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Ah, the books of summer. My thoughts were pointed in this direction the other day when NPR aired their piece on road trips. They really had me when they closed with Christopher Paul Curtis’ Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963. I loved that they put this book in the middle of adult summer reading. I loved how that truly articulated diversity in a summer reading list.

SUMMER

Chameleon by Charles Smith; Candlewick

Shooting the breeze with his boys. Tightening his D on the court. Doing a color check — making sure nobody’s wearing blue or red, which some Crip or Piru carrying a cut-down golf club would see as disrespect. Then back to Auntie’s, hoping she isn’t passed out from whiskey at the end of the day. Now that Shawn is headed for high school, he wonders if he’d be better off at the school in Mama’s neighborhood, where he’d…

Estela Bernal made her debut as an author this past May with Can You See Me Now? (Pinata/Arte Publico). As you get to know her today and find out a little more about Can You See Me Now? you’ll be impressed but, be even more impressed to know that she’s donating 100% of her proceeds to education and animal rights.

Just a little about the book. Kirkus says:

Tragedy strikes on Mandy’s 13th birthday when her father is struck by a drunk driver and killed. Now grief—both her own and her mother’s—complicates the already confusing landscape of early adolescence.

With her mother working more and more hours in the wake of her father’s death, Mandy begins spending most of her time living with her grandmother. Often the target of bullies, loner Mandy approaches Paloma to be her partner for a school project. Paloma is also a misfit…

An assistantship with The Center for Children’s Books (CCB) during her time at GSLIS at the University of Illinois  Urbana-Champagin provided Ayanna Coleman with the knowledge and skills she needs to navigate the publishing world, and this past December she used that knowledge to  launched her own literary agency, Quill Shift Literary Agency. Quill Shift Literary Agency handles all the traditional duties of a literary agency while embracing new technologies and spheres to empower readers to join in on the publishing process, providing further foundation for writers’ success. The agency’s hallmark services are editorial guidance, pre-publication and audience buzz creation and author care and advocacy.

Today, Ayanna describes what brought her to where she is today.

The Diversity in Kid Lit Dream

I am a dreamer. It’s actually quite strange how often my mind wanders blissfully into REM and produces fantastic scenarios for my unconscious self to battle. The thing is, dreams…

 

The Truth Against the World by Sarah Jamila Stevenson; Flux

In her parents’ San Francisco flat, Olwen Nia Evans, Wyn for short, has been having unsettling dreams about her family’s past in Wales. But her dreams don’t match up with what she’s been told by her dying grandmother, Rhiannon. On the other side of the world, in London, a boy named Gareth Lewis is having disturbing dreams about a frightening encounter with a ghost. A ghost named Olwen Nia Evans.
When he looks for Olwen’s name online, Gareth connects with Wyn in San Francisco as she is preparing to move with her family to fulfill Rhiannon’s last wish to die in Wales. Once Wyn arrives in Wales, she and Gareth join forces to discover the truth of the lost soul that’s haunting them both.

Summer of Yesterday by Gaby Triana; Simon Pulse

Back to the Future meets Fast Times…

Indie authors often find doors are closed to them so I’m very thankful that Cindy Rodriguez and her team of Latina authors over at Latin@s in Kid Litlet me have my say on their blog. Here’s a bit of what I wrote about immigration, intersectionality, and my decision to self-publish Max Loves Muñecas!

Immigration is a charged issue here, and though Canadians aren’t generally mentioned in the national debate, there’s still a pretty good chance I could run into trouble in Arizona. As a mixed-race woman of African descent, I often get read as Latina. Here, in New York City, I walk with my driver’s license, my passport, and my green card at all times because my Afro-Caribbean father taught me that some protections are reserved for citizens only (and only those citizens who aren’t brown like me). My father also urged me not to get involved…

” Listen, if you are a sucker for sister books, you will LOVE THIS, just LOVE THIS.” Good Books Good Wine

title: To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before

author: Jenny Han

date: Simon and Schuster; April, 2014

main character: Lara Jean Song Covey

I began this book expecting a nice, light summer story; one of those good romances that I haven’t read in a very long time

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before has such a sweet start. Oldest sister, Margo, is about to leave for college in Scotland and her sisters are going to miss her dearly. The girls are tender in their relationships and delicate with each others’  feelings. Their mother is deceased but to the girls still refer to her as ‘mommy’ and their father as ‘daddy’. Margot has been the family’s caretaker and her leaving is a major shift in the structure of the…

Click here to RSVP or add to your calender.

Click here to RSVP or add to your calender.
On June 21, 2014, Detroit Author, Sylvia Hubbard, invites the literary community (readers, writers, authors and poets) to a Litertainment Event.
12-1 – Meet & Greet
1:15-1:30 – Intro & Welcome – Sylvia
1:30-1:50 – Omari “King Wise” Barksdale poetry
1:50-2:45 – Relationship Panel discussion: Everything You Wanted to Know About Relationships but Were Afraid to Ask – Panelists: TBA
2:45-4 – Mix & Mingle; Book Talk/Book Signing; Q & A with audience (questions around book “My Substitute Wife, My Sister,” and publishing, writing, and marketing
Click here to RSVP or add to your calender.
Click here to RSVP or add to your calender.

Entertainment, Book Soiree, Networking and More
More details to come including VIP tickets with a limit of 40
Click here to RSVP or add to your calender.

Book…

Many, many wonderful sessions and signings at BEA this past weekend but the diversity sessions are what mattered most to me. The diveristy sessions were not all listed in the official program and all schedule within an extremely tight time frame (some at the exact same time!)  yet the #WeNeedDiversity session managed to fill the room. Other sessions included “Where are All the Kids of Color” and “Multicultural Publishers in Conversation”. My presence was in spirit and via Twitter. I leave it to  Lyn Miller Lachmann who was there to give a recap.

Both panelists reminded the audience that in our quest to get the major publishers to take on more diverse books, we cannot lose sight of the diverse books that are available today. Nearly half of those books, according to John, are published by small presses. And those small presses need our love. If it turns out that the…

Sunday was a glorious spring day and I had a great time hanging out with Jacqueline Woodson (right), Kwame Alexander, and Bryan Collier (center) at the Studio Museum in Harlem book festival (photo by Andre Ware). My presentation wasn’t fantastic, but I’m learning to be more flexible—if you expected to present before a group of kids and instead you have an audience of adults, what do you do? Improvisation isn’t one of my strengths so I need to work on that. I’m heading to California in a few days and will have a chance to speak to a class of 3rd graders while I’m in Berkeley. Last week I presented before two fifth grade classes and they were amazing—lots of energy, lots of questions, and before I even began the principal handed me this letter:

Not every class will have that reaction so I have to learn to feel out…

Skipping Stones is a nonprofit magazine founded in 1988 for youth that encourages communication, cooperation, creativity and celebration of cultural and environmental richness. Published 4 times each year, it provides a playful forum for sharing ideas and experiences among youth from different countries and cultures. Each year,Skipping Stones recognizes outstanding books and teaching resources with the Skipping Stones Honor Awards. The honored books promote an understanding of cultures, cultivate cooperation and encourage a deeper understanding of the world’s diversity. They also encourage ecological richness, respect for multiple viewpoints and closer relationships within human societies.

2014BookAwardsPR.web