Yearly archive for 2013

Multi-ethnic Families in Middle Grade Novels

By on August 5, 2013   /   Book Lists, For Teachers  

I’m sure you’ve all seen it by now. The terrific video of kids reacting to the recent Cheerios ad featuring a multi-ethnic family.

Despite the racist backlash the commercial (which features a white mother and African American father) initially garnered, what these children so eloquently express is the sheer ordinariness of multi-ethnic families in their world. What I love about this video is the “um, yea, so what?” quality of most of the kids’ reactions. There’s a lot we adults can learn there.

And indeed, that is the strength of stories — be they in the media or in middle grade books — which make race and ethnicity a real factor in characters’ lives but not necessarily a central ‘problem’ to be ‘addressed.’ Such stories represent the real faces of real families, and reflect the beauty of our diverse world. More importantly, they allow all our children to see themselves in the stories around them.

The U.S. is becoming and increasing multicultural place – and multiethnic families are everywhere — from East to West Coast, from Topeka to Tallahassee. It is the reality of my children’s lives and so many other children from families like ours. It’s a joy to find increasing images of multi-ethnic families in the media, and of course increasing numbers of books where having multiple languages, multiple types of food, multiple skin colors, and multiple histories in one family aren’t an anomaly, but a given.

So I thought I would dedicate this post to middle grade stories which celebrate multi-ethnic families. For more great titles check out these posts at Shen’s books , Cynthia Leitich Smith’s great blog and this blog by me at Three Sisters Moving Village on multi-ethnic characters in children’s and YA novels.


Geeks, Girls and Secret Identities by Mike Jung: Features a cast of multi-cultural kids including heroine Polly Winnicott-Lee, who is not just multi-ethnic, but a super hero!

 


Bobby vs. Girls (Accidentally) by Lisa Yee: Whose hero, Robert Carver Ellis-Chan, has a Chinese American mother and white, ex-pro-football player father. Race is an incidental in this fantastic story, hardly a central ‘problem.’

 


Monsoon Summer by Mitali Perkins: Jasmine (Jazz) Gardner has a white Father and Indian American mother, and reluctantly heads off to India for the summer with her family.

 


Wonder by RJ Palacio: August Pullman’s mother is Brazilian and father is Jewish of Eastern European descent. Dealing with his facial deformity is far more pressing in the story than his mixed ethnic identity.

 


The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan: In Riordan’s popular Kane series, Carter and Sadie Kane are the children of an African American archaeologist father and white British mother. While Riordan explicitly discusses how the children (one of whom looks more white, the other more African American) are differentially treated by society, the adventure is the driving force of this story!

 


The Whole Story of Half A Girl by Veera Hiranandani: Like the author herself, the heroine, Sonia, is Jewish-American and Indian-American, and must negotiate the complexities of a new middle school.

 

What are some of your favorite stories featuring multi-ethnic families?

 

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Having Trouble Writing? Try My Favorite Banana Bread Recipe

By on August 1, 2013   /   Book Lists  

I have a confession to make. I’ve never been known for my culinary skills.

Second confession: this is a monumental understatement.

I don’t know how cooking-challenged mothers like me existed before the microwave was invented. Seriously. I’m really good at tearing open the side vents on one of those 90-second rice packages, popping it in the microwave, hitting the buttons, and wow! Perfect every time. But give me a recipe with instructions like “blanch” or “crimp” and a kitchen disaster is sure to occur.

But here’s my third confession. There’s one thing I can make — banana bread. I’ve made the same recipe for more than 20 years and it comes out perfect every time. That must be because the recipe was given to me by a librarian, my good friend Susie, who works at a public library in Libertyville, Illinois.

The other day, while I was mixing up a batch of banana bread and mulling over the plot of my work-in-progress, I had an epiphany — making banana bread is a lot like writing a story. Take the three overripe bananas, for example. Soft, blackened peels, completely unappealing. They’ve been looped over the banana hanger for two weeks. Sort of like my characters, who’ve been ripening in my head for a while.

The first step to any decent banana bread is to take off the icky peel and reveal the mushy banana underneath. Like the depth of a character…often, it takes some peeling to get under a character’s skin and find out what makes him or her tick. The next step, of course, is to mash those three bananas together in a bowl, until they become one big mush, kind of like characters who become intertwined in each others’ lives during the course of a story.

Add one and a half cups of flour. Powdery, thick, requires some gentle blending so it doesn’t fly over the edge of the bowl. I suppose flour is the setting. It holds the bread together. Without that foundation, there wouldn’t even be a story. One cup of sugar comes next. To me, the sugar is the heart and sweetness, or perhaps, the theme. Then crack one egg and let the runny yellow liquid seep into the bowl, like the plot, which spreads throughout the story and is perhaps the most important ingredient. Eggs bind, aerate, leaven, and emulsify, and while I’m not exactly sure what those terms even mean, I know eggs are essential. And so is a good plot.

bananabreadjogOne teaspoon of baking soda for conflict, because without it, my story is flat. And 1/4 cup of melted butter for smoothness and flow. Then one teaspoon of salt — the surprise twist! Last but not least, a handful of semi-sweet chocolate chips for the resolution, because I love a happy ending.

Stir. Pour into a greased loaf pan, and put into a 350 degree preheated oven. While the bread is baking and the delicious smell fills your home, sit down and write. Engaging the mind and senses in a totally different activity can help stimulate creativity and alleviate blocks.

One hour later, take out the bread, cut a warm, steaming slice, and treat yourself. No “blanching” allowed.

 

Michele Weber Hurwitz is the author of Calli Be Gold (Wendy Lamb Books 2011) and The Summer I Saved the World…in 65 Days (Wendy Lamb Books, coming spring 2014). Visit her at www.micheleweberhurwitz.com.

 

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