you scroll down for our first set of links, please take a look over to the right of this post; below our contributor bios you’ll find our Mission, a set of FAQs, a glossary (which is currently empty; let us know what you would like to be defined!), and a resource page. Please take some time with each, but keep in mind that these are by no means set in stone—we expect to revisit and tinker with each of these files as we go. Similarly, we may very well add to our list of Kindred Spirits—blogs by folks we hold in the highest esteem (below the aforementioned documents).
And now, the links:
- Here’s a sobering bit of news from the Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC) at UW-Madison: 2015 is not shaping up to be a banner year for the publishing of diverse books.
- Lee & Low publisher Jason Low has extended the deadline for publishers to join the Diversity Baseline Survey, in which Low is trying to (as written here) “establish a baseline that shows where [the publishing industry is] now so we can start taking concrete steps to address the problem,” namely the dearth of books by and/or about people of color and First/Native Nations. With MacMillan and Scholastic coming on late (among others), things are looking up.
- In related news, Mira Jacob writes, “We are ready for a publishing industry that represents the world we live in, and it will ignore us—writers and readers of color—at its peril.” An insightful and hilarious piece of writing about the troubling trend of whitewashing books.
- Finally, Chicago school librarian extraordinaire Elisa Gall shares a thoughtful take on a picture book that is getting a lot of buzz (and starred reviews), Emily Jenkins’ and Sophie Blackall’s A Fine Dessert. Not to play spoiler, but let’s just say Elisa is less taken with the book than many others.
Until next time!
1 comment:
Elisa's Gall piece is a must read. As a school administrator, it's disappointing to see that some of the leaders in the publishing world can't take a litle critique when it comes to their own white privilege. How ironic, right? Thanks for fighting the good fight. No matter what white people say, we have had enough of their "takes" on slavery. It was irresponsible to include enslavement and not name it. And to trivialize enslavement with a antidote of "dessert" really, really underestimates children and what they should know and understand in the world. Kids are smarter than that and should be treated with respect, not the condescension of a white author's attempt to address enslavement (but not name it) by showing Black people eating dessert in a closet.
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