Who Gets To Write What?

I tuned into ESPN the other night, clicking away at my laptop as I waited for the Stanford-North Carolina women’s basketball game to begin. The end of the Louisville-Maryland contest was on. There was about a minute left, and Louisville was losing by 10 points, which pretty much guaranteed Maryland the win. But wait. A Louisville player, number 23, floated in a terrific three-point shot with 30 seconds left. Then the same player hit another three-pointer with 18 seconds left. And yet another with five seconds left. Maryland had made two foul shots during the Louisville run, and the score was now 76-73. But it was Louisville’s ball. One more three-pointer would send the game into overtime.

I’m a sucker for an athlete who performs well under pressure, so I put down my laptop and stared at the screen. The announcers were full of praise for the Louisville player, a senior named Shoni Schimmel. I have rarely seen anyone with a smoother, more poetic stroke. When Maryland took a timeout before the game's last play, I went back to my computer and Googled her.

I admit I don’t follow college basketball as much as I should. If I did, I would have known that Shoni, and her sister Jude, who also plays for the University of Louisville, are a genuine phenomenon. Their games attract thousands of people who drive from all over the U.S. and Canada to see them. The sisters are Native Americans who grew up on the Umatilla reservation in Pendleton, Oregon. Their success has galvanized Native fans and even attracted a filmmaker, who made a documentary about them titled Off the Rez.

As I read about the Schimmel sisters, I thought, “This is a great story. I should write it.” You probably know that I’ve made a career bringing the true tales of athletes and other bold and brilliant women to the mainstream. As first Shoni and then Jude graduate from college and enter the WNBA, their journeys should have the makings of a great book.

But then I wondered, “Should I write it?” In recent months, there has been a lot of discussion about the underrepresentation of people of color in children’s books. The postings on multicultural literature on the listserv of the Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC) of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, were coming fast and furious the entire month of February. A few weeks later, Walter Dean Myers and Christopher Myers wrote companion essays in the Sunday Review section of The New York Times under the title, “Where Are the People of Color in Children’s Books?”

One of the strands on the CCBC listserv focused on who actually writes books with characters or subjects of color, and as a corollary, who should write those books. A number of posters were pretty adamant that they thought books were more authentic—and by extension more acceptable—when they were written by members of the groups they portrayed. By that logic, a book about the Schimmel sisters would be best by a Native person. But why should authors be limited by their backgrounds? I’ve written more than a dozen books, including three biographies, and I’ve never written one with a main character who shares my Jewish heritage. For me, part of the joy of writing nonfiction is getting to explore new worlds while developing the context to tell the story.

That’s what I was thinking as I read many of the CCBC posts. And now I’m finally putting it into words. People expressed a valid concern about getting a more diverse pool of authors (and editors) producing children’s books, but I don’t feel that any authors should be dissuaded from tackling any topics that ignite their passions. Every voice is valid and every perspective is worth considering as we inspire kids' curiosity about and understanding of the world around them.

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For the record, Louisville didn’t win the game, despite an inspired play that put the ball in Schimmel’s hands for one more three-point attempt. She shot, and the ball hit the rim and ricocheted away as time ran out. It was Shoni’s last college game, but hopefully the prelude to an exciting professional career. Perhaps someone will write a book about Shoni and her sister one day. Perhaps it will be me.

A More Bearable Appendix B

Yes, I know we covered the Common Core standards in October, but here's some interesting news -- a children's literature advocates who are making a big difference. 

(left to right) Jane Gangi, Alexandria Hercules, Anthony Hazzard, Nancy Benfer, Lauren Feliciano, Jane Tejeda, Justin Lewis (missing: Peter Gangi, Gabrielle Gallinaro, Taylor Law) 

Imagine that you found fault with the Common Core standards, spoke up about it, were contacted by the authors, and convinced them to make a change. 

This is what happened to Jane Gangi, Ph.D. an associate education and literacy professor at Mount Saint Mary College in Newburgh, New York. (A little more about her here.) Like most authors, Gangi has developed a succinct “elevator pitch” for her work: “The Unbearable Whiteness of Literacy Instruction” is her summation of the battle she’s fighting to increase the number of books providing “mirrors” and “windows” in elementary school classrooms.  Gangi is the author of three books for education professionals about the best use of trade books in building literacy.  

Her emphasis is on providing children’s books of excellent quality that present a range of viewpoints -- multiple cultures, backgrounds, and abilities. Jane found such books to be poorly represented in Appendix B, the list of books recommended for classroom use in the Common Core standards. “Their text exemplars were primarily white,” she says. 

Although Jane was public with her criticism, commenting on the Common Core website, writing letters, and speaking, it wasn’t until Emily Chiarello of Teaching Tolerance, a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center,  heard her speak that things began to turn.  Chiarello connected Gangi with the Student Achievement Partnership, which is carrying out the Common Core. In late 2012, emissaries arrived at Mount Saint. Mary to visit Gangi. 

She greeted them with a conference room full of hundreds of books that offer, in her view, “mirror” and “window” opportunities for children -- mirrors, so that they see themselves in books, and windows, to provide a look into the lives of others. 

The SAP asked Gangi to propose an alternative to their Appendix B.  Her job was to get recommendations of books from literacy professionals -- teachers and librarians -- and to annotate and excerpt them.  This past March, Jane put together a rainbow team of ten alumni and graduate students to assess the recommended books, and soon added two undergraduates who begged to join. Together, the team assembled a revised Appendix B that comprises nonfiction, fiction, and poetry, and represents varied ethnicities, faiths, and abilities.  

Gangi’s team’s Appendix B selections are now being analyzed for level at Stanford University. Subject to that final nod, they will replace the “unbearably white” initial Appendix B. School districts adopting the Common Core may have already purchased books from that Appendix; my hope is that the books in the Appendix B will find their way to more classrooms, too. 

What follows are comments from team members. Note that their list includes all genres, including fiction and nonfiction. 

Nancy Benfer, a graduate of Mount Saint Mary College, teaches fourth grade at the campus elementary school, Bishop Dunn. 

“I have three students whose families originally came from the Philippines. One of the moms brought in the story Lakas and the Manilatown Fish by Anthony D. Robles, illustrated by Carl Angel.  The three students were so excited they gave me a standing ovation [for buying it for the classroom.] The rest of the class were very excited, too. These mirror text are more powerful than I think any of us can understand. They are personal and individual, while allowing the reader to feel like he or she is not alone.” 

Alexandria Hercules is in her senior year at Mount St. Mary, studying history and psychology, with certifications in childhood and special education. 

“I am Trinidadian-American, and I grew up in a small town with a large Caucasian population. Every day I ironed out my curls and tried my best to fit in with my peers, but I knew that I was different. Hot Hot Roti for Dada-ji, by Farhana Zia, illustrated by Ken Min,  is, in my opinion, one of the best examples of the kind of books that I want children to be reading. The overall themes in the book are things that I hold dear to me. It represents my culture and my roots. I see myself in the little boy Aneel, and my life is just like his.” 

Justin Lewis has a bachelor’s degree in information technology and childhood/special education certification and is working toward his master’s in literacy, birth to age six. 

“Being involved in this project means that I get the chance to speak on something that places importance on minority cultures.  If only 18 books out of the 150 in Appendix B are by authors of color, what kind of message are we sending to students? As a black male, I know there aren’t as many positive role models for black children. Reading books in school about other children with similar experiences shows students that they too are important. It gives students of color the idea that they are also expected to succeed and become doctors, lawyers, artists, or politicians.” 

Jane Tejeda is a senior at Mount Saint Mary working toward dual certification in special education and middle school education. 

“My mother is Dominican and my father was Columbian.  My school had predominantly white students. I could not find anything that represented me. From the portraits of white men and women on the walls to the bookshelves filled with books from white authors telling the stories of white people. To fit in, I only spoke English, and did not participate in any of my cultural festivities as much as usual, because I trying to be accepted by a new culture that I started to believe was better than mind. No child should feel this way.”

More examples from the new Appendix B: 

Crazy Horse’s Vision  by Joseph Bruchac, illustrated by S.D. Nelson

The Last Black King of the Kentucky Derby  by Crystal Hubbard, illustrated by Robert McGuire

I Love Saturdays y domingos  by Alma Flor Ada, Illustrated by Elivia Savadier 

Heart and Soul : The Story of America and African-Americans by Kadir Nelson

Waiting for the biblioburro  by Monica Brown, illustrated by John Parra 

Songs from the Loom: A Navajo Girl Learns to Weave   by Monty Roessel 

Honda: The Boy Who Dreamed of Cars  by Mark Weston, illustrated by Katie Yamasaki

The Poet Slave of Cuba by Margarita Engle, illustrated by Sean Qualls

When the Shadbush Blooms by Carla Messenger and Susan Katz, illustrated by David Kanietakeron Fadden

Catching the Moon: The Story of a Young Girl’s Baseball Dream  by Crystal Hubbard, illustrated by Randy DuBurke