Everyone knows Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King, Jr., but there are many other African Americans who have contributed to the rich fabric of our country but whose names have fallen through the cracks of history.
We’ve asked some of our authors who chose to write biographies of these talented leaders why we should remember them. We’ll feature their answers throughout Black History Month.
Today, Janet Halfmann shares why she wrote about Robert Smalls in Seven Miles to Freedom:
Guest blogger Katie Cunningham is an Assistant Professor at Manhattanville College. Her teaching and scholarship centers around children’s literature, critical literacy, and supporting teachers to make their classrooms joyful and purposeful. Katie has presented at numerous national conferences and is the editor of The Language and Literacy Spectrum, New York Reading Association’s literacy journal.
When we lived in Brooklyn, I knew my sons were growing up in a diverse community. They understood that people have different skin colors. That people speak different languages. That people eat different foods. That people believe different things. That we all share a common humanity. That life is full of complexity.
Now we live in the woods and appreciate the quiet of country living but this is far from a diverse community. For my boys, there is greater diversity in the pages of a book than on the streets of their town. Multicultural children’s literature is a doorway into greater understanding that their cultural background is not the only cultural background. That their way of speaking is not the only way of speaking. That their point of view is not shared by everyone.
When we open a book and start to read a story, we use our imaginations to walk through whatever world the author has created. Children’s literature is full of stories about boys and girls that look like my children. Rudine Sims Bishop uses the terms mirror books and window books to describe how we both see ourselves and see others when we read literature. The characters my sons encounter are often mirrors and they find their life experiences reflected in the books they read. Children from dominant social groups have always found their mirrors in books, but do they have enough access to high-quality stories that represent other cultural backgrounds in a positive way?
***Spoiler Alert *** My wife is a serious Downton Abbey fan, so as a result I have been following the show too. Downton packs a lot into forty-five minutes. I enjoy the period touches and the constant habit the English have of not being physically capable of communicating openly about well, everything. What is fascinating is how the show is placed in the context of history when change (World War I, economic concerns, women’s suffrage, the roaring twenties) is being forced on the Abbey whether the people there are ready for it or not. I have my favorites—Matthew Crawley and his Mum, and Maggie Smith’s comic timing as the Dowager. They always provide a good laugh. I also find Lord Grantham to be an interesting character. His impeccable posture and royal air hide an unsure man with a great many weaknesses just beneath the surface.
It’s Black History Month, and that means it’s time for our annual giveaway from Lee & Low Books! We’re giving away three sets of three books featuring African Americans, and the contest will run through February 28, 2013.
To enter, follow in the footsteps of Dave the Potter, the subject of our new biography Etched in Clay: The Life of Dave, Enslaved Potter and Poet. Dave was an enslaved potter in South Carolina who inscribed his works with sayings and short poems in spite of harsh anti-literacy laws for slaves:
Guest blogger Katie Cunningham is an Assistant Professor at Manhattanville College. Her teaching and scholarship centers around children’s literature, critical literacy, and supporting teachers to make their classrooms joyful and purposeful. Katie has presented at numerous national conferences and is the editor of The Language and Literacy Spectrum, New York Reading Association’s literacy journal.
We live in an increasingly diverse society. Nowhere is this more evident than in classrooms, in both urban and suburban schools. Nationally, our classrooms are almost 45% non-White and the trend toward greater diversity is expected to continue. Our classrooms reflect this trend, but our classroom libraries do not. The New York Times found that despite making up about nearly a quarter of the nation’s public school enrollment, young Latino readers seldom see themselves in books. Those of us in schools working with children from minority backgrounds know this to be true as we scan our bookshelves and find protagonists that are overwhelmingly white and living in suburban, privileged settings. The Cooperative Children’s Book Center found that in 2011, only 6% of children’s books featured characters from African American, American Indian, Asian Pacific/ Asian Pacific American, or Latino backgrounds.
Thanksgiving is the best holiday, ’cause it’s all about food. I mean, it’s also about being thankful, and about our country’s complicated history, but: turkey! stuffing! PUMPKIN PIE!
Here are some favorite food-related traditions and recipes from the Lee & Low staff:
Keilin, Marketing/Publicity Intern:
One food-related Thanksgiving tradition that my family does is something AFTER the actual meal. My family takes all the turkey meat to save for sandwiches, but we also save the turkey bones! We use them to make a Chinese rice porridge called “jook.” Usually, jook is made with chicken and pork bones, but for the next week or so, my family gets to enjoy turkey jook! It has a different (albeit subtle) taste, and it’s something I look forward to every year!
I was watching President Barack Obama’s re-election speech last week and it got me 
thinking about speeches—how historically great speeches really matter. Speeches are like placeholders to mark significant milestones in history. I think the main idea that moved me about the president’s speech was that the message of unity—even after the most grueling, partisan, expensive election campaign ever—is reminiscent of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s I Have a Dream speech. The sentiments Dr. King expressed fifty years ago are still being realized today. A truly united United States of America is very much a work in progress.
Here are some favorite speeches of mine:
Sojourner Truth: Ain’t I a Woman?, 1851
“That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain’t I a woman?” Read more
A lot of the time, discussions about diversity, racial equality, and pop culture can be disheartening. A quick look at Racebending or Racialicious is a good reminder of how far we still have to go when it comes to respecting all cultures, especially in the media. But sometimes, good things happen. People and companies take steps forward. And when that happens, we should talk about it. It’s nice to be able to talk about what people are doing right instead of what they’ve done wrong.
With that in mind, I wanted to share this nice story from the Native Appropriations blog. To make a long story short, the company Paul Frank held a “Dream Catchin’ Pow Wow” party in Los Angeles a few weeks ago for Fashion’s Night Out, with a “Neon-Native American Pow Wow theme” complete with plastic tomahawks, feather headdresses, and a drink called the “Rain Dance Refresher.” On her blog, Adrienne wrote up a post about why the party was so offensive to Native Americans and several others wrote, tweeted, posted, or spoke about it as well.
Author Richard Wright was born on September 4, 1908 on a plantation in rural Mississippi. He attended school through the first few weeks of high school before he dropped out to work, but always maintained a deep love of reading. As a black man in the South at that time, he was not allowed to borrow books from the library, so he borrowed the library card of an Irish American co-worker to access books. He later became a respected author of such classics as Native Son and his autobiography, Black Boy. Happy birthday, Richard Wright!
In honor of the upcoming release of our new YA anthology, Diverse Energies, we thought we’d put together a list of dystopias with diversity. For the purposes of this list, our definition of diversity is: 1.) A book with a main character of color (not just secondary characters), or 2.) A book written by an author of color. Of course, all types of diversity are worth celebrating, so if you know of other diverse dystopias (with, for example, LGBT diversity) please share them in the comments as well.
Note: I have not personally read all of these books, but have tried to confirm the inclusion of diverse main characters whenever possible. However, mistakes are bound to be made, so if you’ve read something and don’t think it belongs on this list, please let us know. Likewise if we’ve missed something that should be here.
If you’re a visual learner, the whole thing is on Pinterest:
And now, onward:
Above World, by Jenn Reese: (middle grade) In this dystopia, overcrowding has led humans to adapt so that they can live under the ocean or on mountains.
The Boy at the End of the World, by Greg van Eekhout: (middle grade) In this dystopia, the last boy on earth teams up with an overprotective broken robot to survive.
