My writing group tries to take a week every other month or so for craft, and we find articles to read and discuss which touch on vital issues in children’s literature. Some months present easier topics than others, as things in the news catch our attention. This past month, mere days before the Woodson’s National Book Award win and subsequent brilliant acceptance speech, we talked about sizeism in YA lit. We mostly confined our commentary to young adult novels, but there’s really a dearth of representation in middle grade novels as well. We remembered novels from the eighties with fat protagonists and looked at their covers – and looked at their cover updates and noted how the cover girls have grown smaller, smaller, still smaller some only bodies, some headless, some so very distant from the camera and blurred…
Recently, writer and Hamline professor Anne Ursu saw a book, and she wrote about it. I’m glad I didn’t see that book; I might have bought all the bookstore had, and then thrown them away. Or, possibly found someone at whom to throw them. I see things like this, and I want to hold someone responsible.
This self-flagellation ritual, the “I’m fat” kabuki, the ceremonial public confession of sin—passed on from woman to woman, mother to daughter, friend-to-friend, forever and ever—shaming themselves, yes, and teaching everyone around them they should be ashamed, too.
What they might not know is the person next to them is sick—that the words they use warp into nourishment for a dormant eating disorder. What they might not know is they’re teaching the girls who listen to hate their bodies.
Your daughters are listening.
And maybe we can’t help ourselves anymore. Maybe it’s ingrained too deeply. But maybe we can help our kids.
Read her whole piece, here.
Meanwhile, one of my favorite and fab-shoe wearing librarians, Hannah, is thinking deeply about some of the tiny but significant holes in our plot about the diverse books thing… yeah. What happens if you make a lot of noise, get people talking all over America, gain traction with a movement, but fail to move the moneymen? I think I’d like to know what WNDB the nonprofit will do to change the mind of publishers, especially now that they have seventy-four thousand dollars over their stated $100k fundraising goal… and have ten days left before the Indiegogo closes. They’ve talked about how they plan to get books into communities… I’m interested to know more of their plans. WNDB is good, but there needs to be more…