Month: February 2015

By Guinevere Zoyana Thomas

Earlier this year, the amazing Matt de la Peña asked the publishing industry one of the most thought-provoking questions ever: “Where is the African American Harry Potter or the Mexican Katniss?”

His question was part of a conversation about why there aren’t that many POC equivalents to such iconic characters in YA and MG.

There doesn’t seem to be a good enough excuse for there not to be more Latino characters in kid lit especially with the Latino population rapidly growing, so to say there isn’t a market for it is just undetermined fabrication. I, for one, identify as an Afro-Cubana who would gladly buy a book from a Latina author that featured a Latina protagonist in a heartbeat!

But the truth is, I’m not sure I want a Mexican Katniss or a black Harry Potter or even an Asian Percy Jackson. A small part…

high•ly tex•tured writ•er: A person whose work is to write books, poems, or stories and has curly or kinky hair.

Welcome Leesa Cross-Smith to Librarian Dreams.

1. What is your signature hairstyle and how do you achieve it?

I had super-long dreads up until about a year ago when I chopped them off by myself over my bathroom sink. Now, I just wear it however. I’ve never been like, a HAIR PERSON. I hated doing my hair when I was in high school and used to get it straightened sometimes, but even then would only wear it in a bun or ponytail. I was also a dancer so always, always had my hair out of my face. Now, as long as I don’t have to think about it, I’m good.

I wash it with Miss Jessie’s Super Slip Sudsy Shampoo and I use the Creme de la Creme conditioner and…

By Robin Herrera

Sometimes when I look in the mirror, I see my grandma. Especially now that I have shorter hair, because as long as I knew her, she wore her hair short. Strangely, it wasn’t until a few years after she died that I noticed the resemblance between us.

She was short, too, like me—I’m the shortest in my family at (barely) 5’3”. We both have round faces and eyes that crinkle into small slits when we smile.

Now, years after her death, years after I’ve forgiven her for not telling me how bad her cancer really was, I wish I’d talked to her more. I know only snippets of my grandma’s life growing up in Colorado during the Great Depression. She was the youngest girl of 16 children, the second youngest altogether. Her parents were Joseph and Josephine Herrera. (On a baptismal document I found in my grandma’s…

Good News Everyone!

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NBCannounced that it is producing an eight-hour miniseries about love stories on the Underground Railroad, with Stevie Wonder serving as executive producer.

The miniseries, titled Freedom Run, is an adaptation of Betty DeRamus’s 2005 book Forbidden Fruit: Love Stories From the Underground Railroad. It will focus on three “specific epic journeys and love stories, each based on actual people,” according to NBC.

The miniseries will be written by B. Swibel, Adam Westbrook, and Charles Randolph-Wright, who will also executive produce. Per NBC, DeRamus’s book is also being developed as a stage musical for which Swibel, Westbrook, and Randolph-Wright are writing the book and Wonder is attached to compose the score.

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Forbidden Fruit is a collection of fascinating, largely untold tales of ordinary men and women who faced mobs, bloodhounds, bounty hunters, and bullets to be together — and defy a system that categorized…

Just when you thought your To-Be-Read list couldn’t get any longer, here we have 24 young adult and middle grade novels to be released in 2015 that are all by and/or about Latin@s. While they all share this aspect, you’ll see the novels are diverse, representing these genres: horror, fantasy, contemporary, science-fiction, memoir, magical realism, romance, and historical. Authors include award winners Margarita Engle, Pam Muñoz Ryan, and Matt de la Peña, as well as NY Times Bestselling authors Kierra Cass and Anna Banks. Alongside these authors are many debuts, which are *starred* in the list below. If you click on the cover image, you will go to the book’s Goodreads page, so you can easily add them to your TBR list! And if you’re adding them, you are likely interested in diverse kid lit and should, therefore, consider participating in the We Need Diverse Books reading challenge. Happy…

by Kimberly Mitchell

A boy from Taiz, Yemen

With the launch of the #weneeddiversebooks campaign last spring, the idea of diversity in children’s writing is everywhere these days. As the diverse books movement moves forward, all writers of kid lit should consider how to create diversity in their work.

Creating characters outside your race and ethnicity can sound daunting. It doesn’t have to be this way. My characters often represent cultures and races outside my own. In Traders of Incense, my protagonist is an Arab boy, based on my time spent in Yemen. In Pen and Quin and the Mystery of the Painted Book, Pen and Quin are Mexican American twins. My motivation behind creating these protagonists stems from my desire to connect with readers and view the world through the eyes of others.

Here are some suggestions on how to create authentic, diverse characters.

1) Mine your…