From: WMMayes at aol.com <WMMayes>
Date: Sun, 7 Apr 1996 10:20:59 -0400

Ginny- in my experience adults tend to buy books for their children (and grandchildren) that mirror the race/color/ethnicity of their own. I visit many communities where, being all white the adults rarely comprehend the need to have images of non-white children in their homes. In these communities
_More More More_ sells very poorly unless a bookseller is handselling it.
 How confusing it must be to reach for a book where it seems that these people of different races are of the same family. It is only when I visit communities where there is a larger percentage of mixed race families or a more "mixed" population that the book reaches "classic" status. Of course I read it more to all-white audiences than others because I want to have them fall in love with it as I have, regardless (or perhaps because) of race.

In conversation with Vera Williams a few years back she told me she designed the book deliberately open to interpretation as to race and then rattled the different "kinds" of people that she has been asked if her art represents. I think it is a masterwork in this regard, enabling the reader to bring their own perspective to the art that both challenges and affirms their conceptions about race.

Walter the Giant Storyteller WMMayes at aol.com

"Love, Food, Shelter, Clothing...Books!"
Received on Sun 07 Apr 1996 09:20:59 AM CDT