In Which Kids Need Diverse Books

I've written about this topic in some fashion before (here, here, and here if you'd like to check it out), but I'm sorry to report that the need to talk about this is perennial. Book bans around the nation still going at full steam. Teachers and librarians are being called groomers for the audacious act of providing kids access to books with queer characters.

Before I go on, I want to apologize to my half dozen regular readers for not fulfilling my promise to blog monthly. A major crisis hit my family not long after the last post. It took up most of my mental energy for the rest of February, all of March, and well into April. I'm just now approaching a new normal and getting back into the things I set aside because they weren't top priority during a crisis.

I do want to note that, when my mental health was at its worst during the epicenter of the crisis, the two best ways to escape were reading and writing. I wasn't able to get in the right frame to work on my adult contemporary romance often, but when I did it, it was refreshing to escape to the world I created for a little while. 

All that taken care of, let's talk again about diverse books and why kids need them. I'm going to keep this simple.

1) Kids that are part of a minority group in some way (BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, neurodivergent, disabled, there's probably more I'm not thinking of) need to see kids like them. They need to see these kids as the heroes of the story. They also need to see them as background characters, just part of a functioning society.

2) Kids that are not part of any minority group, or are part of a group other than the one being represented need to see kids who aren't like them in stories. They need to see that it's not just the white, cishet, able-bodied, neurotypical kids who save the day or just have an every day experience they can relate to. They also need to see kids who are different from them as side characters, just part of a normal, functioning society.

Upper elementary and middle school age kids (you know, the age group middle grade books are written for?) in particular are in a stage in which they're beginning to figure out who they are. My 12yo has three classmates who came out as nonbinary between the end of elementary school and the beginning of middle school. And I'm sure that's just the start of the queer kids she'll meet. Many kids at this age are still figuring out how they identify, who they might want to date, etc. They might not sort themselves out until they're almost done with high school, or even well into adulthood. Heck, I'm 48 and I'm still figuring things out about myself.

But if both cishet kids and queer kids (whether or not they know yet that they're queer) grow up reading a diversity of books that feature a spectrum of queer experiences, we're a whole lot more likely to end up with a loving and accepting society.

Unless you live under a rock and literally never talk to a single kid, the odds are high that you know a queer kid and/or a BIPOC kid, probably a lot more than one of each. But how would I even know that, you ask? You don't need to. If the queer kids in your life see you as a safe person and come out to you, great. But just because none of them have doesn't mean they're not there. Oh, but everyone I know is white, you say. Do you know? Like for real know? Have you asked them all about their racial background? Could they be mixed race and white-appearing? Even if you have defied the odds and somehow really do know only white people, those white kids still need to read books with BIPOC kids.

There are lots of things we as a nation need to do to create a just and safe society for the rising generation and the generations that come after them. I don't know what they all are, and I don't know how to do the majority of them. But what I do know is that one important aspect is giving them the opportunity to read a diversity of books.

I'll end with a picture of my 12yo's graphic novel collection. She's white, and as of this time she identifies as cishet, though that could change as she ages and gets to know herself better. Regardless, her shelves are filled with books about BIPOC kids, books about queer kids, and, yes, books about cishet white kids. Because we don't need to throw anyone under the bus to make bookstore and library shelves reflect the actual world we live in.

In Which It Is Banned Books Week Again

I've posted before (here, here, and here if you want to read) about book bannings and #BannedBooksWeek, but unfortunately the topic is perennial and needs to continue being addressed. Books bannings have continued to increase over the past year. The continued increase in books featuring BIPOC and queer characters seems to really scare certain groups of conservative parents, and those groups know how to organize and how to make a lot of noise.

I have to say I'm a bit disappointed in some of the lists I've seen put out this week featuring banned books. A lot of them are classics (such as Lord of the Flies or To Kill a Mockingbird) or older children's books that were the subject of bans in the past but are overall really well known (such as Harry Potter).

The real danger right now is the hundreds of books that are being quietly removed from classrooms and school libraries because parent groups are challenging them. These groups assert that the very fact that a book stars a BIPOC child and mentions racism means it promotes Critical Race Theory and, even more often, that the very fact that a book features a queer character makes it "pornography". There are picture books being challenged as being "pornographic". Think about that for a minute. 

Unfortunately this phenomenon isn't limited to schools either. A small town in Michigan lost funding for its library in a vote this summer after a conservative group raised concerns that the librarians were "groomers" pushing "pornography" on children. Which is not in any way, shape or form what children's librarians who have books with queer characters in their collections are doing. I've heard anecdotes of Pride month displays in libraries all over the country being tampered with, everything from patrons checking out every single book to keep them out of the hands of children to outright vandalism.

A swift perusal of my shelves and my daughter's shelves produced a pile of middle grade books that I know have been challenged and removed from classrooms and/or libraries along with books I don't know for sure have been challenged but are likely to encounter challenges for the reasons cited above. If I looked for longer I could likely find even more books that commit the apparently grave crime of making children aware that racism still happens and queer people exist.

So, what can you do if you want books like this to get into the hands of readers? On a larger scale, if you know books bans are happening in your community, make your voice known. If your community and/or local school library is open to having the kinds of books that are being banned in its collection, request that they purchase books like this if they have funds to do so. If the library doesn't have the funds and you do, consider donating such books to your local school and/or community library, or to your child's classroom library or the classroom library of a teacher in your circle.

If you're a parent, godparent, aunt or uncle, or otherwise have a role in a child's life that involves buying gifts for them, give them books that have been challenged. There are books with queer and/or BIPOC kids in every genre and you can certainly find a book the child in your life will enjoy. Whether the child in your life will see themself in these books or whether they'll see that kids who are different from them can be heroes it's equally important for them to read these books.

I have a lot of hope that the generation nearing and just entering adulthood is going to bring about a sea change in the way our society sees and treats queer people and people of color. I'm not an idiot. I know there will also be pushback and challenges, but the young people I know give me a lot of hope that we're moving in the right direction and the larger part of their generation will be on the right side of history.

In Which I Recommend Another Amazing, Diverse Magic School Book

Though the last book in the series was published almost 20 years ago now, thanks to the popularity of the movies and the theme park attractions based on them, the HP magic school books are firmly ingrained into our culture. 

However, there are new magic books coming out that I have hope may someday dethrone that series in the hearts of children. Last month I told you about Claribel Ortega's Witchlings, which I still highly recommend. But Witchlings isn't alone in creating an imaginative, fun, diverse magical world that holds its own against the HP world. Another fabulous contender is Dhonielle Clayton's The Marvellers, which came out this spring and which I just finished reading. 

In The Marvellers, Clayton imagines a magical society that mostly lives apart from the non-magical, whom they call Fewels. The Marvellers have built floating cities in the sky as well as a school that changes the way it looks every year known as the Arcanum. Starting at age 11, marveller children go and learn to harness their light at the Arcanum. Over the course of their first year, they are exposed to the five Paragons, and at the end of the year they learn their talent and join one of the Paragons. I love that the students aren't immediately boxed into one identity upon arrival. The MC of this book, Ella Durand, is from a magical family but not a Marveller family. Ella is from a Conjuror family. Conjurors are the descendants of slaves living in the Americas and the Caribbean. The Middle Passage changed their magic. They are in charge of the underworld and they use magic differently. They live in enclaves within Fewel cities. Marvellers have looked down on Conjurors for centuries, despite their shared history. Thanks to a change in Marveller law that her own parents pushed for, Ella is the first Conjuror to attend the Arcanum. Any Conjuror child is now welcome, but Ella is the only one who is brave enough to go. She encounters a lot of hate and prejudice, but also makes new friends, including a girl raised among Fewels who hates her magic and a boy with a secret who can talk to animals. The villain in this book is truly nuanced, and there are quite a few morally grey characters. The story tackles prejudice and racism head on, but is able to look at it differently because it takes place in an imaginary world. It tackles tough issues, but it feels like an engaging fantasy adventure and not at all like an issue book. The airborn world of the Marvellers is detailed, well conceived, and incredibly charming. I really want to visit the Arcanum and the floating cities. One thing I love about the book is that the students come from all over the world, which makes for a naturally diverse cast. The language issue is handled by having the students wear magical translation necklaces. As long as two people are wearing their necklaces, they'll hear each other in their native language. One student can be speaking French and another Swahili and there will be no communication problems. This book has so much to offer that the HP world lacks. It has made its way to the New York Times bestseller list. I hope it gets its own movie (or streaming show, which could actually reach a bigger audience) and earns a place in pop culture.

In Which I Gush About Some Queer Middle Grade Books

Before LGBTQIA+ Pride Month ends, I need to get to the post I've been meaning to write recommending some queer MG I've read this summer. First, these books I'm recommending are far from the only ones out there. There's more and more queer kidlit making its way into the world, which is a very good thing. It's a good thing for the queer kids, who are finally able to see themselves in books. It's a good thing for the kids working through their identity to see characters with similar questions. It's also a good thing for cishet kids to see queer kids in the books they read. Both so they understand the struggles those kids can go through and so they see the struggles and joys that are common to all of us, regardless of our sexual and gender identities. Especially in today's climate, when states are passing laws stopping trans kids from getting gender affirming care and/or preventing teachers from talking about LGBTQIA+ people in the classroom, we need to get these books into the hands of kids.  I believe it's my kids' generation that's going to turn the tide and make real progress to stop that toxic heteronormativity of western culture. I still sometimes struggle with "they" as a singular pronoun (even though it's been used in English for hundreds of years to refer to a person whose gender is unknown), but it slips off my kids' tongues naturally. They found out my cousin was gay and marrying another man and they were like, "Hope they have a great marriage." A teen at our church came out as nonbinary, started using they/them pronouns, and changed their preferred name, and my kids along with all the kids in the youth group just rolled with it, even though our church is on the conservative end of the UMC spectrum.

First up in my rundown is Michael Leali's lovely contemporary debut, The Civil War of Amos Abernathy. The writing and narrative style themselves are worthy of note. MC Amos' voice is classic middle grade and a treasure trove for a writer wanting to learn how to master voice. The novel is written alternating Amos' letters to a Civil War soldier who would likely have identified as a trans man if he had lived today with a present tense narrative covering one important day. The narrative combined with the letters slowly reveal what's happening and how important it is for Amos and his community. Amos has spent most of his life volunteering at a living history park of which his mom is the director. He has been out as a gay boy since elementary school, and he suddenly realizes in seventh grade that there are no queer people portrayed at the LHP. Along with his best friend and a new friend on whom he's developed a crush, he goes searching for queer people in the 19th century, including one I won't name who will likely surprise you. Amos' new friend and crush is from a conservative Christian family and he struggles with his feelings for Amos because he's been told his whole life that they're wrong. One thing I especially love about this book as a queer identifying and LGBTQIA+ affirming Christian myself is that Amos' family are also faithful churchgoers. They just attend a different, open and affirming church. So often religious characters in queer novels are painted exclusively as bigots, or at best as people who are reluctantly accepting but not happy about it. While that is absolutely the case for a portion of people of faith, that doesn't describe anywhere near all of us and I was glad to see both sides shown in this novel.

In the Key of Us by Miriam J. Lockington gives us two queer Black girls experiencing first love at a prestigious music summer camp. I know from twitter interactions with the author that the camp was inspired by a camp that my brother attended for many years and, based on what I know of it from him, the portrayal of the environment at a camp like that was pretty spot on. In addition to giving us a sweet first love story between two girls, this books addresses what it's like to be a BIPOC in a heavily white environment. It also tackles issues of grief, guilt, self-harm, and family pressure. Told in dual POV, this book and is thoughtful and tackles important issues without feeling like a heavy "issue book".

The Mirrorwood by Deva Fagan is a secondary world fantasy loosely inspired by the story of Sleeping Beauty. While the MC, Fable, is cishet, I believe it deserves a mention in a rundown of queer kidlit because the world Fagan has created is queernormative. Fable has a nonbinary sibling who uses they/them pronouns and this is not in any way remarkable. Families with two dads and two moms are mentioned in the villages Fable visits as a matter of course. In the world created for this book, being queer is just a part of some people's identity. There's no indication that they encounter prejudice or pushback of any kind. Both queer kids and cishet kids (and adults!) can benefit from seeing a world like this.

If forced to name the queer MG book I read this summer that's the most important, it would have to be David Levithan's Answers in the Pages. It's a short little book (I read it in one afternoon) following a boy whose mom starts a campaign to have a book his teacher (who is gay) assigns based on one sentence at the end about the two boys in the book loving each other. The MC's story is interspersed with chapters from the (made up) book showing just how incredibly innocuous and age appropriate the book is. A third narrative, which seems to sit apart from the other two until they all dovetail at the end, follows two junior high boys whose friendship is growing into a mutual crush, and who aren't sure how to handle their feelings for each other. This book resonated with me as a parent because, when my 17yo was in elementary school, my reaction to a book with two boys who might be in love with each other would have been closer to the MC's mom's reaction than I would like to admit to myself. I don't think I would have moved to have such a book removed from the classroom, but I would have been uncomfortable with it and would have at least thought internally along the lines of the argument his mom gives. She's not portrayed as a bigot who hates all gay people. She just has an idea that kids don't need to think about their sexuality until at least high school and for that reason it will just confuse them to have gay people mentioned in books they read in elementary school. That's a pretty common view for Gen Xers and millenials who are the parents of kids in school right now. We were never exposed to gay characters in books until high school at the very earliest and it can feel weird to us for our kids to read the books available now. Yes, some of the people (maybe even most of the people) moving to ban books really are hateful bigots. Others are like the MC's mom, people who have a generational misunderstanding of what kids can "handle" in the books they read, and whose minds can be changed (as this mom's mind is) when they stop to really listen to the other side.

I hope you'll pick up some of these books if you haven't read them and consider passing them on to the children in your life. If you have other great queer kidlit recs, I'd love to hear about them in the comments.

In Which I Tell You About a Really Awesome Book About Young Witches That You Need to Read

Okay, five or so faithful readers, I promised I would be back later to share some of my summer reads. Well, guess what, I'm back the very next day. Write this down, because it will probably never happen again. I'll write a post later this summer with a rundown of multiple books I've read, but for now I want to tell you about a book that everyone who likes middle grade fantasy should read, but you should especially read if you (or your kids) are a Harry Potter fan.

Just to be clear, I was a serious HP fan for many years. The books didn't come out until I was an adult, and I didn't discover them until book four came out when I was in graduate school. Despite this, I embraced the books and their world wholeheartedly. I got all the new books from #5 on on release day, read them within a couple days, and shared them with friends. I stood in line to see the first three movies the day they were released. I was all in.

Then I found out recently that the author is not a particularly nice person, to put it lightly. She is a vocal advocate against transgender rights in the UK. As if that wasn't bad enough, she has repeatedly told trans readers on Twitter that the message of belonging and acceptance that they found when they read her books as children was not meant for people like them. 

I believe it's possible to separate an artist's work from the artist and I have no plans to disown people who still enjoy the world. It really is an exceptionally cool and well-crafted world (though there are some problems and contradictions which, as my 17yo likes to say, produce plot holes big enough to drive a lorry through). However, after finding out this information about the writer I looked at the books with a more critical eye and realized there's prejudice baked into the books that I was blind to when I first read them. Just as one example, the books are rife with fatphobia. Can you name a single fat character from those books who is an admirable person? Ethnic and racial stereotypes that I didn't notice offhand as a white American reader are also all over the books. The author literally used two Chinese last names for Cho Chang's name. 

So I've stepped away from that world but I was longing to find another magical world that didn't have the same problems with either the author and the world. There's lots of great middle grade fantasy out there. I adore all of Rick Riordan's books as well as the books from his imprint that uplifts writers from marginalized cultures, Rick Riordan presents. Rick is pretty much the opposite of J.K. Rowling. He is actively trying to raise of the voices of cultural minorities and sexual and gender minorities and to do everything he can to make the books he writes as inclusive as possible. However, his books and the books from his imprint, while amazing and delightful, are a different type of fantasy from the Harry Potter books.

I'm happy to report that there's a recently released middle grade fantasy written by a nonbinary author of Dominican descent that is similar in vein to HP without all the negative elements above. The author, Claribel Ortega, was actively trying to create a world similar to the HP world in which people like her would feel welcome and see themselves. Claribel has succeeded admirably with Witchlings from Scholastic. 

The middle grade reader and HP fan at my house has not yet read this, but she was excited right away by a cover that showed that the main character and important supporting characters are girls. The cover really is delightful. I want to credit the artist Lissy Marlin and jacket designer Christopher Stengel.

The book is already an NY Times Bestseller, and I hope it finds its way into the hearts of countless MG readers and MG loving adults. There's lots of room left for multiple sequels and the story would make a great movie. Just like in the HP world, there's a magical world that lives alongside our modern world. One difference I love is that magical kids (witchlings) aren't shipped off the boarding school. There are schools within the magical towns that they attend during the day. There are whole witch families that are part of the plot, which I love. Claribel, by the way, circumvents that wizard/witch gender binary in HP by calling magical people of all genders witches. Boys and men are witches, girls and women are witches, and nonbinary people of all ages are witches (or witchlings if they haven't reached their full powers).

Kids are sorted in houses in a special ceremony at the age of 12. You can even find out which house/coven you would be sorted into by taking this quiz. The sorting kicks off the action when MC Seven Salazar isn't place in House Hyacinth with her best friend as she always dreamed but rather is one of three witches who are designated as "spares", an underclass within the magical community. Seven and her fellow spares turn out to be more formidable than anyone would have imagined. But I'll leave it to you to find out what else happens.

I recommend you run, not walk, to your nearest library or bookseller, to pick up this book. If buying a new book isn't in your budget and your library doesn't have the book, put in a request. I can't speak for all library systems, but our system is nearly always willing to buy my requests, especially if they're bestselling children's books.

In Which I Share Some Holiday Reads

 When I started this blog I had a goal of updating it at least monthly. Since my last post was nearly two months ago, I have clearly failed at that. I apologize to my tiny handful of faithful readers. My excuse is that I was wrapped up in trying to finish the steampunk airship adventure I started this spring. I succeeded and have now done a lot of edits based on feedback from critique partners and beta readers. I've sent out just a few queries to test the waters, but I'll be surprised (pleasantly of course) if one of these early queries results in an offer of representation. My instinct is that I probably still have some polishing to do before it will really shine for an agent. I'm focusing now on entering it in the Author Mentor Match mentorship contest and have picked out the four mentors I'm going to apply to. Just for fun, here's the latest aesthetic I created for my book. 

I'm not just here to brag about the book I finished, though. Since it's Christmas Eve, I figured I'd share some holiday reads I've enjoyed. And I say holiday reads as opposed to Christmas reads because one of them is about a holiday (actually two holidays that share a name) I don't celebrate.

As you may remember from last December's post, my family has a lot holiday reading traditions and I love Christmas books. For years I had a habit of reading Tony Abbot's beautiful Santa Claus origin story, Kringle, every December. However, this year I tried to read it and just couldn't get into it. I think I've read it too many times and just need to take a break from it. However, for those who haven't yet read it, I highly recommend it. It's a Santa Claus origin story told in the form of an epic fantasy including elves, goblins, and a rune that stops time. It even gives a nod to the Christian origin of the holiday, which the average Santa Claus story doesn't often do.

Last year, through #MGBooktober on Twitter, I discovered what might be my new favorite Christmas read, Kate Milford's Greenglass House. This fun mystery with just a hint of the paranormal is a wonderfully enjoyable book to curl up with in December. Even better, it has a sequel that also takes place at Christmas, Ghosts of Greenglass House. 

Today, instead of reading Kringle, which I brought with me on my Christmas travels just in case I felt inspired to read it, I'm reading another book that was recommended to me on Twitter. Like Greenglass House, this story is a mystery of a sort and takes place at an isolated hotel, but it is otherwise quite different. I'm really enjoying it so far. The book is Winterhouse by Ben Guterson.

This year at Advent my family moved away from the middle grade reading trend to read an adult novella by well known dog book writer W. Bruce Cameron. Even though it's written for adults, by my ten year old and my sixteen year old really enjoyed A Dog's Perfect Christmas, and I can confidently recommend it as a family read if you have children who are upper elementary or older.

My last recommended holiday read is a short story collection I read this fall, focusing on a holiday that is not mine. Once Upon an Eid is a collection of stories by Muslim writers from a variety of backgrounds that feature families celebrating both Eid Al Fitr and Edi Al Adha. I found the stories delightful and enjoyed learning about two holidays that are quite different from any of the holidays I celebrate. This book is a great example of how books from outside of our culture and experience can serve as windows into experiences different from your own.

If you celebrate Christmas, Merry Christmas Eve! I hope you have a wonderful holiday. If your winter holiday has already happened or is still to come, I hope it is or was a joyful time, in spite of any changes this never-ending pandemic caused. I'm thankful that my entire immediate family is now vaccinated along with my parents, brothers, and sister in law, so we can all gather (relatively) safely, but I still long for a day we can celebrate with larger groups of people without having to think so much about it. In the meantime, books, both holiday books and other books, will be here for us. In books we can peek into scenes from holidays we celebrate an holidays we don't celebrate. We can travel without need for a test, mask, or passport, to places that exist in our world and places that don't.