>> From the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. ^F00:00:04 ^M00:00:23 >> Karen Jaffe: Good afternoon. ^F00:00:24 ^M00:00:28 Just for knowing, I'm not Deborah Taylor. You'll be hearing from Deborah shortly. I'm Karen Jaffe, Head of the Young Readers Center. And welcome to the Library of Congress symposium on diversity in children's literature. Using books and stories to strengthen families, a multicultural perspective. This is sponsored by the Center for Book and the Young Readers' Center. And we're honored to have a panel of renowned authors and a distinguished moderator who will address this topic focusing on teen literacy and family representations from their various cultural perspectives. This symposium is inspired to a large degree by El dia de los ninos, el dia de los libros, loosely translated as Children's Book Day, Children's Day, Book Day. Traditionally celebrated on Thursday, on April 30th, which is today, and it's Dia for short. This morning, for example, and for the second year in a row, Meg Medina led a bilingual program with her book Tia Isa Needs a Car, with 50 first graders from the Oyster-Adams School in Washington D.C. Celebrating the spirt of Dia and the importance of literacy for children of all linguistic and cultural backgrounds. But our goal this afternoon is to recognize that Dia has become something more than individual programs and events, important as they are to celebrate diversity. But a critical part of our community and culture for all of us. We don't have to look very far to understand why this might be important. From Ferguson to Staten Island to Charleston, and now less than an hour away in Baltimore, we've seen how racial violence often involving young people have threatened and divided cities. Last December The Washington Post published a commentary by three early childhood educators from the University of Texas, Austin in which they talked about teaching tolerance starting in kindergarten. And their main theme was to teach diversity early. So how can we, books, books for children and teens, make a difference, and why is it important? We hope to explore some of those questions today. We've made some progress. Launched about a year ago, the nonprofit grassroots organization We Need Diverse Books, and thank you Ellen for the buttons, led by our panelist, Ellen Oh, and made up of many authors, educators and others, has spearheaded this conversation. The American Library Association has mounted a Dia diversity action initiative and held an all-day conference the day before their mid-winter meeting this past January. Earlier this month the AWP, the Association of Writers at Book Fare held a number of sessions about how writers could incorporate multicultural themes in their work. Children's Book Council representing the American Book Publishers, has their own diversity initiative. And some of their members have launched their own projects. The CBC has also partnered with the ALA and was a co-sponsor of the January conference. And I just learned about a children's publisher in the UK whose trying through a campaign to increase the space for minority voices in children's publishing there. Now before beginning our conversation, I'd just like to take a minute to thank the important representatives from the Library of Congress who've made this day possible. From the Center for the Book, Anne Bonny, Guy Lamolinara, and our boss, John Cole. From the Young Reader's Center my colleagues, Kaheem Mohammed [phonetic] and Monica Valentine, and our many volunteers who are here today. All of whom provided hours of their time and ingenuity and talent to make this day a reality. Would you stand please? All my folks. ^M00:04:51 [ Applause ] ^M00:04:55 Thank you. And very specifically, and you don't have to stand, I wish to thank Meg Medina who fostered this idea for this program and nurtured it to this day. And finally, a note about our program format. After hearing from our panelists we'll devote the last 20 minutes to Q&A. So please hold your questions until that time. And when you're ready to ask a question, we will have three microphones. Please wait until you get a microphone. This is being recorded, and we want to pick up all the information. By participating in this event, you're giving us permission to be part of this webcast. And anyone who's on our email list will get a notice of when that webcast will be posted on the Library website. We also encourage you to share your ideas through Twitter. Our hashtag is young readers diversity. And now to get the show on the road. Our moderator today is in fact Deborah Taylor who's coordinator of School and Student Services for the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore and who recently received the Virginia Hamilton Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Library Association. ^M00:06:13 [ Applause ] ^M00:06:16 You have a lot of fans. She's also the 2015 chair of the ALA Sibert Award for outstanding informational books for children. She's received, served on many ALA committees including the Coretta Scott King Book Awards, the Michael L. Prince Award Committee, the Newberry Awards Committee. She's also served on The Boston Globe-Horn Book Committee and has reviewed for Horn Book and [inaudible]. From 1996 to 97 she was president of the Young Adult Library Service Association of the American Library Association. And she's also taught young adult literature at University of Maryland iSchool and children's literature at Towson University. It's my pleasure to turn the program over to Deb Taylor. ^M00:07:07 [ Applause ] ^M00:07:16 >> Deborah Taylor: Wow, good afternoon. It's so great to see so many people here because we have a very important opportunity. And we are probably living under that Confucius curse of living in interesting times. So the best thing that we can do with those interesting times is to learn from them and then to apply our best abilities to making those interesting times better times. Now I'm a librarian, as you heard. So my introductions are in alphabetical order. Unfortunately our panelists are not seated in alphabetical order. So I'm going to ask them to just wave when I call their name. Kwame Alexander, is a poet and author of 18 books, most recently The Crossover, which received the 2015 John Newberry Medal for the most distinguished contribution to American Literature for Children. ^M00:08:14 [ Applause ] ^M00:08:21 His other works include the award-winning picture book, Acoustic Rooster and His Barnyard Band, recently optioned as a children's television show. And He Said, She Said, a YA Novel. Kwame uses poetry to inspire and empower young people through his Book A Day Literacy Program, which has created more than 3,000 student authors across the US, Canada, and the Caribbean. And Kwame lives with his family in Reston, Virginia. Gig Amateau's first book for young adults Claiming Georgia Tate was published by Candlewood Press in 2005, and it was selected as a New York Times, I mean New York Public Library book for the teenage. Gigi is also the author of four additional books including Come August, Come Freedom, her first work of historical fiction which won the Library of Virginia's People's Choice Award for Fiction and was chosen by the Virginia Library Association as a Jefferson Cup Honor Book. Gigi lives with her family in Richmond, where she is the children's book correspondent for the Richmond Times Dispatch. Welcome Gigi. ^M00:09:29 [ Applause ] ^M00:09:34 Meg Medina is an award-winning Cuban-American author who writes picture books, middle grade and YA fiction. She is a 2015 recipient of the Pura Belpre Medal for her young adult novel, Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass. She also, we love that title, I want you to know that. She is also the 2012 Ezra Jack Keats new Writer's Medal winner for her picture book Tia Isa Wants a Car. And when she is not writing, Meg works on community projects that support girls, Latino youth and literacy. And she lives with her family in Richmond, Virginia. Welcome. ^M00:10:13 [ Applause ] ^M00:10:17 Ellen Oh is cofounder and president of We Need Diverse Books, a grassroots organization of children's book lovers that advocates essential changes in the publishing industry to produce and promote literature that reflects and honors the lives of all young people. She is the author also of the highly acclaimed and bestselling Y fantasy trilogy the Prophecy Series. She was named one of Publisher's Weekly notable people of 2014, and Ellen lives in Bethesda, Maryland with her husband and three daughters. Welcome Ellen. ^M00:10:50 [ Applause ] ^M00:10:54 Tim Tingle is an Oklahoma Choctaw award-winning author and storyteller. His great-great grandfather John Carnes walked the Trail of Tears in 1835, and his paternal grandmother attended a series of rigorous Indian boarding schools in early 1900s. Responding to a scarcity of Choctaw lore, Tingle began collecting tribal stories in the early 90s. His latest middle grade novel, How I Became a Ghost, Roadrunner Press, May of 2013, pulls heavily from interviews with tribal elders. And Tim's book, Saltypie and Trickster were selected as ALA notable books. And Tim comes to us from Texas. Welcome Tim. ^M00:11:37 [ Applause ] ^M00:11:43 Well we have such a distinguished panel, and we thought that, given the theme of today's event, that we would ask each panelist to respond to kind of an opening question. And then I'm hopefully going to listen very carefully so that if things come up in their comments, that we can then follow up so it's not so stilted, everybody's just walking down the line. But I would like to start with Gigi. I just want to start at the other end. ^M00:12:15 [ Inaudible ] ^M00:12:18 That's okay. We're all family here. And I'd like to, for each of our panelists too to think about the question and respond to the question. How has your family experience informed your work? ^F00:12:31 ^M00:12:34 >> Gigi Amateau: Thank you. I love that question. So I think there's a balance, you know sort of. Stories are made up of characters and conflict and sense of place. And some people's stories are made up of plot. That's not my favorite, plot isn't. But I would say family for me informs really all of that. I was so fortunate when I was in my early childhood, the zero to six formative years where it is so important to, we know from years of resiliency research, right, for young children to have in their lives at least one loving adult who is stable and present and in their life consistently. I was very fortunate. I was born to teenage parents. My parents were juniors in high school. But I have four grandparents in my town. And so for me my work never strays far from a love of elders. And so I see in all my work, even when I'm writing about horses from the perspective of horses, those horses are old. They're elders. So I say in that sense sort of grounded me to place and to that mirror that is an older person in a child's life. Really holding up a mirror that can reflect back sort of that best self that we aspire to be. And it's on the side of conflict probably, you know. Maybe all of us touch emotion at some point in our lives. But I have a thing about abandonment. And I think that comes from having teen parents who were just too young really to deal with being equipped to be good presence and so, the parents. So for me sort of the absence I think of my father, whether I want it to inform my work or not, it always does by what's there and oftentimes by what's not there. And so I think it always comes back to really it's my family experiences that give me access, you know, an access and entry point to the story, whether it's an emotional entry point of a strong feeling, or an entry point into a character. >> Deborah Taylor: Okay. Great. Tim. ^F00:14:50 ^M00:14:53 >> Tim Tingle: I knew from the time that I was in the second grade that I wanted to be a writer. I was raised hearing two stories, and I was forbidden to tell anyone, my closest friend, my Sunday school teacher, neighbors, school teachers, anyone, even kids my age, that we were American Indian. My grandmother left Oklahoma, was very dangerous times, and moved to Pasadena, Texas. And when she was at boarding school they say she used to step out and, long before the sun came up, and make her way to a tiny little woods and a lake beyond it, and she would sing Amazing Grace in Choctaw. Which is now our National Anthem. And she grew up telling people that if you don't sing Amazing Grace, the sun will never rise. And she stepped out her first day in the Texas Gulf Coast away from Choctaw Nation, Oklahoma, feeling as if finally she's come to a place where she doesn't have to fear quite so much. And she stepped out on the front porch to sing Amazing Grace, the neighborhood kids had been told that an Indian was coming into the community, and they pelted her with rocks and cut her face. So she didn't step out that front door for 50 years again until she got so old, and my grandfather had died, we needed a family picture. And she cried and cried, and finally she was ushered out to the front porch and she took a few pictures and came back inside. Well I knew the story of my grandmother and how she eventually overcame that and let us know to be proud of who we were. That needed to be told. And then I was, along with my 32 cousins, we were tossed into the back of pickup trucks every summer and driven 200 miles to the big thicket of East Texas, which was a huge, not national forest, but a wild country then with wolves and coyotes and every kind of snake imaginable. We could bring only water, salt, sugar, coffee and eggs. We would hike for a full day, and everything we ate for the week had to be either caught or fished for or hunted for. But the real purpose of bringing us to that isolated area, when we'd finish supper and crawled into our sleeping bags, then my dad and his brothers and uncles would tell us about John Carnes and the Trail of Tears and my grandmother and the boarding school and what it meant to be Choctaw. But before we would leave at the end of the week, they would always tell us, remember the promise you make to mama, to your grandmother, you cannot tell anyone. This is for us. This is for only family to know. We cannot tell. So it was in the 70s when my grandmother had an eye operation, and her blindness was gone. She had an eye transplant, cornea transplant, that the family got together and started telling stories the day it was determined that she could see. For the first time she could see her grandkids. And we decided it's time to be proud of who we are. It's time to be proud. No more hiding. It's time to tell the stories. It's time to be proud. And I knew I had the story of my grandmother and the story of my four times great-grandfather who survived the Trail of Tears carrying the bones of his mother so they could be buried at the new home in Oklahoma. She died on the Trail. And I thought I'll write books about those two stories, and that's enough. That's all I have to say. But then in digging and digging and digging and researching, of course you run across more stories than you could ever tell in a lifetime. But everything I write is about family. Thank you. >> Deborah Taylor: That's amazing. ^M00:18:44 [ Applause ] ^M00:18:46 Ellen. >> Ellen Oh: My turn. >> Deborah Taylor: Yep. >> Ellen Oh: So I was a really violent kid. And, I mean, I blame my dad. My dad has this thing he'd say, if somebody hits you once, you hit them back ten times harder. And I believed in this, except it's not really good advice when everybody's bigger than you. But, you know, I grew up in New York. And I grew up a kid of immigrant parents. And they spoke broken English. I had to deal with a lot of racism. And to be honest, I got called Chink a lot, and it would drive me crazy because, you know, I'm a Gook not a Chink. I mean if you're going to use a racial slur, you'd better call me by the right one, you know. But ultimately what happens is that if affects your self-worth. So what helped me come out of this kind of spiraling self-hatred that I think a lot of immigrant kids do go through was that my father is also a writer. And he would tell me stories. And he would tell me stories about running away from the Communist Army, you know, in Korea. And living off rice balls that only had salt in them. I'm like oh my God, I'm eating Twinkie and I'm going oh my God, just rice balls and salt. And I realized that there was this whole culture and this whole heritage that I really had no exposure to growing up in the states and going to American schools. ^M00:20:18 And that really kind of formed who I was. And to be honest, family is all about what I write because that, my dad and my mom, they're all part of the characters that come out in my writing, you know. If I have my wise king it's because my dad's wise. And if I have, you know, a goofy monk it's because my dad's goofy. And, you know, I have a queen character because she's majestic. And I think my mom's one of my biggest heroes and so is my dad. So I find that everything I do when I write, it comes down to family. ^M00:20:56 [ Applause ] ^M00:21:01 >> Kwame Alexander: You know I remember, I remember talking to an editor and telling her that I had written this novel about two brothers who play basketball. And up until that time I had written a picture book, and I had also written a young adult novel. And this particular book was for middle grade students. And the editor said, Kwame, you're trying to do too much. Why do you think, you can't write in every genre. You kind of have to find one thing and stick to that. So I'm not too sure that this crossover thing is going to work. And I was like alright. And I said, have a great day. And I went on about my business. And I started to thinking when you asked that question, Deb, what made me think that I could do anything? That I could write whatever I wanted to write. What gave me sort of that level of confidence of self-worth? And here it is. I published my first book in 1995. It was a collection of poems, mainly love poems. Because I had been writing love poems at Virginia Tech for this woman. And submitting these poems in Nikki Giovanni's class and getting Cs. And so, but I decided that I was a love poet, and I was going to publish this book. And I got a hundred rejections, Callaloo, nobody wanted to publish my book. So I published it in the first place I sold books. Like I got, I bought a booth at this conference called Furious Flower in 1994 at James Madison. I bought a booth. Maybe Dr. Gavin gave me the booth for free because I didn't have a lot of money. But I sold a lot of books. What made me think that I could pretty much do whatever I wanted to do from a writerly standpoint? I was 11 years old. My father was the headmaster of a school called Uhuru Sasa in Brooklyn, New York. Uhuru Sasa is Swahili for Freedom Now. And there's 3,000 kids at this school, all African-American kids. We're being taught our self-worth, to feel proud of who we are. And one morning I wake up, and I'm ready to go to school. I'm all excited. And my mother says you're not going to school today. Today you're going to a field trip. And I'm like, okay, cool. Where are we going? And my mother says today you're going to march over the Brooklyn Bridge. And I say, why are we going to march over the Brooklyn Bridge? Well we're going to protest the racist regime that Ed Koch, the Mayor of New York, leads. Well what does that have to do with me? I just want to go to school? Well all of the students in school are going to march with the community. Well I think I'm going to opt out of this. I cried. I threw a tantrum. There was no way I was going to march over this bridge because in my 11 year old head, I knew that if we made it across the bridge, which we weren't because they were going to open the bridge and we were going to fall in. But if we made it across the bridge there would be police on horses with dogs, and we were all going to die. And my father, for the most part, dragged me out of the house and made me march over the bridge. And going across the bridge was sort of a life-changing moment for me. We're fired up. We can't take no more. We're fired up. We're chanting. And by the time I get across the bridge, and I'm literally in the front line because my dad is the headmaster, and I'm face-to-face with these police on horses and dogs, I had sort of reached this point in my life, in my development as a sort of man-child in the Promise Land, that you can do whatever you want. You have to be, you have to be steadfast. You have to persevere. You have to be persistent. You have to be focused. You have to be determined. You have to know what it is you want in this world, and you have to go after it. And you cannot be afraid. And that's what I've tried to do as a writer. ^M00:25:37 [ Applause ] ^M00:25:40 >> Deborah Taylor: Meg. >> Meg Medina: It's really hard to be last. I just want to put that out there people. So family I think is at the root of absolutely everything I write. My family came from Cuba in 1959 and 1960, '61, and then aunts and uncles and so on in the late 60s and early 70s. So my family's experience was the experience of immigrants. It was the experience of political refugees. And the men were gone, right. So my dad was not in the family. My uncle, unfortunately, passed away. My grandfathers did too. So I was raised by [foreign word] and my mother and my [foreign word]. And they were all these strong and yet frightened women at the same time, trying to make sense of New York City in the 70s. Trying to raise two daughters with, you know, feminism was on the rise. And New York was a very violent kind of place at the time. They had lost their sense of identity in terms of jobs and careers and language. It's an amazing loss when you cannot communicate who you are and what you know and how you see the world with words. So I remember my family as being eccentric, as struggling, as being a family that had longing. And the longing they most had was for Cuba, which was such a huge part of our life before me born here. It was like a phantom limb. I could feel it. I could almost see it. But I'd never experienced it. So when I sit down to write, I am interested in the bicultural experience. That kid who lives both in the United States as American, but also as something else. And all of those really nuanced negotiations that have to happen for that child. But as I write I try to celebrate the women who loved me and who raised me with all of their imperfections and their fears. And I try to create a loving and complicated portrait of a contemporary Latino family. And I think that for Latinos, really for every ethnic group, we owe people authentic representations. And that's what I really try to do. >> Great. ^M00:28:29 [ Applause ] ^M00:28:34 >> Deborah Taylor: Now the next questions and until we reach the Q&A period, just want to put those, the questions out there. And however you feel you want to respond and what order, you can just, fight for the mike who whoever speaks up first. >> Meg Medina: I'm not going last. ^F00:28:48 ^M00:28:51 >> Deborah Taylor: Well Meg I will, in fact, I will let you go first. >> Meg Medina: Thanks. >> Deborah Taylor: With this one because it comes from something you just said. >> Meg Medina: Okay. >> Deborah Taylor: You talked about the bicultural experience. And I wrote down bicultural versus wholeness. Is there a point where there becomes that need, and many kids, as we get to them, majority, minority or whatever version of that it is, where you're dealing with two or three or multiple cultures. And all of our goal is to aim towards wholeness. How does that bicultural experience either hinder the move towards wholeness as a person or assist the movement towards wholeness? >> Meg Medina: Well, you know, I think there are just, they're universal dramas of growing up, right. >> Deborah Taylor: Oh yeah. Oh yes. >> Meg Medina: So I think that for me, and maybe Ellen will, this will resonate with Ellen. There are whole periods of time when you're a bicultural kid where you're sort of ashamed of your family's situation, their accents, their habits, the food they eat, you know. I would never have taken a tamale to lunch at school even though it's like one of my favorite things in the whole wide world. ^M00:30:09 So there's this whole growth period of learning how your culture isn't something to get past. For a long time I believed that I had to get past and assimilate and become Brady Bunch-ish, Partridge Family-ish, you know. I used to study these shows almost like a detective. Strange like there's a study. They sit down and they have, they're grounded. I mean I, you know, things like that. How odd. So I think that there was that period of discomfort and dissidence. And I see that in young people who I visit in schools now. It's only later that you figure out all the gifts that that provided you. All the ways of seeing. All the, frankly the empathy. The ability to sit in somebody else's shoes and consider things from different points of view. I don't know. What do you think? Am I on the right track here? Save me in other words. >> Ellen Oh: I'll go next. >> Kwame Alexander: That was good. >> Ellen Oh: So I can totally relate to what Meg was saying about the tamale because when I was growing up, my mom would pack me these awesome Korean like little [inaudible] boxes for lunch. And I would be ashamed to eat it at school because the kids would make fun of it. I mean like Korean kimbap, which is like seaweed wrapped around rice and meat and vegetables. They were like ooh, seaweed. Oh my God that's the grossest thing in the world. As they're sitting there eating their stinky cheese sandwich. So I personally ended up eating a lot of lunches at home after school, you know, starving to death. In some ways times have changed because my kids, their favorite thing to pack is like rice and seaweed. Like you can find Korean kim [phonetic] like the seaweed, at Costco. I mean this is kind of unbelievable. So like, from that aspect I think that's wonderful. You know, going into supermarkets and being able to see the array of different cultural, you know, food items that are available. And I guess in some ways it always does start with a food. Because, you know, food is such a warm family, homey kind of place to relate. And one day I have to write a cookbook. But anyway, I think that that cultural heritage that people have as growing up from an immigrant family is that hard place of being between, you know, assimilating into the American society and still trying to kind of keep your heritage and be proud of where you are. And it is funny that nowadays food seems to be more of an equalizer. But it doesn't take away from the fact that there is still issues of racial tensions and people not understanding culture beyond the food aspect. So I do think we still have a lot, a long way to go. >> Kwame Alexander: Well this idea of other and how as bicultural people or people who are of color, as it were. I think if we, I think the issue is not with sort of us. Like we understand the value of who we are. The problem I believe happens when the other kids don't view us as a part of the whole. That we become outside of this wholeness. And so I think the wholeness thing, I think what we should also be looking at is that we were talking about Baltimore and Ferguson. And in Claudia Rankine's book, Citizen, or when she was at the LA Festival with the book she talked about, she gave this amazing quote that until white men can police their imaginations, black men will keep dying. And so what that says to me is what kind of books are librarians giving to children in elementary school, in middle school? Are you giving kids books that feature characters who look like Ellen or have cultural traditions that Ellen shares during Asian-American Heritage Month? Or are you making that a part of sort of the wholeness that you talked about? >> Meg Medina: Amen. >> Kwame Alexander: Are we giving books to our children that reflect the kind of world we say we want them to live in and participate in? And by far and large, what I've seen is that we are not there yet. And so the problem is not the children. I have a six year old who goes to Lake Anne, and in her mind, yeah she's brown-skinned. And she's got this friend who's peach. And that's sort of, okay that's cool. But at some point, as the parents and the librarians and the teachers, we begin to sort of make those things other. And that's where the problem starts. So I think the wholeness, I make the suggestion that you want to, a librarian, you want to give a kid, a white kid, a male book. Don't just automatically go to the default. You know, why not give this kid the Great Green Heist? Or why not give this kid Eddie Red, you know. I think we got, we're the problem I think. ^F00:36:25 ^M00:36:29 >> Gigi Amateau: I just want to echo. I think Kwame you've really put it in a very compelling way. And what I'm getting from that, and I agree with it, is that the construct of divisiveness really, it comes from grownups. It comes from us. And so I'll tell you a funny story about my daughter. She's 22. When she was about four, at that age you're just beginning to explore language and moving past picture books. She really had a desire to learn about the American Indians in our region who are primarily Algonquian. And she would devour everything. And went to the library and said to the librarian, she had a list about that time. I'd like to read about Native Americans. And the librarian said okay. Well what do you mean? And she said, you know, Choctaw, Cherokee, Powhatan. So she sat down, the librarian sat down with her and really went through the whole, it was an emergent curriculum moment, right. So the desire to go down this road and learning about sort of distinctions and changes and how we're all kind of part of the whole was coming naturally from her. My mom took her to a pow wow on the Manipeni [phonetic], and she came home and was reading this book and said, here's what she said to me, she said mom, I've never told this story in public. But she said mom, I want you to tell me when you see a white person. I said what? I want you to tell me the next time you see a white person. I said okay. It was like the most challenging parenting moment of my life. And so I said, so got some news for you. ^M00:38:17 [ Laughter ] ^M00:38:23 We're white. And everything kind of imploded. And she said I'm light brown. I'm light brown. I'm light brown. And I said, so that was a moment to say, so when we use the word white, talking about a person, we mainly mean people whose ancestors have come from Europe. And that's the story of our family. Our family came from Scotland and from Ireland and from England. But white people took land. That's right. And so for us it was a moment to try to understand the context of our family, and also what that meant in the 20th century, moving into the 21st century, in terms of claiming a different legacy for our family. We can't deny kind of the road that we traveled. But we could take that moment to sort of say, now let's break it down because we're all, we're all working on this together or it's not working. ^F00:39:27 ^M00:39:31 >> Tim Tingle: Going back to just briefly the food as cultural and racial identified. It was very easy to be a hidden Choctaw because our sacred food is corn. I could eat cornbread. I could eat corn on the cob. I could eat, you know. >> Popcorn. >> So it was, popcorn, you bet. So I was being Choctaw eating all those things. It was cool. But being both, and I think about this often. And I've thought about this for decades about having a foot in both worlds. ^M00:40:04 Having a foot in both worlds. And I used to talk about how I would have this overwhelming sense of being Choctaw every time I would cross the Red River that separates Texas from Oklahoma. Now because of the water situation it's kind of the Red Creek. You could wade across it. But still, it's there. It's there. I started maybe 15 years ago when I got very serious about writing. I had been doing storytelling for about ten years. And I realized that if I wanted the stories to last, they needed to be in some form of print. Because I won't be here forever. And I discovered that if I had something called writer's block that I could go to a small town in Oklahoma, tiny little town, tiny little motel, and stay for three or four days and just start walking out on the hills. And eventually you're going to run across mounds, just little dirt mounds, little mounds of dirt that you think, well there was some kind of a wash or some kind of a, you know, who knows how it happened. But we Choctaws know how it happened. That's our burial mounds. The little burial mounds. And if you notice, usually at one end of them, if it's still there, there'll be a little pile of stones. And the stones block up a doorway that's always there so the spirit can come and go. The spirit can come and go. And this is a belief that is still there with us. That there is no, the word for goodbye in Choctaw is [foreign word]. It means I will see you in the future. And it literally means that. [Foreign word], I will see you in the future. When someone dies, there's the pain and immediacy of death. But there's always the smile that comes shortly thereafter of now they see me in everything I do. I'd better best behave myself, you know, a little bit better. But for us to live in both worlds, I think two things that come from ancient, ancient times and from the head of our Choctaw government even today, there are two things that characterize us as people. And one is the ability to use humor to help us overcome. Not to ignore. Not to ignore what's going on. But to let us see the humor in the most despicable of wrongs and tragedies to help us overcome. And the other is the power of forgiveness. The power of forgiveness. And that's part of every state of the nation address by our elected chief. It's part of our folktales. The heroes of the folktales are not the ones that slayed the most and waved the spear. They are the ones that bring people together and figure out a way to build bridges. Just to close with this, Kevin Gover who's head of NMAI, National Museum of American Indians, he uses a phrase. He says when people want to learn about American Indians, they come to us sometimes. They bring every stereotype in the books because that's how we're raised in America. And so we could assault them with one speech or portrait after another to show that we're modern people, about what was [inaudible]. He said, but we choose not to do that. We choose to greet them on the bridge they cross upon and one step at a time to help them to a better awareness of who we are. And when they sense an uncomfortableness about this is too much about Indians. I don't know this. I didn't want to, then just bid them good day and say the door's always open. But we greet them on the bridge they cross upon. And I think that's so critical in beginning to break down the barriers for racism. >> Deborah Taylor: Great. You know, you all will have to take my word for this because I'm probably older than practically everybody in the room, and certainly older than everybody on the panel. But there have been many advocates for greater diversity in children's literature. It springs up every once in a while. But I do think that this has gotten a little bit more traction this time around. And I'd like to ask the panel why do you think that this particular movement, one that Ellen's organization is kind of the face of with the title, We Need Diverse Books. Why do you think this particularly time in our history, in children's book world, why do you think it's gaining traction right now? And whoever wants to begin. >> Meg Medina: I'm going to just jump in really quickly, because Ellen will have a lot to say on this I'm sure. But it's because that's who's in the seats. I mean I go to schools now. I look out, and they're from everywhere. And that's the best news of all. They have this wonderful opportunity to learn in live time, authentic relationships with each other, deep friendships across all kinds of lines. Not only cultural lines but students with disabilities in their classroom. Like every kind of difference. I just don't think that there's a way to sustain one model of story when the readers out there have so many different realities. ^F00:45:15 ^M00:45:24 [ Chicken Noises ] ^M00:45:25 >> Deborah Taylor: This teacher has to call on someone now? >> Ellen Oh: Okay. So I kind of go back to the food analogy too because I do think that we've become smaller, the world. And in a lot of ways we are so much more aware of the world and the cultures and the people all around us. And also in this country. Again, food seems to be the easiest way to start that conversation. And if for some reason are, I guess, more inclined to try something new to eat than try to read a book about a different culture, I don't know. But I'm sure everybody's eaten Chinese food. But I don't know how many of you have read Chines mythology. So like again, I think sometimes there are easier ways to start through something. Books have to be kind of the next thing. Opening the eyes of children to other cultures, other religions and, you know, lifestyles, genders, and everything. Diversity is everywhere. I find that one of the most interesting comments I get is a white person who said, I grew up in an all-white area. I've never seen any diversity. And I said, you're not looking very closely. There's LGBQTIA in your community. There are disabilities community members there. There's a lot of diversity everywhere. And I think that's also why We Need Diverse Books has been maybe, it had a little bit of a broader scope in that way because it wasn't just race-based. It was a larger conversation. And more encompassing. Go ahead Meg. >> Meg Medina: I, you know the other thing about We Need Diverse Books is really true from the inside out, I'm telling you, the people who led this movement with Ellen were extremely savvy about social media. They're young. They're bright. They really know the ins and outs of Tumblr and Twitter, and I'll tell you the parents of the kids in your class are those people. So I think that has been, it's just shocking to see the impact of a Twitter campaign when it's really managed well. Okay, I know. >> Tim Tingle: I want to toss out a challenge to every one of you. How many of you librarians are here? Librarians. I want to toss out a challenge. >> Ellen Oh: Yay. >> Tim Tingle. I want for you when you get back to your library to try to find the books that, the illustrated books, that depict American Indians in modern clothing. That show us as modern people. Try to find those books. Try to find the books that show American Indians as modern people. That is our biggest challenge today is something so very basic to be recognized that we still exist as modern people. Because unless we're depicted as that in children's books, we will be an invisible race. We don't want to be invisible anymore. ^M00:48:44 [ Applause ] ^M00:48:48 >> Kwame Alexander: I think that one of the reasons that we're sort of seeing this We Need Diverse Books movement gaining some serious traction is because of all the work that has been put into diversity and multicultural children's literature over the past 30 or 40 years. So like in my mind, when I go to the Virginia Festival for the Book, and I've been for the past three or four years, it's one of the most diverse festivals I've been to. And that didn't just happen because We Need Diverse started a movement. When I think of Karibu Books, and I know one of the owners. Karibu Books was an African-American bookstore chain, six bookstores, that was here in the D.C. Metropolitan area for at least 10 or 15 years. That was happening before We Need Diverse movement. When I think of the work. Deb had me on a panel at the Enoch Pratt Library about ten years ago. I want to say ten years ago. It was me and John Green, before John Green was John Green. >> Right, right. >> Kwame Alexander: Now in some people's eyes that may be, oh cool. Deb did a diverse panel. ^M00:50:08 No. Deb just was smart enough to put John Green and Kwame Alexander on a panel because she knew they were writers, and they had something to offer. I think We Need Diverse Books is gaining traction because America is ready for it as evidenced by the fact that there are so many diverse things already happening. And Ellen is brilliant and savvy and clever enough to realize that I can sort of take these things that are already happening and give them an umbrella that's going to propel this thing in an amazingly fast and efficient and productive manner. >> Ellen Oh: Can you write my answers for me [inaudible]? That was great. But you know, the one thing I want to add on to that is that when we're looking at an audience like this, clearly you guys are already, you know, on board. We are all, we're kind of preaching to the choir here. But going back to what Kwame was saying about the gatekeepers being the problem is not here. These gatekeepers here is not the problem. It's kind of the ones that are still not ready to accept that what we've already kind of accepted as a reality, as you know, a true measure of what our real world looks like. Like for example, not that long ago I was at a bookstore and a little white girl was reading My Name is Malone. And if you guys know that book it has, you know, on the cover there's a little black girl on there. And it's a great book. And I was just about to go over and say hey, that's a really good book. Her mom came over and took it out of her hands and said, no, that's not for you. And this happens more often than you think. We have, that's the narrative that has to change. And I think that's what we're pushing for. >> Kwame Alexander: Yeah when you think about YA books. And Ellen writes YA. And most of us write YA. When you think about YA books, and this is a question I ask some of my writer friends, do you see white students with YA novels with black pictures on the front? Like is that something you would see in a school? Well judging by the quietness in the room, right. Like you just don't see that. I mean but, so why is it? >> Deborah Taylor: But they're walking down the hall with Jay Z in their head, in the ear. >> Kwame Alexander: But they're walking down the hall with Jay Z. >> Deborah Taylor: And Beyonce in the other ear. >> Kwame Alexander: Right. Right. So you know, yeah it's interesting. Yeah. >> Meg Medina: Let's put Beyonce on the cover. >> Kwame Alexander: Right. There you go. >> Deborah Taylor: Gigi wanted to jump in. >> Gigi Amateau: I'll just jump in quickly to say I think one of the reasons We Need Diverse Books is really getting traction right now is I see in my daughter's group of kids and younger, a real articulated desire to belong. And I think the sense of belonging really speaks less to the material or physical aspect of being a human being than to the spirit of being a human being. And so to me I think that's what the We Need Diverse Books really taps into, that helping folks, all of us, through story, to find that place, wherever it is. Wherever it looks like culturally or racially or class or religion. Finding the place that echoes back to your experience. So in my, in my day job, I'm the Chief Impact Officer at United Way in Richmond. So that means I oversee grant making for health and human services in our region. One of our goals is to eliminate social isolation for older adults and people with disabilities. There's a lot of science right now. And I think isolation is an issue that spans the ages, right. There's a lot of science, both biological science and social science, coming out now from all over the country and the world really, demonstrating and proving to us that when people are socially isolated, there are extreme consequences. They're more likely to die prematurely. People who are socially isolated are seven times more likely to become depressed. If you're older adults you're more likely to fall, to suffer hypertension, stroke, diabetes. But the flip is true as well. There's science that proves that when we have strong social connections, and it's about quality, not quality. When we have strong social connections and feel like we belong, we're healthier. Our immune systems are stronger. We live longer. Our cognition works better. So I really think it's nothing short of that what is what We Need Diverse Books is doing. It's creating, I mean that's what stories do. They bind us together. So we can identify where we belong. And that is a bridge. I think a story is as much a bridge back out to a connection as anything. ^F00:54:59 ^M00:55:02 >> Deborah Taylor: Anybody else? Before, now it's, I think as we agree that everyone in this room, we're probably all on board. But some of us do get pushback on the idea of diversity and books. Not just from that parent who takes the book out of a kid's hand, but I've heard things like well does that mean we have to lower our standards? Or why can't books just be color blind? I read, I read Rebecca when I was and African-American teenager, and I'm a reader. I didn't have to see myself on the covers of the books. Why can't books just be color blind? What would you say to something like that? And now these are all things I have heard. >> Meg Medina: Oh of course. But you know, it's interesting, I read Charlotte's Web. That was my favorite book as a little kid. And I grew up in Queens, New York. The only pig I ever saw was on [foreign word] on my table. That's it. I didn't know anything about farms and all of that. And boy did I relate to that book about friendship and about loyalty and about being true. And so I insist that the same can be true of a book with a character of color as a main character. Because we're talking about the universal horrors and beauties of growing up, right. That's what we do. Through different lenses, but that's what we do. With regard to like the whole color blind thing, it's, you know, I think it's more important not that we just say, and I hear this also in publishers, also that we're afraid to take more authors of color on in case we have to lower our standards, blah, blah, blah. But I think the beauty really comes in seeing more color, not less. In seeing, it's sort of like you get this special set of glasses, and suddenly you see all these shades you never saw before and all these ways of knowing. And all of these beautiful traditions in there. I just think it makes the world richer and more exciting, not the other way. Any thoughts? >> Gigi Amateau: That's totally right. And why would you want to screen out, right. I mean, we don't, any of us, move through the world in this monochromatic or very one dimensional world. I mean our world, our families, our friends, the people we work with and worship with, it's everything. And so why would we want literature to screen out rather than kind of bring everything in, what you're saying? >> Meg Medina: And you know what's funny, when I read one of Gigi's book, I want to be from Mississippi. When I was reading the Crossover, I was a basketball-playing boy, you know. And do you know what I mean? You just get into those shoes and what a healthy thing to do, to be able for a little while to be in someone else's shoes and problem solve the way they do and think about it the way they do. >> Ellen Oh: This reminds me of the story that, Sarwat Chadda is a British-Indian author of a middle grade series called Ash Mistry. And he was talking about talking to a bookseller and how excited he was about this new series that he had written. And the bookseller stopped him and said, I just don't see the need to stock your book because there are no Indians in my neighborhood. To which he replied, I don't think there are any hobbits either, but. ^M00:58:27 [ Laughter ] ^M00:58:30 >> Tim Tingle: Give me five on that. >> Deborah Taylor: Now that's a drop the mike moment right there. Drop the mike. >> Tim Tingle. I'm going to use that one. >> Ellen Oh: It is a good one. I always use that story. >> Deborah Taylor: No wizards probably either. >> Tim Tingle: Let's all, will you give us permission to steal that one? We want to use it. >> Ellen Oh: You'll have to ask Sarwat. >> Tim Tingle: Just real briefly I write, the last two novels I've written, one middle grade How I Became a Ghost and more recently, House Purple Cedar. It's young adult/adult crossover. And they're both different times, almost a hundred years apart, but heavy, heavy on the conflict between American soldiers burning down homes, killing people, driving people on the trail. And then House of Purple Cedar, on the conflict when white people in Oklahoma wanted the land and would do anything to get it. But I started out years ago, and I stay with this, that evil in nothing that I write, will ever be identified by the color of a person's skin. That if the army did this, if officials did this, the burnings, whatever, that I will also create enough Anglo characters which care about the people who are being hurt. Care about them, who reach out to them, in the same way that this room is filled with people of a variety of colors who will reach out to someone who need, regardless of the color of their skin. I try to do that in every book I write. I never identify good or evil by the color of a skin. Just wanted to offer that. ^M01:00:07 >> Deborah Taylor: Well if anybody has a last comment they want to make and we'll move into questions and answers. And so while the folks are getting the mikes positioned, I just want to, I just think that you added such amazing insight to the way you've been thinking about this. Such an interesting cross section of ideas. And I'm sure that our audience has some great questions to keep the conversation going. So we're going to have mikes positioned in the front, in the middle and in the back. And as soon as we get a mike up front, we've got a question right up front. >> Thank you so much. I'm actually a teacher and a writer. But my question is two-fold. I'm really interested in knowing when you were a child, what book inspired you or, you know, that you basically couldn't put down. And then also, what advice do you have for children's lit students? ^F01:01:05 ^M01:01:09 >> Deborah Taylor: Meg. >> Meg Medina: Well as a very little kid I loved Charlotte's Web. I also read Nancy Drew. Just mesmerized by a lawyer father with a sports car. I mean, who were these people? But it was fabulous. So yeah I read what was available to me at the time. When I got into college is when I started to read more Latino-centered literature. It was The House on Mango Street, which awakened, it was such a huge moment to see a Latino family in the pages. It was just shocking. The advice that I would give to writers, is that what you mean? ^M01:01:51 [ Inaudible ] ^M01:01:52 Okay. People writing children's literature? Is this. I think that we have the idea that you have to go outside for the story, have an amazing life, have amazing ideas, travel to this part of the world, that part of the world. And while that is fun, the place you really have to travel is within to your own stories. To the things that frightened you as a child. The things that fed you as a child. The things that you remember that you can't understand why you remember. Jot them down and follow that for a while. And invariably I think you come to the why it was important. I think that's what matters in writing children's books, that we really write their experience honestly and unflinchingly. >> Kwame Alexander: My father, who was an academic and a publisher and a writer. And my mother who was a writer and an English professor, they made us read books in lieu of watching television. We got one TV show a week. >> Meg Medina: Gosh. >> Kwame Alexander: Mine was Different Strokes. ^M01:02:59 [ Laughter ] ^M01:03:04 Loved Different Strokes. >> Meg Medina: I can picture this. >> Kwame Alexander: So they, so they forced us to read books. And my sisters liked it. And when I was little I liked Winnie the Pooh and all that stuff. But as I became a middle grade student, middle school student, I didn't like being forced to read. So I remember my father. It wasn't funny to me ^M01:03:25 [ Laughter ] ^M01:03:29 So my father traveled a lot. So when he left, I would throw tantrums. And the way I would throw tantrums was I would take books off the shelf and throw them around the room. And I made sure I did it when he was gone. I wasn't stupid. But he made me, he told me, I remember he was leaving town. He was like I want you to read this book, and I want it done by the time I get back. And it was this book. It has this gold seal on it. It was, the author was this woman named Mildred Taylor. I was like I'm not reading this junk. But I didn't want to, you know, I can't say get a spanking. So I didn't want to get disciplined. So I read it. And I loved it. And I wouldn't tell him that. But that was I think the first book that I couldn't put down. The advice I give the children's literature students is you want to write a world that is authentic. That is diverse. I believe you have to live an authentic and a diverse world. I think you have to travel. I believe you have to live this amazingly authentic life so you can have something worth writing about. >> Ellen Oh: So I didn't like TV growing up because we had the old-fashioned TV. And I was the TV remote control. And, you know, if the weather was bad, I'd have to stand by the bunny ears. So I really, other than Saturday morning cartoons, I really didn't like TV. So I really was, you know, a veracious reader. I loved reading. But I can tell you that my favorite books were Alexander Dumas, Count of Monte Cristo. I think that's why I had this revenge violence kind of thing in all my books. Revenge. But you know, I didn't actually know what I was missing until I read The Joy Luck Club when I was in my 20s. And that was, I tell you, Niagara Falls. I cried for months. And then the movie came out, and I cried for months after that too. Because for the first time ever, there was an Asian with immigrant parents. You know, like mine. And I was just like, ah, you know. And I wish I had had that as a child. And my kids have a little bit more of that now, and I'm glad. But it's still not enough. Like that's why my advice to children lit students is please write more diverse books. So all our kids can read about other cultures and themselves. Not just mirrors but reflections. Because like I think Asian kids need to read the Crossover and Brown Girl Dreaming. You know I think Latino kids need to read about Grace Lin's, you know, beautiful Where the Mountain Meets the Moon. It's a, you know, it's not just white people, you guys have to read about us. Everybody that, I think that's really important for all of us. >> Tim Tingle: When I hear about, when she was a child and she was a remote, remote, remote, do you realize how old that makes me feel? Mercy. When I was a child, when I was a child, there was no TV. Right. And then I was five, and the world changed. Oh I was raised on Hardy Boys. I loved the Hardy Boys. And real, like fourth grade I discovered Mark Twain. I loved Mark Twain. And in sixth grade someone gave me a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird. And I was raised in the Texas Gulf Coast, which is closer to Louisiana and Mississippi in thinking than the rest of Texas. And when I started talking about To Kill a Mockingbird in class, and teachers got silent, I knew I was on to something. I knew I was on to something there. Because challenge authority was what I was all about from the day I was born. I was on to something big time. My, so Steinbeck, Hardy Boys, To Kill a Mockingbird. And I'm very suspicious, but I'll have to read that second, the coming out soon, you know, book. My advice to children lit students who want to become writers is write what you know best. Read, I think it's very important to focus on the genre you want to specialize in. But I also write in several different genres. I've settled now on middle grade because I remember myself fourth through seventh grade. And that's where that, the ideas came that changed my life forever. That stayed with me. Is that kind of middle grade, young adult. But I think write what you know, and if you go back in your mind, just thinking back in your mind through the different grade levels and you come to a place that's, oh I don't want to go there, where you stub your toe there the treasure lies. Where you stub your toe, there the treasure lies. >> Ellen Oh: I like that. Did you just come up with that right now? >> Gigi Amateau: I like that too. >> Ellen Oh: Maybe. I'm stealing that. >> Tim Tingle: That and the Hobbits, we'll go. >> Gig Amateau: I loved folktales and fairytales when I was little. The Little Match Girl was hands down my favorite. My grammy would read that to me, and I would just be sobbing and then beg her to read it again. I think that's why my books are so sad because like something about the sadness just sort of like, like a moth to a flame. And then once I hit like seventh grade or so, I'm a first generation Judy Blume reader. And for me, like Are you There God? It's Me, Margaret. It was hard to get information from the women in my family about your period. It was just like I couldn't get them to really deal with that. But so, there it was. What's happening to me? You know, right. So it's funny, but it's true. Books can be also really, you know, kind of informative in that way. And I think the advice I would have to any children's writer, or any writer really, is to give yourself permission to use the natural world as a studio. Because the natural world is the most diverse thing around. Like it's so diverse in terms of fauna and flora and plant life and how things interact. It's also a place where it's very hard to be comfortable, you know, for most of us, for myself. As much as I love the outdoors, there always comes a moment when I'm like, I'm ready to go in. ^M01:10:23 Because there's something uncomfortable happening. And that's I think a good place to write from, from feeling safe yet uncomfortable. So that you have to open up or break out a little bit. So I think in terms of diversity of all types, the natural world can lead us there as writers. >> Deborah Taylor: Great. I think we got a question in the middle. Right there. Yeah. ^F01:10:51 ^M01:10:53 >> Hi there. I'm interested in the language we use to talk about this. I train lots of volunteers. I work with all kinds of families. And I got to say when people say, you know, the diversity is so important or whatever, we need to teach tolerance. That just sets my teeth on edge because tolerance implies that there's something bad to be tolerated. So I'd like to hear what you have to say about the language that we use that is genuinely embracing and inclusive. And how we get past, for some people it's code. Meaning we don't really want to embrace at all. But for other people it's just the way we've always talked about this. So I'm interested in the language that we use going forward. >> Deborah Taylor: Anybody want to? >> Meg. >> Meg Medina: Okay. Well what I can say is that I think that it's a slippery slope. So I have a daughter who's 24 who's got disabilities. She has intellectual disabilities. So over the course of 24 years she has been other health impaired, developmental delayed, mentally retarded, and intellectually disabled. And there was a time when you weren't allowed to call her disabled. It's been really interesting to watch how we struggle with our discomfort around this topic. And I also think it's interesting to watch people have conversations about race because everybody starts tripping over their own tongue. It's remarkable to see. I agree that tolerance, to me, implies that you're tolerating something that's annoying to you. So I hear what you're saying. I try to keep in mind that almost everyone I run into, there's a small minority of people who really see things from a very different perspective than I do. But most of the time people are trying to get it right. They're not trying to do micro aggressions. They're not trying to hurt me. They're not trying to be foolish. They're trying to get it right. And they're stumbling through trying to get to the other side. So I'm sort of thinking about Tim's bridge and trying to meet people where they are and say, come on over, sweetie. You can do it. >> Kwame Alexander: That's good. That's good. >> Deborah Taylor: Anybody else want to weigh in on that? >> Ellen Oh: Yeah I am, I'm totally with Meg on this. Because I do know that there is a younger generation of people who are, they have a harder time when they are faced with intolerance. They feel that it's not their job to educate. And it's not. That's absolutely true. It's not any of our jobs to educate anybody about their own biased, their prejudice, their racism. It isn't. But at the same time I do think that when it comes from just ignorance. And there's not any malice or bad intent in it. When it comes from a place that it's societal. It's in our media. It's become so ingrained in everything that we've learned. You have to unlearn it. Sometimes you got to help them unlearn it. You know, so saying, you know, it's not my job to teach you about race. Sometimes that's not the right answer. And I'm not, and I respect those who don't want to be those teachers. But I do think that there needs to be enough of us who say, well here's what's wrong with the language you're using. Here's why it's problematic, you know. We can do better. >> Deborah Taylor: If you think about how quickly or not, but we, there was a time when we were very tolerant of drunk driving in this country. It was okay. We made jokes about it, you know, we did all kinds of things. And then we began to, we were [inaudible] oh that's a whole lot of people dying. And maybe we shouldn't do this. And we began to change. We began to change, and the same thing is happening with sexual assault. We used to make jokes about it. We can change our language. We can change our perspective. When we are motivated to do that. So I think that it will take time, and people will make mistakes and have to be backed up. And they'll be embarrassed. But you know, embarrassment is not dead. >> Meg Medina: Right. >> Deborah Taylor: So the important, you can live to get un-embarrassed. So I think we can give people the space they need, that we all need to grow. And that we're all going to make, you know, it's going to take a while before all, we're really on the page where we want to be. But the goal is to just keep moving in that direction. >> Ellen Oh: Right. And one thing I do say is, to people, being called a racist is nowhere near as bad as dealing with racism. So. >> Deborah Taylor: In the back. We've got a question in the back. Maybe all the way in the back. All the way in the back. Yes. ^F01:15:53 ^M01:15:57 >> Okay. I just, one question I wanted to know. How have you guys improved your writing skills? And will we see you at the National Book Fare in September? ^F01:16:06 ^M01:16:10 >> Meg Medina: You improve writing by writing. And reading widely. And just pushing yourself into every place of discomfort that you can find. Just following it that way. And yes, I always come to the National Book Festival. It's such a party. ^F01:16:26 ^M01:16:31 >> Kwame Alexander: My writing is pretty amazing. ^M01:16:32 [ Laughter ] ^M01:16:38 >> Meg Medina: I can't even. >> Kwame Alexander: However, I've written 18 books, and I heard three words from my dad that I'd never heard after he, I always send him an autographed copy. And so I sent him the autographed copy of the 18th book, and he called me like a day later. And he said, I read it. And that had never happened before. So I think he sort of set the bar, because I would like for him to continue to read those. Yes, I'll be at the National Book Festival. ^F01:17:16 ^M01:17:21 >> Ellen Oh: I can't answer the question now. I too am a great writer. ^M01:17:26 [ Laughter ] ^M01:17:30 Nobody can edit me. I refuse. No seriously though, like if you don't revise, and if you don't take criticism well, you'll never grow as a writer. That's the most important thing I think I can say about writing. So revise, revise, revise. And when you think it's done, revise it some more. Because I think everybody writes that, except Kwame, everybody writes the first shitty draft and have to, is it okay if I said that word? And we just have to embrace it. And I don't know if I'll be at the National Book Festival. I'd like to be. >> Tim Tingle: Unlike the previous two respondents, I was raised to value humility. ^M01:18:12 [ Laughter ] ^M01:18:15 But on the other hand, I questioned authority. I'm pretty darn good too when it comes to writing. There you go. For writing habits, what works for me is I set a number of words per day, and regardless of what happens, I'm going to do it. If it means I have to do it on an airplane with my headphones, if it means I have to get up at three instead of five, I'm going to do it every single day. And it doesn't mean that it's all quality work. But I think for someone to think that attending writing workshops all the time is going to make you a better writer would be like Michael Jordan watching films of basketball all the time and never going out on the court. I think what you said it's doing it and doing it and doing it some more. And then making sure that you have an editor that's going to crack the whip and tell you you don't know what you're doing, you need to start over again, enough, until you become finally good at it. But doing it and doing it and doing it. >> Ellen Oh: Like Kwame. >> Tim Tingle: Yeah. >> Kwame Alexander: Alright let me clarify that. Because I'm not liking the whole energy up here. ^F01:19:20 ^M01:19:26 There, you have to be confident in your work. Kathy Crutcher is here. She teaches students how to write and how to publish. She knows this. You have to be confident in your work. Young people have to be confident in their work. Because at the very basic level, if you don't feel that competent and that good about your work, then the people you sort of interact with whether they be the students or editors or agents or publishers, then they aren't going to get that same energy. So yeah, I say it a little in jest. I mean I get better because I put in the work. I'm getting better because I put in the work. But I am extremely confident in thinking that I know what I'm doing insomuch as, and I've talked about this a number of times with The Crossover. It got rejected a lot of times. I kept getting told no that it's not that good. And so at some point you have to know that your work is good. You have to feel good about it. That's what I'm saying. Are we clear? ^M01:20:36 [ Laughter ] ^M01:20:39 Alright. Geez. >> Meg Medina: We're clear. So I just want say, you need some sugar this afternoon. We're clear. >> Gigi Amateau: And I just want to say, Meg's a great writer. And I'm a great writer. For real. If you don't know my work I'll, no. So what I'm interested in in terms of improving writing is, I'm really interested in practicing it. And not, I love revising. I like sometimes revise a book 30 times before it goes to anyone else who's reading it as a first draft. It might be my 30th draft. But I really like to like just to integrate my daily practice with free writing. Because I really believe in free writing in terms of like setting your internal editor aside and bargaining with that internal editor to say there's a job for you. There's a role for you. I need you. You have to be in on it but not now. And really allowing my more island of mind, like that creative imagination to just roll wherever it wants to go. And because I find that the mind is kind of like an attic in a way, right. If you go in with this flashlight, there are pieces there that maybe sometimes will come out whole or intact or an image or a feeling or a sentence that's right at the front of that wild mind of yours. And I just never knew it. So I like to incorporate a lot of free writing where I'm not working with an aim to finish a chapter or to revise a chapter or move toward the end of a story. But just to explore sort of what's there. What fragments and threads and ribbons and pieces are there to be kind of picked up and worked out. >> Deborah Taylor: Before I will take the next question from the audience, I do have one from Katie Horning. And you know Katie Horning is the Director of the Cooperative Children's Book Center at the University of Wisconsin. And you know, they come up with all of the figures about the numbers of books by various groups in the country. And she asked the question for our panel, as an author of color, do you ever feel pressure from either your community or your publisher to write a specific kind of book? ^F01:22:55 ^M01:23:01 >> Meg Medina: Let me see. What would, from my publisher, no. For, there are times where I feel like I'm writing, like this new novel that I have coming out in March called Burn Baby Burn, the character is Latino also. But banks heavily into her American side, more heavily than in previous books that I've written. And so I did have that uncomfortable question, like is she Latino enough? Which is the eternal question of every bicultural kid, right. Am I Latino enough if I don't speak Spanish well, if I wasn't born there. Like all of these weird things. So I think some of that rattles around in there. But I don't feel, I haven't felt the pressure yet. >> Kwame Alexander: I don't feel any pressure. I feel none whatsoever. I feel responsibility to write books that are meaningful and significant. In particular for kids who were like me when I was growing up at age 11, reluctant readers. And I know, I know we hate that word, some of us. I haven't figured out, or uninterested readers. So I feel responsibility to do that. I feel responsibility to write books that are mirrors and windows for my six year old daughter. I feel a responsibility, but I feel no pressure whatsoever, from anyone. >> Deborah Taylor: Okay. >> Ellen Oh: I agree. I'm the same way. But why, I wrote was for my kids too. Like I have three girls, and I never found an Asian girl hero book. And so I wrote it. So for me, my next story is a ghost story. And what drives me to write stories is that it has to connect with me. And it has to be a book that I think is going to resonate with girls and boys that have not seen something like this before. Like, you know, I like to incorporate parts of my heritage and culture that are unusual. Because I'm writing a ghost story that has Korean shamans in it. So the pressure I guess maybe is in myself. And I feel a responsibility like Kwame said. But not from anything external. >> Deborah Taylor: Okay. >> Tim Tingle: I have, I have not felt any pressure to make anything more Indian, more Native American. I have at, with almost every publisher that I've dealt with, I have to do some educating in terms of we're not all the same. We don't all come under that one big blanket that Navajos are so different from Choctaws, from Cherokees, from Algonquin. Totally different nations, different, you know, I've had to do some educating. But I haven't felt any pressure to make anything more Indian. I have, a couple of times in the last few years, I've had discussing new projects with editors. And I've been asked, well dude, how, I don't, it seems like everything you write there is a ghost that eventually shows up. I don't, you know, maybe something without a ghost or so many ghosts. I have interviewed thousands of Choctaws, and known thousands of Choctaws in my life, and I have never met a Choctaw person that has not themselves had a personal experience with what we call, we call them shilombish, we call them gone befores. We call them whatever. But I've never met a Choctaw in my life that has not had a personal experience with someone who has gone before. So when I write novels, it's a natural thing for me to include that. >> Deborah Taylor: Gigi. Did you want to weigh in about pressure to write a certain way or certain? >> Gigi Amateau: Sure. Well I think, we established earlier that I'm white. You don't believe it. I do feel a responsibility having written characters of color. I feel two responsibilities there as a writer. One to create enough pause in my process and in my life to step back and kind of reflect on where my own bias is. I think we all come to our lives with bias based on the families we were raised and the cities we were raised in, the year we were born, our cultural and racial background. And so, but I believe we can become aware of those biases. And then we have a choice. The choice is to change and grow as a person, grow out of that bias. Or to examine it and say I keep it, I own it, right. And so one bias I have is that the ultimate place we all are coming from and going to is a place of love. That's a bias, and it's a bias that I believe. So I think I have a responsibility to, as a white writer and as a human being, to create pause in my life and into my work. To identify my bias. And also when I'm writing any character, and particularly characters whose life experiences different than mine to, and this is something that Jack Jacqueline Woodson taught me. I think that I have a responsibility to be able to identify myself, know where I am in every character. I see myself in every character. Then we're together, and we're coming from that, you know, kind of sane, human place. >> Deborah: I think we have time for one more question. ^F01:28:33 ^M01:28:40 >> I'm Claudette McLinn from the Center for the Study of Multicultural Children's Literature. And I recently served on book award committees and recently the [inaudible] committee. And we all know that there is a lack of diverse books in the field of publishing. And so we know that it's a problem. So the question is, how do you think we can solve this since you are the authors, the award-winning authors? Give us a clue how you think we can solve this. >> Meg Medina: Well, this is coming to you guys, so be thinking right here. I would say one simple thing that I'd like librarians and teachers to do. We typically put up the poster of the Caldecott and the Newbery. But there are other awards, right? The American Indian Award and the [foreign language], the Coretta Scott King. I think we need to give children an awareness of the books that speak all the experiences. So that they and their families have a way, visual implied, everywhere in the building of places where they can find the best examples of the literature that reflects their people. ^M01:30:09 That's just one tiny thing. But there is no one single answer. But I would love it if I would see that. ^F01:30:15 ^M01:30:23 >> Deborah Taylor: Do you want us to start at the other end, or? >> Gigi Amateau: I'd say if I could pick one thing it would be for children to write. To give children the tools and the space and the power to write their stories. And to not be so hung up on the correctness of those stories initially. But the heart of those stories and the identity that's kind of coming through. Because every sixth grader has got a novel in his backpack, right. And wants to get it to your agent. >> Tim Tingle: I agree with that answer. I think my challenge, and I took it when I stepped out after defending my thesis at University of Oklahoma, Dr. Gary Hobson, who's an amazing American Indian poet. He said, so you've collected all these stories. You're doing all this writing given to you by the elders. It's time for you to start passing them on. It's time for you to start mentoring. And I think that's the challenge is that for myself as an American, as a Choctaw writer, to begin to teach, to begin to mentor, to begin to encourage, to develop a writing relationship with the coming generation. And I should mention just to honor him. That Greg Rodgers, who 20 years my younger and followed me for 10 years. Neither of us ever wrote anything without the other one seeing it before it went to anyone else. And he up and died of a heart attack a week before Christmas at University of Illinois. He was on fellowship there in the creative writing department. And I just wanted to mention him. But, so now my challenge is to find more. To find people that I can mentor and teach, and that will help. >> Ellen Oh: I think that's why we need diverse books is a good place to start because we are having grants and awards and mentorships and internships to get more diverse candidates into publishing itself, because publishing itself is very white. And part of the problem is when editors who have no context about a different culture or background, get a book that, they have not knowledge of. They need also the training. They need people that they can turn to. But if you have an industry that's, you know, very white, then who are they looking to? Who are they talking to? So that is also part of the problem. But I think ultimately, like everybody is saying, you know, you mentor. You get new people on board. You have other, you know, you have white authors also embrace diversity in their own writing. And you have to support the books. You have to support the books. And as teachers and librarians, when you're faced with a person who says no, that's not for me, in a positive way, without getting into a fight. Just keep pushing it. I mean, like at some point maybe that, know that's not for me might actually change to okay, I keep coming across this book. Maybe I should finally read it. Maybe I should let my kid read it. You know, that opening of the mind I think instead of saying this person is never going to be open to diversity. We just have to keep trying. We have to keep pushing that message out. >> Kwame Alexander: There was this school in Aurora, Illinois. And they emailed and said the librarian, her name is Lynne White, she said Kwame, I love The Crossover. And I think I'm going to have all of our students read it. Cool, how many students do you have? She said we have 800 students. I was like cool, are you going to buy 800 books? I was like call First Book. Let's make this happen. So she's like yeah, so we're going to read the book. It's going to be one book, one school. Great. So she said, and then we want to bring you in. I was like cool, bring me in. So they all read the book. And they brought me in. And on the way from the airport she's telling me how students have really identified with this character or this brother or this poem. And I'm like cool, this is awesome. And when we get to the school and she says, well I just want to let you know, you know, our school is not that diverse. And I'm like okay. And the school is like 97, 98% white. And to see these students sort of identifying with these characters in this book about these two boys with their dad and their mom, was really just awesome. Because the kids had decided that any conversation, discussion about race, color, was not a part of their being able to connect with this text. They were able to connect with this text, which was inevitably about two black boys. Because of the story and the message and the jealousy and the brotherhood and the family and the love. And so in my mind what that says to me is that it is not the children who need to change in order for us to solve this problem that you so eloquently ask. It is us. We just need to change the way, because the kids are fine. We need to change the way we're thinking about it. ^M01:36:15 [ Applause ] ^M01:36:16 >> Deborah Taylor: Thank you. ^M01:36:17 [ Applause ] ^M01:36:21 >> Karen Jaffe: Let's give everybody another round. Fabulous. Thank you Deborah. Thank you so much. ^F01:36:28 ^M01:36:31 >> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress. Visit us at loc.gov. ^E01:36:40