After my last post, I realized I could do a better job presenting my rationale for this diversity symposium in Canada. I think I’ll send out the outline again with this additional preamble. Since no guests have officially been invited, I’ve removed the names of suggested participants.
“Still Searching for Mirrors:
Multicultural Children’s Literature in Canada”
As a black Canadian author who writes and publishes in the US, I have often wondered how the two industries compare when it comes to publishing diverse titles for young readers. With the help of several other black book bloggers here in the US, I recently compiled a list of the middle grade (MG) and young adult (YA) titles published by black authors in 2010; to my surprise, we came up with almost sixty titles and so I decided to compile a similar list for Canada. Unfortunately, I was only able to find ONE black-authored novel for teen readers published in Canada in 2010. This is in keeping with statistics I compiled earlier in the year (blog post #1, blog post #2) that show Canadian presses publish only a handful of black authors each year:
Children’s Books By and About Black People
Published in Canada
2000-2009
Year |
Number of English-Language Books Received at CCBC* |
African / Caribbean African Canadian |
|
By | About | ||
2009 | 500 | 6 | 20 |
2008 | 500 | 3 | 11 |
2007 | 500 | 2 | 14 |
2006 | 500 | 4 | 9 |
2005 | 500 | 3 | 6 |
2004 | 500 | 2 | 13 |
2003 | 500 | 2 | 5 |
2002 | 500 | 2 | 5 |
2001 | 500 | 2 | 6 |
2000 | 500 | 2 | 2 |
*the Canadian Children’s Book Centre
Just as troubling as the low number of published black authors is the fact that in the past ten years, there seem to be no MG/YA novels that feature a black protagonist and take place in contemporary Canada. These (unscientific) findings led me to ask the following questions:
1. Why are so few black authors being published in a country that claims to value multiculturalism?
2. Are other racial groups better represented in Canadian children’s publishing? If so, what can we learn from their success?
3. How many people of color are employed in the publishing industry in Canada?
4. What impact does the lack of contemporary black fiction have on young readers in Canada?
5. What can be done to increase the number of authors and the range of stories being told about people of African descent?
To encourage discussion and develop an agenda for change, I am proposing a one-day symposium to address the issue of diversity in Canadian children’s publishing. My participation in the inspiring conference, A Is for Anansi, at NYU this past fall convinced me that this is a conversation Canadians also need to have.
Agenda:
- Keynote Address: Who is the authority on this topic?
- Panels:
1. Multicultural Children’s Literature in Canada: How Far Have We Come?
2. Responding to Racism in the Canadian Publishing Industry
3. Books at Home/Books at School: Searching for a Mirror
4. How to Write/Publish for Young Readers
- Concluding remarks: Creating an agenda for change
If you’d like to offer suggestions and/or help in the planning of this event, please leave a comment.
I don’t much about the history of Canada but I would venutre a guess that perhaps First Nation authors are only slightly published more than any other non-white group? (which I’m sure is a small number, what I mean is they are probably the #1 minority written about, just like African Americans are the #1 most-written about minority in children’s fiction).
More power to you for organizing this Zetta and I sincerely hope it takes off.
And as for your previous post, you’re right. anyone who can’t see that there might be some truth to being called a racist (you have to really self-reflect and ask yourself honestly if that could be true) probably wouldn’t get much out of the conference. I do want to try and avoid using that word as well since it does tend to get people off topic because they are so busy defending themselves….
Thanks, Ari–I hope it takes off, too! And you might be right; I know the Cdn govt offers grants to publishers that produce books with First Nations content. The trouble is–as with the US–too often the books are *about* but not *by* Native authors.
As a black artist/arts educator in Canada, I would be interested in hearing more about the possibility of a symposium in TO.
The same questions apply to the art created for these multicultural books.
Charmaine
Hi, Charmaine! Thanks for responding. When it came to the final workshop/panel, I couldn’t even come up with an illustrator of color; I just put a question mark. Black illustrators are often expected to only illustrate books by black authors here in the US, but what happens when there are no black-authored books? It troubles me that Cdn children are growing up without role models–do they know about career options in the arts? in publishing? I doubt it. I’ll definitely add you to my contact list and will keep you posted on any updates.