Nearly one year to the day after last year’s JFK Library’s Educators’ Conference was cancelled, the show went on this week- with all of the speakers in a virtual setting. Admittedly, after participating in many online conferences and education programs, I doubted it would be as successful as the annual in-person gathering on Columbia Point. And while we certainly missed the spontaneous conversations at lunch and the autograph session with the authors, it was a day of learning and reflection. The speakers were thought provoking and inspiring, and the 200 participants were engaged. I’m hopeful that we are back together next spring, but this year’s conference, Dignity and Justice for All: Stories of Protest, Resistance, and Change was truly wonderful.
The day began with a panel discussion led by Vicky Smith, the Children’s Editor at Kirkus Reviews. The authors, Jabari Asim, Ann Bausum, and Doreen Rappaport, talked about their work and the challenges of writing about history and civic engagement during this politically divisive era. Smith (upper left on my screenshot) opened the panel by asking each of the well known writers, “what is your primary responsibility in writing for children?” “Honesty,” Bausum, the author of many award-winning books including Marching to the Mountaintop, said immediately, adding that she’s conscious of not letting the hard parts take away from the story. “I don’t want to take way the possibility of hope,” she said. Jabari Asim, the author of A Child’s Introduction to African American History and picture book biographies of John Lewis and Booker T. Washington, also addressed the challenges of keeping readers engaged while not shying away from the truth.
Smith led them through a variety of topics, including questions about how Asim, Bausum, and Rappaport conduct research and account for gaps in the historical record, the process of working with editors and experts, and how they scaffold information for young readers. Smith also asked the authors how the events of the past year, a year in which “many of our systems have failed,” primarily impacting children, people of color, and people with marginalized identities, has changed their approach. Rappaport, the author of the well known “Big Word” series of picture book biographies, asked “who is missing?” and “what is missing?” All of the authors addressed the walls that new BIPOC authors often confront when trying to get their first books published. Asim said that he is “not concerned with people outside of a group telling stories that need to be told, but let new voices in as well.” “It’s not either, it’s both,” he said.
The keynote speaker was Dr. Debbie Reese, scholar, critic, writer, and a member of the Nambe Pueblo. Her blog, American Indians in Children’s Literature provides critical analysis of Indigenous peoples in children’s and young adult books – and is a trusted resource for teachers and librarians. She is also the co-adapter of An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States for Young People which Kirkus, in its starred review, called “an important corrective to conventional narratives of our nation’s history.” Dr. Reese stressed the importance of using present tense verbs when talking with children about American Indians. She used a page from Danny and the Dinosaur to make her point. In this scene, Danny is visiting a museum:
I have not looked at Syd Hoff’s early reader book in a long time, but looking at it through Dr. Reese’s eyes, her point was clear. She also talked about the misrepresentations of Native life in many middle grade novels, including The Sign of the Beaver, Island of the Blue Dolphins, Julie of the Wolves, and Walk Two Moons. All of these popular novels, in Dr. Reese’s view miseducate students and deprive them of hearing authors from marginalized or under-represented groups writing about their own experiences – from their own perspective.
Dr. Reese stressed the importance of being tribally specific when talking about American Indians. “There were nations here before the U.S. was a nation,” she said while showing a flag of the Nambe Owingeh pueblo.
The books Dr. Reese encouraged educators to use include:
The Birchbark House series by the Chippewa writer, Louise Erdrich
Unstoppable: How Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team Defeated Army by Cherokee writer, Art Coulson
I Can Make This Promise and The Sea in Winter by Christine Day, an enrolled citizen of the Upper Skagit tribe
We Are Water Protectors by Carole Lindstrom, who is tribally enrolled with the Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe. We Are Water Protectors won the 2021 Caldecott Medal.
The afternoon included breakout sessions with the three authors, Dr. Reese, Vicky Smith, and Generation Citizen, a Boston-based civics education organization. I couldn’t be at all of the sessions, but I did hear Doreen Rappaport tell a wonderful story about working on her new picture book biography, Ruth Objects: The Life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Rappaport told us that through one of her early “expert” readers, she was able to send a copy of the text to Justice Ginsburg – and she received handwritten edits from the distinguished jurist. As Rappaport pointed out, Ginsburg’s suggestion was good. The Nancy Drew books were not just “about” Nancy, but more actively, she was a character who solved mysteries!
The book was published near the end of Ginsburg’s life, and Rappaport sent her a copy. In return, she received this personal note – a treasured keepsake!
It was a wonderful day. As one of the conference coordinators, I was happy to read some glowing reviews from participants, and most importantly, the teachers and librarians “signed off” with new questions to ask and a deeper commitment to putting good books in kids’ hands.
To that end, there’s an exhibit at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art that is worth the trip to Amherst. Picture the Dream: The Story of the Civil Rights Movement through Children’s Books is on display between now and July 3 – and features more than 80 artworks related to the civil rights movement. The museum’s website includes a link to all of the books included in the exhibition, and Inly’s library has most of them. We are missing maybe 15 of them.
All of the books are important, and it’s an embarrassment of riches to have so many wonderful illustrations in one place, but the pictures I’m most looking forward to seeing are:
Martin’s Big Words: The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by Doreen Rappaport and illustrated by Bryan Collier (because I just heard Doreen speak about this book during the conference and Collier’s illustrations are brilliant)
March by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin, illustrated by Nate Powell (because I love this graphic memoir account of John Lewis’s contributions to the struggle for civil rights)
and
What Do You Do with a Voice Like That?: The Story of Extraordinary
Congresswoman Barbara Jordan by Chris Barton and illustrated by Ekua Holmes (a perfect combination of subject and illustrator)
Second vaccine right around the corner. Time to plan a road trip to Amherst!
Happy Reading!
Sommer Reading 