Children's book publishers have to fight for viability and so the books they produce are safe and mainstream. Two new books by African-American authors tell it like it is, revealing truths that might make readers uncomfortable as they create opportunities for understanding.
Evelyn Coleman, an African-American children's book author, has written picture books like White Socks Only that blend fantasy, social statement, and strong voice. And she's been accused of racism. She ventures into new territory with her first young adult novel, Born in Sin (Atheneum, $16.00; ages 11 and up). The heroine, Keisha Wright, is a feisty, smart black fourteen year old who's not willing to let poverty get in the way of her success. She's set her sights on becoming a doctor and follows a strenuous program that will put her on the path she's chosen. By the second chapter of the book, however, she's pulled out of the college prep track to participate in an "at-risk program" and no longer qualifies for the college plan whose standards she's struggled to meet. Keisha's no victim, she tells the principal, "I ain't the one at risk. You are." Then she snatches the school's leader wigless.
Fight has been modeled by Keisha's mother who works hard to support her three children and grandbaby. Keisha's mama lets her children know she's "God's weapon on earth, sent here to protect you". Always there to support and soothe, she helps her daughter accept the "at risk" program and soon Keisha discovers a passion for swimming and a coach who sees possibilities of training her for the Olympics.
Love of swimming doesn't blind Keisha to the prejudice around her. When Keisha's black friend flounders in the water, she watches the white lifeguard set his binoculars down, unbutton his shirt, fold it and slowly pull off his flip flops despite the growing hysteria of the struggling girl. Soon after a counselor who wants to improve her basketball teams lies to get Keisha out of the water and on to the courts until Keisha's mama stands up to the program director.
Many of the ideas Evelyn Coleman puts forward are not often uttered in mainstream YA literature. Keisha's mama tells her that Dr. Joycelyn Elders got fired "because she was a practical black woman trying to teach young girls, especially black girls, to give themselves their own pleasure." Keisha's mother tempers preaching with playfulness, warning her daughter that "If you open your legs, something gon' go in and nine months later somebody gon' come out."
Coleman's characters' state beliefs that are not often seen in books. Keisha learns from a good man in the neighborhood (who turns out later to be her father) that "being smart ain't come from no white people...white people want people to believe they invented learning." He's read about the Egyptians, the Nubians, the Kushites, the Japanese, and the Chinese who have " been learning long before any white man come along."
Keisha also learns from first-hand experience and her perceptions are painful. Her team swims an all white exclusive club where the girls "strutted around laughing and squealing like this was their world and they was just loaning us they air we breathed in it." Keisha feels inadequate because she's learned as a small child "the silent language of what some white people are thinking just by how they're looking at you" . She responds by winning the number one spot in every event.
Coleman's examination of prejudice isn't color-coded. Keisha has to face her own bias when a wealthy black counselor and a white counselor invite her home to swim with them. Keisha holds back so much that Phyllis, the black counselor asks: "Do you really think you're blacker than me?... There is nothing that says black people can't be educated, savvy, and smart and still be black...my skin might be lighter, but I'm blacker than you. I really don't have to defend that I'm black. I just am and I love it." Born in Sin has many thoughtful moments and engrossing struggles. The plot moves, the characters breathe, and though the ending is a bit too tidy, the book is Keisha's journey to release from preconceived notions. Coleman helps readers do the same.
Kenneth Cole is a black psychiatrist who works with children, adolescents and their families in inner-city clinics. His expertise, experiences, and gift for turning both of these into story are evident in No Bad News (Whitman, $15.95; ages 6-10). The story begins on the day that Marcus' mother tells him that he's old enough to go to the barber alone. She sends him off with lots of reassurance, but the black and white photographs show the nervousness in the young boy's face. As he walks through his urban neighborhood he sees drinking and graffiti, hears hollering and police sirens and is knocked to the ground by an angry running teenager. By the time he gets to barbershop he has a "long face".
After a bit of teasing from some comforting older men, Marcus comes out with the truth. Mr. Jackson, the barber and his friends acknowledge the "bad news", but point out good news, too; a close knit family, a man who repairs bikes for neighborhood kids, and a boy who loves to play the trumpet. Mr. Jackson tells Marcus not to let his "head drop...because "Son, you can't see anything with your head held low. And you need to not only see the good news. You need to be the good news."
Marcus smiles as he leaves the barber shop and his world brightens world; there's proof in the colorized photos and the text which notes sounds of birds singing, children playing and people laughing. At the book's end, Marcus decides,"There's even more good news out there. And I'm not just gonna find it...I'm gonna make it!"
Cole's book doesn't shy away from the effects of poverty; he faces directly the need for both harsh and hopeful realities to be named for young children in poor neighborhoods. He provides questions and answers in story and pictures that are full of potential for change.
There is no doubt that I've seen racial representation change in twenty years of reviewing children's books. Black characters were few and far between when I started. But sometimes I wonder if most of the changes are only skin deep.
Multiculturalism began on college campuses in the 1960's when Black parents wanted to see their children represented in books. That was the "telling it like it is" era. But it wasn't until last year that I saw two picture books with emotional honesty that moved me. In Deborah Wiles' Freedom Summer, I saw the first African-American child express open anger about inequalities. In Jacqueline Woodson's The Other Side a Black mother cautioned her child against a relationship with a white child. Both of these books take place before or around Civil Rights.
But what about today's truths? Three African American writers Jacqueline Woodson, Marion Edelman, and Christine Farris King have published picture books that cut across political correctness to find the children who need them.
Jacqueline Woodson burst on the children's book scene with young adult titles that were raw with emotions. She's handled themes of sexual abuse, gay parents, racism, poverty, and prison with spare and honest writing which has won her awards and faithful fans. Of late, Ms. Woodson has turned her talent to picture books. Not surprisingly, her picture books are winning awards, too. Her two most recent picture books are Our Gracie Aunt (Hyperion, $15.99, ages 6-10) and Visiting Day (Scholastic, $15.95, ages 4-8).
Visiting Day is the story of a young girl visiting her father in jail. It's based on Woodson's early memories of visiting an uncle. The book's illustrator, James Ransom, is also African-American. He was clearly effected by Woodson's poignant story and by his own experience of visiting his brother in prison.
Ransom's oils are strong, bold and emotional. So is the unnamed little girl who takes center stage in Woodson's story. She wakes on "visiting day" morning smells chicken frying and hears her "Grandma/ humming soft and low,/ smiling her secret/ just-for-Daddy-and-me smile." Each page has only a few words. Ransom completes these pictures with vibrant colors and skillful detailing.
Soon we know this little girl and her world. We see her exuberance and understand her love for her daddy and it's love is tinged with longing for his every day presence. Her grandmother's character is just as clear. The older woman's demand for respect and proper behavior is balanced with a satisfying and steady caring. The daddy's cameo appearance shows the pride he has in his daughter and his tenderness. The three have a shared sadness and hopes for a future together.
Woodson stays firmly planted in the perspective of a sentient young child who is comforted by the familiarity of her world. She doesn't moralize about prison, or even mention the father's crime. The only wrong she alludes is the little girl's. When a neighbor, Mrs. Tate, comes to bring a present for her imprisoned son, the little girl notes her grandmother's baleful look. That look means, "You better not make a sound about Mrs. Tate not having money to take the bus up there to see her only son."
And the little girl sits "quiet, respectful". She is being trained to know right from wrong. She is learning restraint and kindness. Woodson knows right from wrong, too. She knows it would be wrong to place complicated ideas and moral questions in mouth, or mind of a young child.
Woodson's Our Gracie Aunt is a book for older readers. The opening scene introduces young Johnson, his older sister, Beebee, and Miss Roy, a social worker who's worried about how long their mother has been away. Johnson is confused, Beebee fears foster care, but Miss Roy takes them to their Aunt Gracie. There are a lot emotions packed into a few pages, but Woodson does so gracefully and the characters seem real.
Aunt Gracie's life seems unreal to both the children and it appear so to readers. While Johnson and Beebee's urban apartment is stark and bleak, Aunt Gracie has a big house in the country, a large yard and even a tire swing. Gracie's a cookie-baking, tucking-in aunt who wins over even the resistant Beebee.
This Woodson book is more obviously a book-for-children-who-need-it and the overly pretty picture is uncharacteristic for Woodson. Though the book's message-laden, the messages are important, told through character, and well-written. Foster children will be comforted when Aunt Gracie tells the children, "just because a person goes away, doesn't mean they don't love you." And when the children's mama tells them, "Even when a mama loves you, she can't always take care of you. Sometimes she has to go away."
Still, Woodson's gift of plumbing the depths shines through. Her characters become round with quick brush-strokes. She shows us Johnson's odd mix of happy guilt, the building and crumbling of Beebee's defensive walls, how these children find comfort in a nurturing they've never before experienced, and the complexities of caring about people.
Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the Children's Defense League, has concerns which result in her new book, I'm Your Child God: Prayers for Our Children (Hyperion, $19.99, all ages). Her introduction begins with her desire to write for "children, who need stronger inner anchors and spiritual grounding in our too materialistic, too violent, too busy, too noisy, too secular and too individualistic, fragile and ever-changing nation and world where ties to family, community, and the sacred are becoming increasingly frayed." That's long sentence sounds more like mission statement, but Edelman's book is mission-driven. Edelman knows the hopelessness children face and wants them to establish " a lifelong conversation" with God.
Diversity is a strong theme. Edelman believes prayers come in all forms, "silent, spoken, breathed, written sung, sighed, cried, screamed, dreamed, danced, walked, or thought." Her fifty-two prayers help children of all ages face a range of transitions; from praying for a parents' safe return, needing attention, facing peer pressure, a friend moving, facing death, or just giving joy. There are a few specific Christian and Jewish references, but generally these prayers speak to a more universal God.
The book is illustrated by Bryan Collier, a Coretta Scott King award-winning artist. He fills with book with portraits of children of all colors and emotions, though the majority are Black. His collage technique gives a sense of life's many puzzles, and his use of color and light lend a spiritual quality.
Christine King Farris, the big sister of Martin Luther King knew him " before he dreamed the dream that would change the world" and she tells about her funny, curious, playful brother in My Brother Martin: A Sister Remembers (Simon and Schuster, $17.95, ages 5 and up).
With lyrical writing she describes the toys and tricks an ordinary boy. Then she describes early prejudices and his response, "One day I'm going to turn this world upside down." Farris' book shows how he fulfilled this promise. Her wish is to give an example of a real boy, who started on a path to contribute the world early on so that young people can "realize the potential that lies within each of them to do this and greater works."
These African-American authors see the troubles that plague children. They don't romanticize the past, skirt issues, seek safety superficiality, or whitewash difficult emotions. They aren't afraid to tell it like it is, and offer hope to children who need it.