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Diversity in MG Lit #53 May and June 2025

Last week it was my great pleasure to attend the Children’s Institute, the annual

logo for Children's Institute 2025 in Portland

meeting of children’s booksellers. This year it was in Portland Oregon. It was my 4th Children’s Institute. As always I was inspired by the passion of children’s booksellers for the art of getting each child the just-right book. The kindness and generosity of booksellers makes me proud to count myself among their number.

And in the very same week there was another bit of good news from my home state. The Oregon Legislature passed a bill that makes it illegal to ban a book written by or about a person from a protected class as recognized by the Oregon constitution. These classes include race, ethnicity, immigration status, disability, and LGBTQ+ which accounts for all the books currently the focus of book bans.

Booksellers are brilliant at many things. One of the most important superpowers of the indies is the ability to boost the visibility of a debut authors. Online algorithms and big box stores are great at showing readers a book they’ve already bought, but terrible about helping readers find the vibrant new voices. Every year a committee of book sellers reviews all the debut titles and choses a dozen or so to include on the Indies Introduce lists in both adult’s and children’s books. Here is a link to this year’s Indie Next list for kids. And remember if you don’t see a title you want on the shelf at your local indie, ask them to order it for you. It’s easy, usually fast and if you pick up the book at the shop you don’t have to pay for shipping. Thank you Indie Bookstores!
Here are a few of the books that were featured at Children’s Institute.
book cover Scarlet Morning by ND StevensonScarlet Morning by ND Stevenson (Quill Tree Books HC) is the authors first venture into prose novels. It has so many elements that MG readers are going to love: pirates, a mysterious book, friendship, treachery, a daring voyage and a search for hidden truth. Best of all it has lots of lively black-and-white spot illustrations throughout to bring the adventure to life. It will publish in September.
book cover for The Golden Necklace by Mitali PerkinsThe Golden Necklace: a Darjeeling Tea Mystery by Mitali Perkins (Charlesbridge) will be available in October. It is set on a tea plantation in Nepal. Our heroine Sona is determined to win a scholarship to the best school in her community and also to solve the mystery of a missing inheritance so that her brother will not be blamed for the crime. This one has a handful of full page illustrations that bring the countryside of Nepal to life.
book cover Chloe Vega and the agents of magicChloe Vega and the Agents of Magic by Leslie Adame (Harper) is a debut title. Like so many mixed status immigrant families, Chloe Vega worries about her parents. Worries they’ll be deported. Worries that she is a financial burden on them. So when she learns that her parents are heirs to a magical power and have been taken, not by ICE, but by sinister magical forces, Chloe is determined to master her powers and save her family. This book comes out in September
book cover for Folk Remedy by YoshiotaFolk Remedy by Jem Yoshioka (Andrews McMeel) is a graphic novel set in 1920s Japan. It features characters from Japanese mythology. I appreciated the mix of historical and fantastical elements. The art has a muted palate with warm tones and a style that will feel fresh and interesting to readers who mostly look at American-made graphic novels. It will publish in September.
book cover RefugeeRefuge the graphic novel by Alan Gratz (Graphix) This book in prose form has been a best seller for years. It portrays the lives of refugees in 1939, Germany; 1994, Cuba; and 2015, Syria.  Understanding the refugee experience is vital to grasping the politics of our times. This graphic novel will make an important story all the more accessible. It will be available in September.
This list is based on books that were being promoted at the Children’s Institute in 2025. As always if you have a new diverse MG book

STEM Tuesday– Cephalopods — Writing Tips & Resources

Creativity and Octopuses!

The first of the cephalopods that comes to my mind is an octopus. To me, the metaphor of a multi-limbed being is in the multi-possibilities offered to apply to creative activities. Many arms and many legs and many muscular hydrostats mean that connections can go many ways. As my focus is STE(A)M, I began to run options though my head. I settled on music, research, and visual art (camouflage). Like a cephalopod, these are just three of the connected “arms” in the world of art. I make my case below.

Music and the Octopus.

One of the best known octopus songs is “The Octopus’s Garden,” by Ringo Starr (Richard Starkey) and recorded by the Beatles.

“I’d like to be under the sea
In an octopus’s garden with you”

 The cover of Octopus's Garden

The song is full of fun and joy. It is said that Ringo wrote the song after being told that octopuses collect stones and shells to make a decorative garden around their homes. Studies have shown that while we don’t understand their full capacity, octopuses have great intelligence.

Ringo is crediting them with a sense of artistry. Enough artistry to design and build a garden where …

“Oh, what joy for every girl and boy
Knowing they’re happy, and they’re safe”

Musicologist  Alan W. Pollack says:

The charm of “Octopus’s Garden” lies in its simplicity and complete lack of pretension.

Alan W. Pollack is an American musicologist known for having analyzed every song released by the British band the Beatles. Since this STE(A)M post is about science, I was wondering if a musicologist is considered a scientist. While Wikipedia describes it as “the academic, research-based study of music,” it employs of a number of fields of science, including psychology, sociology, acoustics, neurology, natural sciences, formal sciences and computer science.

The Octopus and Reasearch

Back to the idea of octopus as metaphor -it makes a great visual for research. Sometimes called a map or web for exploring possibilities, finding connections through random ideas is a superb tool for creativity. One can imagine the octopus, sitting in their garden, all arms reaching out to explore different places. There are no boundaries to using the mind this way.

Listening to “The Octopus’s Garden,” you find it is more than about a garden. It tells a story, shows emotion, incites curiosity, invites the imagination. Which is what good research should do. Musicology is sometimes considered to be a social science but many aspects, such as acoustics, musical instruments, and sound waves (and more), involve mathematics, materials science, psychology, and the list goes on. It one of many multi-armed disciplines.

In planning projects for kids, music and octopuses are intriguing ways to frame research and creative thinking. The investigation can be about any topic at all.  

Visual art and Octopuses

Octopuses have been the subject of artists since ancient Greece. Shown here is a lithograph from Jean Baptiste Vérany’s Chromolithographs of Cephalopods (1851). There is curiosity about creatures so unlike humans.

A historic lithograph of an octopus.

Members of the shell-less subclass of cephalopods (squid, cuttlefish, and octopuses) have the magic trick of color changing (yes, I know it’s a complicated process – not magic, but it is like magic to me). Some of their cells are capable of producing rapidly changing color patterns to match the surrounding areas or mimic other creatures. What a fascinating ability!

Doing art activities involving camouflage is a great way to improve eye, hand, and perception skills. And a real challenge. One needs to recognize shape, value, and colors to accurately reproduce them. Teachers Pay Teachers (link below) has a number of activities listed on their website. You don’t have to be an art teacher to use art projects as encouragement for students to do in-depth observational studies. With today’s fast-paced imagery of phones and games, people seem to be losing ability to focus. The value of practicing real observation can be time well spent.

Conclusion

Making connections is a large part of the creative process. It may appear this post strayed off topic, but it is an example of allowing the brain to find solutions that are new. Many inventions (such as the printing press) were the result of someone making an odd or unusual connection that ultimately led to a very useful solution. And, like learning to play music or becoming a good athlete, preliminary training paves the way. Anyone can practice connected thinking skills and use them for practical situations. Sometimes when I am doing research, allowing my mind to wander discovers materials better than what I was looking for.

Happy Connecting!

Margo Lemieux

References and more info

The Octopus’s Garden book https://bookshop.org/p/books/octopus-s-garden-with-cd-audio-ringo-starr/10265712?ean=9781481403627&next=t

The Octopus’s Garden video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=De1LCQvbqV4

Alan W. Pollack https://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/DATABASES/AWP/og.shtml

Teachers Pay Teachers Cephalopods

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/browse?gad_campaignid=20273913093&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwgIXCBhDBARIsAELC9ZiEjEwazcCjEgkVAUxueIxDCn_5mZEzBJuPrZn1OJjIO_wtepaOXSAaAtP5EALw_wcB&search=Cephalopods%20

Teachers Pay Teachers Camouflage

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/browse?search=camouflage

Historic lithographs of cephalopods

https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/verany-cephalopods

Author/Illustrator Interview with Casey Lyall and Sara Faber: The League of Littles

Casey-Lyall-Author-Photo

Casey Lyall

We’re excited to have Casey Lyall and Sara Faber on here today to talk about their new release: The League of Littles.

Hi, Casey and Sara, let’s start with learning a bit more about you, and then we’ll talk more about your book.

Sara Faber photo

Sara Faber

Did you have any childhood dreams for when you became an adult? If so, did they come true?

Casey: For sure! I went through a ton of different dreams for myself, but the one consistent one was always wanting to be a writer, so I’m always very thankful and happy to have that particular dream work out.

Sara: I had so many dreams as a kid, and one of them was to become an illustrator. I always loved the characters I saw on book covers, in comics and cartoons, and from a young age I tried to draw them, but back then I didn’t know yet that this was a job. And once I knew, I thought this must be the best job ever! Turns out, I still think it’s the best job ever. 🙂

Sounds like both of you have found your dream jobs. Speaking of books, did you love to read as a child? If so, can you tell us some favorite books?

Casey: I was a massive reader as a kid (and still am!) Summer reading club at the library was one of my favourite times of the year. I loved so many different books—too many to list! But some of my favourite authors were definitely Gordan Korman and Madeleine L’Engle. I think I read every single one of their books.

Sara: I was a big bookworm as a child, and I still am! I grew up reading the Harry Potter series, the Inkheart series, and another fantasy series called Laura, but I believe it was published in German only.

Please tell us a little about your family. Were you a Little? Big? Middle? Only?

Casey: I’m actually a middle child. I have an older sister and a younger one and luckily, they both have a great sense of humour.

Sara: I am the oldest of two! My sister is 10 years younger.

Sara Faber as a child

Sara Faber as a child

Did you have any hamsters or other pets when growing up?

Sara: I had two Guinea pigs when I was a kid – their names were Fips and Trixi, and two birds, Mozart and Beethoven. Later, when I was around 9 or 10, we also had a family dog – a brown Labrador named Gina.

Casey: We had Guinea pigs too! And some fish for a while, but we were definitely a cat family. There have been quite a few memorable felines in our household.

Would you be willing to share an embarrassing grade school moment?

Casey Lyall as a child

Casey Lyall as a child

Casey: I think I’ve tried to banish most of them from my memories! But, okay, here’s a good one: I tried out a lot of different sports as a kid and was not particularly good at any of them. Probably the most memorable incident happened when I was on the swim team. I can’t see very well without my glasses, so that was problem number one. Also, the goggles I had one weren’t working properly and kept filling up with water so I just had to close my eyes and hope for the best.

During this one race, I thought I was doing okay, but then bumped into the lane marker (these floating line things that kept that swimming lanes separate) and got a bit tangled up in it. I kept going though! And finished the race! …and then found another very confused kid at the end of the race in the same lane with me because I had accidentally moved into their lane when I got tangled into the marker.

That was pretty embarrassing!!! (And I think I got disqualified too, which was uncool.) My swimming career didn’t last very long. 😂

Oh, no! That would have been  embarrassing. I hope that story will find it’s way into one of your books sometime. I’m sure plenty of middle graders (and adults) have felt that way.

Sara: This is such a tough question. There is absolutely nothing that comes to my mind. I was a very shy and quiet kid, so maybe there wasn’t much that could have been embarrassing, since I tried to be invisible most of the time. 🙂

What advice would you give to kids who are bullied?

Sara: It breaks my heart when I see kids being bullied. As a parent myself, I think it’s especially important in today’s day and age to raise kind and compassionate people. My best advice is to ignore bullies as best as you can, but I know it’s easier said than done. And to talk to someone you trust, don’t deal with it on your own. It’s only when you get older, you will understand that the people who bully others feel like they need to bring others down to make themselves feel better. It’s not really about you, and there is nothing wrong with you. You are perfect just the way you are!

Casey: I agree with Sara’s very smart and kind words above. She said it best!

I love this advice, and that your book deals with this situation.

Casey, when did you know you wanted to be a writer?

Oh, wow—I don’t know if I can even think of a specific age. I remember reading Robert Munsch books when I was little, and they made me laugh so much, I wanted to tell my own stories and make people laugh like that. I feel like the desire to tell stories has always been a natural part of my life. And something that I’m grateful my parents always encouraged.

Sara, when did you know you wanted to be an illustrator?

I knew I wanted to become an illustrator when I first found out that it’s an actual job. I remember I saw the word “illustrator” on a book and asked my great grandpa what it means. That was when I knew this is my dream job, even though I had no idea what to do in order to get there. It was only when I graduated from uni (I studied something completely unrelated) that I decided to work on improving my drawing skills and try to become an illustrator.

Casey, what is your favorite or most challenging part of being a writer?

I think my favourite part might also be the most challenging part! I love having that spark of an idea and getting to see that idea take shape into a fully-realized story. You go through so many twists and turns and discover things about your characters that you might not have realized at the start. It’s always an adventure! Now, on the flip side of that, at certain points, trying to get that story to take shape can be the most frustrating and challenging thing of all time and can feel like you’re banging your head against the keyboard…but the end result is always worth it. 😃

Sara, what is your favorite or most challenging part of being an illustrator?

My favorite part is definitely being able to draw every day for a living, and to express myself through art. With comics specifically, I love telling stories through facial expressions and body language, and to put it all together in an interesting and fun way. As much as I love drawing, showing up every day is also one of the hardest parts sometimes – especially when I don’t feel like drawing, because that happens, even though it’s one of my favorite things to do.

League of Littles coverCasey, can you tell us a little about why you chose to write a graphic novel and if you worked together to create the story and illustrations?

I wanted to challenge myself with a new format and it also seemed like a fun category to write for so I decided to give it a try. It was really cool to learn about the process! I tried to leave a lot of space for the illustrator to put their own spin on things, and there was a lot of collaboration from the whole team in terms of the general look of the story and how the scenes came together.

Casey, how did you come up with the characters & the idea of Littles banding together to help each other?

The characters came to me as I was brainstorming—I do a lot of doodling and pre-writing before I start a project so they started to take shape before the real plot of the story did. And in terms of the general premise, I was just trying to think of ideas that would be fun to write and fun to read and it popped into my brain! I’ve always liked the idea of secret organizations though so that probably fed into it a bit. Who doesn’t love secret shenanigans?

Casey, what inspired you to write about an escaping hamster?

I was trying to think of a realistic problem that a little kid could have that would also leave room for it to spiral into bigger adventures. Borrowing a sibling’s pet for show and tell felt like it fit that criteria and then once the character of Chester took shape, he pretty much took charge of his own story and I just tried to keep up!

Sara, how did you develop the characters for the illustrations?

Casey gave me some great descriptions for each of the characters including their heritage, personality, and their hairstyles. After reading the manuscript, I already had a pretty good idea of how the characters would look and act. After that I sketched a character line up, to make sure they look good individually and as a group, making sure their appearance matches their personality.

Character sketches

Sara’s character sketches

Thank you so much for sharing your sketches with us! I love your palette and the softness of the final illustrations. Can you tell us about your art technique?

Thank you so much! My art style developed over the years, and it’s very inspired by anime, Disney movies, and cartoons I loved as a kid (I still do). I love soft and warm colors in general, and I think this reflects in my art as well. When I draw for work, I use my iPad and Procreate, which is great because it makes revisions and making changes easier, and I can theoretically draw from anywhere, but in reality, I sit at my desk most of the time. 🙂 When I draw just for myself, I love drawing with a pen in my sketchbook. I love to keep it simple regarding the tools I use and to focus on lines, which is my favorite part about drawing.

Are any of characters based on based on people you know?

Casey: No, they’re all their own people. I just tried to come up with a fun mix of personalities for each team that could balance each other out and play off of each other at the same time.

Sara: I mostly used Casey’s descriptions for the designs. For some of the characters, I created a Pinterest board before coming up with their designs, but these served more as a general inspiration for how they would move and what they’d look like and weren’t based on a specific person.

Casey, what do you hope readers will take away from your story?

A lot of laughter!

What are you working on now?

Casey: All kinds of things! Mostly new middle grade and picture books ideas at the moment.

Sara: I am already working on the second book of the League of Littles, which focuses on the big siblings! The story is so much fun. I can tell you that much already. 🙂 I’m also coming up with my own story for a graphic novel on the side.

ABOUT THE BOOK

In The League of Littles, Eli, Lexi, and Mo, three trainees at an international organization that supports the needs of youngest siblings, accept their first mission and help find a lost hamster.

“A group of youngest siblings are challenged by a hamster on the run. . . . A brief, amusing romp with potential for future fun.”  — Kirkus Reviews

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Casey Lyall is the author of Gnome Is Where Your Heart Is; Waking the Dead and Other Fun Activities; the acclaimed picture book A Spoonful of Frogs, illustrated by Vera Brosgol; and the popular Howard Wallace, P.I. series. She lives in southwestern Ontario, Canada, where she also works at her local library.

Sara Faber is an illustrator and comic artist, and when she is not drawing, you can find her reading, soaking in the atmosphere of coffee shops and bookstores, and going on walks with her dog. The League of Littles is her first book. Sara Faber lives in Germany.