a voice from the other side…an editor speaks

The truth is, I don’t know that many editors; they’re mostly a mystery to me.  When they blog, it’s often done anonymously or they say things that drive me nuts (the Coretta Scott King Award is racist; black people are so blighted by racism they can’t produce literary fiction).  So in an effort to understand [...]

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“expensive curation”

A few months ago when I was first contacted by Amazon Encore, I did an online search to find out more about the venture.  This article came up; I read it with interest, and never forgot the (anonymous) author’s equation: “publishing = expensive curation.”
Publishers have controlled the direction and profits in the books market for so [...]

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give a teacher a hug…

…or better yet, give a teacher a BOOK!  Shadra directed me to this lovely, long review of BIRD by a teacher who’s pretty much seen it all: violence inside the classroom, violence out in the street, no textbooks, no desks, no a/c (resulting in 109 degrees in the classroom)…when are we going to make our [...]

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wow!

I should be sleeping, or editing my manuscript, or writing a new chapter…but instead I’m wide awake, and thoroughly enjoying the comments on my previous post.  And then I got a Google alert and watch OUT!  There’s another awesome review of A Wish After Midnight over at Gal Novelty (who is also wingstodust)!  The very [...]

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“I got sunshine on a cloudy day…”

We’re expecting rain all day today as this “nor’easter” moves along the Atlantic coast, but I’ve got three things to brighten my day: 1) I wrote a new chapter last night, and if I do say so myself, it’s GREAT; 2) the young ladies over at Taste Life Twice have posted a fabulous review & [...]

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Indians in the Cupboard

Debby Dahl Edwardson, author of Blessing’s Bead, has written a provocative post on the misrepresentation of Native Americans in children’s literature. Stop by her blog, Through the Tollbooth, and consider some of the important points she makes:
When my kids were little we had a Cat in the Hat video that featured the Cat, translating [...]

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Perfect Ten

Can you believe this is the TENTH installment of Colleen Mondor’s What a Girl Wants?  Stop by Colleen’s blog, Chasing Ray, to add your opinion to ours: are “mean girls” really such a menace, or do they just sell more books?  Neesha Meminger has now joined our panel (hurray!); here’s some of what she had [...]

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flavor of the month?

I have a hard time with one month of the year being designated to one particular minority group (or, in this case, two: American Indians and Alaska Natives).  It has potential benefits, but generally, I think these one-month celebrations just further marginalize people whose history, culture, and literature ought to be celebrated all year round.  [...]

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good news

Sometimes the news can get you down, but here are some uplifting stories you don’t want to miss:  check out G. Neri’s impact on a middle-aged man over at Crazy Quilts, and then read this short NPR article about the power of librarians to turn one reluctant reader into a lifetime learner…(cover art by the [...]

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new review

I just discovered a new review—Wish is one of October’s ALAN’s Picks:
A Wish after Midnight by Zetta Elliott
CreateSpace, 2008, 230 pp., $11.99
Civil War/Relationships/Racism
ISBN: 978-1441474247
Genna is a sixteen-year-old African American girl living in Brooklyn, New York, during the 1990s. Her life is not easy. Her single mother struggles to put food on the table, while [...]

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