October’s a busy time of year for conferences! At the New England Independent Bookseller’s Association conference, they had a panel on Selling Color in a White World. Our own Stacy Whitman of Tu Books participated—though, due to subway flooding, she joined the discussion via phone. Author Mitali Perkins and bookseller Elizabeth Bluemle shared their experiences from the panel.
Tekaronianeken, Jake Swamp Remembered
Chief Jake Swamp, the author of Giving Thanks: A Native American Good Morning Message passed away yesterday. I met Chief Swamp fifteen years ago at a reading he did at Barnes & Noble near Lincoln Center. He was reading Giving Thanks to a packed storytime crowd of children and their parents. When the Chief recited his good morning message, everyone within earshot stopped in their tracks and listened. With his powerful voice and enormous presence, Chief Swamp had us all completely mesmerized.
Video Thursday: Chopsticks!
Via Angry Asian Man, a music video on the environmental impact of disposable chopsticks:
A is for (Amazing) Anansi
This weekend, The NYU Institute of African American Affairs hosted the A is for Anansi Conference on Literature for Children of African Descent. It was a great conference and I was thrilled to be a part of it – it’s always exciting to be in a room full of people who care about books, kids, and social justice issues. A few of the highlights I caught:
Author and publisher Andrea Davis Pinkney started things off with a good news/bad news keynote, sharing a few reasons why some say we are in a “Golden Age of African American Children’s Literature” – a new generation of talented authors and illustrators, more award recognition, etc. – but also shared these dismal numbers that tell us that the number of books by/about people of color has not increased at all since 1994. 1994! In other words, we’ve got our work cut out for us.
I spoke next on a panel about publishing/selling literature about children of African descent. Just Us Books owner Cheryl Willis Hudson moderated, and agent and former bookseller Joe Monti started off with some anecdotes about the resistance big book buyers have to selling covers with people of color. Ultimately, he said, he doesn’t believe race really makes a difference in sales. “A good cover will sell books, and a bad one won’t,” he said.
A Lunch at the Museum
The odd and the beautiful are photos taken from the streets of New York City, our commutes, and our travels. Sometimes humorous, often times unusual, they offer a taste of life in the big city and beyond.
E-Books – An Update
Back in March I shared my thoughts about e-books and the Kindle. A lot has transpired in the last six months, so I felt the need to write another post about e-books. Personally, my established reading habits now include both e-books and printed books, and I do not favor one over the other. However, I did appreciate the e-reader’s portability on a recent trip to Australia when I decided to read The Passage, which is nearly eight hundred pages.
There are still some drawbacks with the Kindle, which may or may not also apply to other e-readers. The Kindle does not allow you to instantly judge a book’s length. I only discovered the length of The Passage when I looked it up online, since I had never actually seen a copy of the printed book. Another problem with the Kindle is that the navigational options are limited. For instance, it is difficult to locate passages in the book that you want to reread. You have to remember a specific location for or a unique phrase from the passage you are looking for, and then type that information into the Kindle in order to find the passage again. This is really a pain, especially when you didn’t realize on the first read that you would want to revisit that particular passage!
This Week in Diversity: Gender, Books, and Maps.
Welcome to another diversity-filled week!
As happens fairly regularly in the literary world, people have been talking about gender and books. Two different takes caught our eyes this week: The Book Bench at the New Yorker took an analytical look at the discussion with What We Talk About When We Talk About Men Not Reading, looking at both men’s reading and at the the publishing industry. Meanwhile, author Maureen Johnson took a personal look at the issue with Sell the Girls, in which she talks about how the vast majority of her assigned reading, in school and college, was by and about men.
Video Thursday: Arab Americans
An Arab American comedian explains some of the realities of being Arab in America:
Banned Books Week, part II
Yesterday in our post we asked you to guess which Lee & Low book has been challenged. The answer?
The Lee & Low Homeschool Advantage!
Are you thinking of home schooling your child? Choosing to home school your child has its benefits and drawbacks. Some advantages to homeschooling your child include controlling what your child learns and what they are exposed to as well as having the ability to show your child that learning is exciting exciting by tailoring their experience to their interests and learning styles. When in an active public school environment teachers use a pace and method that will work for the majority of their students. A homeschooling parent can tailor lessons to their children’s needs, helping them to view learning as a stimulating activity.