The graph below shows the children’s books that were missing by POC and Indigenous people in the children’s book industry over the last 10 years. That is if we were creating an equitable number of books per year to white Americans. It can be challenging to wrap our minds around …
I’m no stranger to the inequities that exist for People of Color, Indigenous and Queer authors and artists. I’ve been teaching and lecturing about it and its impact for 20 years in the children’s book industry. I speak from knowing and teach from understanding on a personal level. So why …
What I shared in Part One and Part Two of this series contributes to why I felt driven to stronger action with School of the Free Mind, my online school. The children’s book industry feels like a state of emergency for our communities and a powerful place to invest our …
I am fiercely independent and I’m drawn to those who are too. But no one can or should live without others. We are stronger together. And in these days we need our strength. We need each other, even in our independence. As I walk toward independently publishing my own children’s …
Two Books that Honor Mexican Heritage AND LGBTQ Experience Death In the Family and When We Love Someone We Sing to Them will be published in 2017 by Reflection Press. Written and illustrated by me, Death In the Family is not a Dia de los Muertos book with cultural references and …
When we look at CCBC’s statistics in the framework of how many books we need to make to stand in equity with white Americans, we begin to understand our real position. I estimate that the children’s book industry would have to increase its production level by 45% to accommodate an …
Ever since Matthew and I learned to publish books for ourselves, we have been sharing how to do it with others! True power rises and I could feel the power as soon as we began, and the desire to share it. What I know is that our work is never …
The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” – Alice Walker I’ve met a lot of powerful children’s book makers over these past few years teaching The Heart of It: Creating Children’s Books that Matter. I decided from the beginning that whenever …
The Falling. It’s that delicious time of year when there’s a detectable shift in the seasons. I can feel the changing, the Falling, as everything around me shimmers through yet another of our eternal cycles. I’ve been craving this shift, longing for it. Today after a hot spell, the skies …
I’ll never forget it. In February of last year I had this wild idea that I thought just might work…. It was at that critical mass moment right before the diversity conversation exploded in the children’s book world with assistance from the #WeNeedDiverseBooks campaign later that summer. Many of us …
