Posts Tagged librarians

The True Value of Sensitivity Readers

By on March 3, 2017   /   Diversity, For Librarians, For Teachers, For Writers, Writing  
Sensitivity readers used in the publishing of multicultural books have been in the social media conversation recently.   A sensitivity reader, sometimes called a cultural consultant, reads a manuscript from a standpoint of membership in a racial, ethnic, linguistic, or spiritual community and evaluates the story for authenticity and makes revision recommendations.
It’s all very Captain Obvious that writers should be checking their cultural research and using a member of that culture to do so. But it’s easy to overlook the deeper value of a sensitivity reader when we employ them only at the end of the process, and only when we are writing outside our racial or religious culture. I have used cultural consultants to help me understand the culture of military families and maritime professions. And I have used cultural consultants to help me more fully understand characters who share my own ethnicity and religion. Membership in the race, ethnicity, or religion of your characters doesn’t automatically
make you an authority on your characters particular situation. There are a multitude of life experiences and ways to live within every racial or ethnic group. Don’t short change yourself in the research just because you are writing from a home culture.
Here are three benefits to consulting a sensitivity reader early in the process of writing a book.
  1. Gain access to research materials 
The best thing you can ask at the beginning of a book research process is “what should I read, see, hear, taste, study, and visit in order to fully understand this aspect of the culture.” A good consultant will know. For example an early consultant for The Turn of the Tide suggested, since a trip to Japan was out of my budget and my questions were ecosystem specific, that I talk to the horticulturalist at the Japanese garden about the flora in my Japanese setting. I could have just read a field guide but seeing and hearing and smelling the trees made all the difference. I’ve made valuable personal connections through research consultants and I’ve gained access to unpublished research and off-display museum materials which did much to round out my understanding of a culture. And because I used a consultant early in the process, I could efficiently make the necessary changes.
  1. Embrace the need for substantial change in your story 
Sooner or later you will come across a topic in your research that stymies you. Written resources don’t mention the information you are looking for. People you interview give vague or wildly disparate information. Suggested contacts don’t return your queries. And sometimes a sensitivity reader will recommend explicitly that you leave an entire topic alone.
Listen. Seriously. Listen.
And change your story accordingly. It doesn’t mean you can’t write about a culture, but there are things within a culture that simply do not belong in your story. And your reader is not making this suggestion to make you fail. She is actually hoping you will succeed and trying her best to help you do so. It can feel like a defeat but really it’s an opportunity to reimagine your story in a way that will make it more respectful and also more robust in its narrative structure.
  1. Open your heart to a change in your world view. 
The joy and challenge of writing fiction is the opportunity to submerge yourself in another person’s experience. If you enter into that work wholeheartedly it can change you. If you have the assistance of a good consultant it can change you for the better. I had a real gem of a consultant for The Turn of The Tide. She is a Japanese language teacher and initially I just asked her to check the Japanese words to make sure I was using them correctly. But we ended up having a much longer conversation because my main character is biracial & she is raising biracial children. And she is from an area devastated by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. She had much to say about the contemporary experience of Japanese American students and the impact of the tsunami not just on the land but upon the broader Japanese culture. I was truly touched by her words and have thought differently about Japanese culture and many global issues, particularly the impact of rising oceans on indigenous peoples in the Pacific, ever since. As for the story, I went back to the beginning with my biracial character and reexamined every bit of internal and external dialogue to make it more reflective of what I’d learned about the grief particular to a tsunami survivor. I didn’t need to change any major plot points but I did uncover the soul of the character in a way I hadn’t before.
So after all that work do I have a bullet proof story?
Nope!
And if you think using a sensitivity reader will exempt you from criticism for the cultural representation in your story, you are going to be disappointed. Because there is no single correct representation of a culture. If I had consulted with a different Japanese person I would have gained a different perspective and made different edits. In my opinion a writer is better served by letting go of the goal that nobody will ever be critical or offended by your story in favor of the goal of deeper, and more specific cultural understanding in order to write your characters and story bravely and whole heartedly.
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Your local Indie Bookstore: a national treasure

By on September 16, 2016   /   Book Lists, For Librarians, For Parents, For Teachers, For Writers  

No matter what your role in the life of middle grade readers: parent, teacher, writer, librarian or some combination of the above, the local independent bookstore can be your ally in getting good books into kids hands in a way that sustains and upholds the community in which those children live. Indies are great at finding that new voice and highlighting a rising star on the literary scene. Here’s their big secret–the booksellers actually read the books. And they know what their community values and is looking for.

Here are two examples from my own experience. One of the first booksellers I ever met was Laura DeLaney from Rediscovered Books in Boise, ID. She came up to me at a regional trade show three months before my first slide-image-1book Heart of a Shepherd came out. She said, my community includes Mountain Home Airbase. I’ve never read a book that speaks to the military family experience like this one. I’m going to sell 100 copies of your book. And she did.

Just for reference, most MG titles at a bookshop sell between 0 and 3 copies at any given location.

fiveThe second example comes from the genius booksellers at Paulina Springs Bookstore in Sisters Oregon. They get a ton of tourist traffic in the summer and they sell mostly hiking and fishing guides although they are a terrific literary bookstore. They decided to put my Heart of a Shepherd and Hearts of Horses, an adult novel by Molly Gloss, in the trail guide section. And then while tourists were over there picking up maps, they’d say, here are two quintessential books about rural Oregon. One for you and one to read aloud to your kids around the campfire.

heartofashepherdcvrAs a result of these two booksellers, and a bunch of others like them, my debut book, a heartfelt story about a ranch kid whose dad was deployed to Iraq, a title that was not a lead for my publisher and wasn’t even picked up by the big chains, earned out its advance in 10 months and went to 4 printings in it’s first year. Even more astonishing than that, it’s still selling, slowly but steadily, seven years later. All of that happened because indie bookstores saw something a little out of the ordinary that they knew would speak to their customers. Obviously I’m hugely grateful. But I’m also astonished that the power of Indies was still able to make a difference in 2009, one of the roughest years independent bookselling has ever endured.

Whether you are an author or a librarian or just a parent looking for a good book for you kids, here are some things you can do to make the magic of independent bookselling work for you.

  1. Visit your local bookshop regularly and get to know the booksellers. They can be a great source of information about both undiscovered gems that will be perfect for your child or your students and also that overhyped book that just isn’t all that special. And they are genuinely interested in what you are looking for in books for yourself and for the children in your life.unknown
  2. Go to readings. Online bookshops don’t bring great authors to your community, but a local bookshop can and they might even help you set up a school visit for your students if an author you love is in town. Let your local bookseller know you are interested so that they can keep you in the loop.
  3. Place school or book club orders. Most shops offer a teacher discount and will gladly work with you on ordering books for your classroom or library. Oh and guess what? When you order through a shop you don’t have to pay shipping.
  4. Are you a little tired of all the glittery, non-book, junk items that unknown-1come along with your Scholastic book fair cases? Your local bookshop can probably host a school book fair. Every shop has a different policy, obviously, but talk to your local bookstore about hosting a book fair in the shop. They can usually apply the teacher discount to everyone who comes to the fair or give the school a credit afterward to get free books.
  5. Local merchants are the ones most likely to support local fundraisers so if your school is doing an auction this year (and honestly who isn’t?) I bet your local bookstore will donate to your cause. Not only that, their employees live in your community and pay taxes there, and they pay business and property taxes in your school district.
  6. unknown-2Lost a treasured favorite? Wondering when a book that would be perfect for a whole-class read is coming out in paperback? Give your indie bookshop a call. They can look things up in a publishers data base which is not available to the general public.
  7. Feeling a little stale in your own writing? Need some encouragement? Go listen to an author talk about her new book. Authors are generous. Eager to share what they’ve learned about the writing process and the labyrinthian world of publishing. I host author events at the indie bookstore where I work several times a month and I learn something every time, even when the author writes something that is a thousand miles from my own genre.
  8. And one more thing. Buy a book. Because if you want that bookstore to still be there when you are a published author, if you want your kids and students and grandkids to know the particular peace of walking into a bookshop where they are free to browse what ever strikes their interest and not just what’s the latest hot property, then give that shop your patronage as regularly as you can. It doesn’t have to be a lot, but when everybody does a little, it goes a long way.
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Do You Think the World is Ready?

By on July 20, 2016   /   Book Lists, Diversity, For Librarians, For Parents, For Teachers, For Writers  

I don’t shock easily, but two recent incidents had me reeling.

The first happened during a creative writing workshop I ran for kids in Grades 4-6. At the start of the workshop, several kids mentioned which of my books they’d read. Then one girl raised her hand and shyly announced that she wanted to read my books, but her mom wouldn’t allow her. “She says they have bad words,” the girl reported.

I tried to seem blase. “Has your mom read any of my books?” I asked her.

“No,” the girl admitted.  “But she’s seen the covers.”

I assured her that I was always careful not to use “bad words”–and that it wasn’t fair to judge a book by its cover. But how a parent viewed any of my covers and decided the text contained inappropriate language  was a mystery to me. And the sad thing was, this girl was an enthusiastic writer who clearly craved access to all sorts of books.

The other incident occurred at the start of an elementary school’s Read Aloud Day. Because my books fall into the  upper elementary/ middle school category, I was assigned a fourth grade class, as was the local middle school principal.  As the two of us chatted before the program, he asked what books I had on the horizon.

I told him about my upcoming middle grade novels:  TRUTH OR DARE (Aladdin, S&S/Sept. 20, 2016), which is about a mom-less girl’s experience of puberty, and STAR-CROSSED (Aladdin/S&S, March 2017), which is about a girl who has a crush on the girl playing Juliet in the middle school production of Shakespeare’s play.

The principal’s face turned pink. He laughed nervously. “Oh,” he said. “Do you think the world is ready?”

I explained that all my books were wholesome, completely appropriate for tweens. I hoped he’d express enthusiasm, maybe even extend an invitation to the middle school, or say he’d mention the books to the school librarian.  But he didn’t do either. Instead, he changed the subject.

I’ve been thinking about  both of these incidents  a lot lately, in light of Kate Messner’s recent dis-invitation from a school uncomfortable with her newest MG, THE SEVENTH WISH. That book, which I deeply admire, is about a girl whose older sister has a heroin addiction– a topic the school decided was inappropriate for its students .

What scares me is not so much outright book-banning, because that happens in the bright light of day, and often leads to heightened interest in the banned book, anyway.  What I find even more troubling is “quiet censorship,” the sort of thing that happens when an adult decides the world, or a school, or a classroom, or a particular kid “isn’t ready” to read about certain topics. And so he doesn’t extend the invitation, or order the book–not because the book isn’t good, or isn’t written at the right level, but because the subject makes him nervous. It’s a type of book-banning–but because it happens under the radar, it’s difficult to detect.

When Kate Messner was disinvited from a school, she had an overt act, the revoked invitation, to react to, and she did so eloquently and effectively, both on her blog and behind a podium at ALA 2016. But many authors who tackle challenging subjects just won’t get the initial invitation, or their book simply won’t get ordered by the library.  So how do they even know they’ve been “quietly censored”? And how can they–or their readers–protest? After all, schools and libraries are free to make their own choices, as they should be.  If they choose not to order a certain book, who’s to say the choice was motivated by the book’s challenging or controversial subject, and not by the author’s writing style?

I keep coming back to the realization that kids are older than we think they are, older than we were when we were their age.  Girls are menstruating at younger ages, getting eating disorders at younger ages (this is the subject of my upcoming eighth novel STUFF I KNOW ABOUT YOU (Aladdin/S&S Sept. 2017).  The internet has exposed all of our kids to a cruel, violent, judgmental world. If we don’t allow kids to read MG novels that reflect the world they live in, one of two things will happen. Either kids will turn off reading realistic fiction altogether (and with the internet constantly beckoning, that’s a real concern)– or they will crash the gate, choosing, and perhaps sneaking, YAs that are too explicit and dark for their years.  As any parent of a teen knows, once a kid starts reading YA fiction, he/she seldom wants to discuss the edgier content with an adult. Isn’t it better to allow access to books specifically geared toward a MG sensibility–the way  THE SEVENTH WISH is?  And shouldn’t we as adults want to stay in the conversation–even when (or especially when) the conversation makes us nervous?

We can’t be in favor of diversity in kidlit without welcoming books that include all sorts of previously ignored characters: kids of color, LGBT kids, kids in nontraditional families, kids coping with a family member’s addiction, kids coping with mental illness (like Dunkin in Donna Gephart’s  beautiful LILY AND DUNKIN).  There’s nothing inherently “wrong” or “inappropriate” about these characters–they’re just kids on the basketball team, kids on the school bus, kids in the play. And they deserve to be represented, read about, identified with, empathized with.

The world is ready.

Barbara Dee’s next book, TRUTH OR DARE, will be published on September 20, 2016.

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