From: Ginny Moore Kruse <gmkruse>
Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2000 12:23:37 -0600

I want to reiterate the purpose of the Pura Belpre Awards and the context for their significance. These relatively new ALA/ALSC-REFORMA Awards, named after the first professional librarian of Hispanic heritage employed by New York Public Library, is given biannually to Latino/Latina writers and illustrators whose works best portray, affirm, and celebrate the Latino cultural experience in an outstanding work of literature for children and youth.
(http://www.ala.org/alsc/belpre.html)

The award terms refer to "outstanding work of literature" which seems to be questionable for some readers as they consider books honored through this award process. So it will always be, regardless of whether or not the award outcome under discussion is the Newbery or Printz or any other award for literary or artistic excellence.

The Belpre Awards are distinctive in that the portrayal, affirmation and/or celebration of Latino cultural heritage is given equal weight to literary accomplishment as the Belpre jury evaluates eligible books. The Belpre jury members are professional librarians, but they are not necessarily all children's librarians. However, each jury member has either a specifically defined, personally acknowledged & valued Latino heritage; and/or substantial personal access to Latino cultural information; and/or extensive book evaluation experience providing a wide context for judging a pool of eligible books. Jury members look closely at all books and other materials purported to interpret, explain or express Latino heritages or with Latino cultural content. They are well acquainted with all too many misrepresentations of cultural information, especially in books for young people, even at the end of the 20th century. They are also aware of the very few books eligible for the Belpre Awards at this point in time. They are also aware that "Latino" is an umbrella word encompassing more than any one person's heritage; "Latino" can mean Chicano/a, or Puerto Rican, or Haitian, or Dominican, or Cuban, or Mexican, or Guatemalan, or Chilean, or Brazilian, or... or... or... This is a huge scope, and up to now, the pool of eligible books has been small, very small.

Do not misunderstand: the Belpre jury takes excellence of literary and artistic accomplishment into account in all of the major ways of other juries. This is its primary consideration. However, this jury must also focus through a second lens, that of Latino cultural content, which is what makes the Belpre Awards essential and important.

At the CCBC, we try to keep track of all that is published for young people and to notice trends and changes. This documentation often proves to be a greater challenge for us than one might expect. According to information from "CCBC Choices 2000," an increased number of books by Latino writers & artists and about Latino themes & topics since 1993 encouraged us, beginning in 1994, to make a concerted effort to document the number of such titles. We always discover a few more books as soon as Choices goes to print each year, but the overall numbers don't change much even then. In 1999, we counted 64 new books by Latinos and/or about Latino topics. In 1998, there were 66 books; in 1997, there were 88; in 1996, there were 103; in 1995, there were 70; and in 1994, we counted 90 Latino books. And that's everything we could find, regardless of the heritage of the author or illustrator. We are discouraged to see this number decease for the third year in a row, especially since there were only 26 titles in 1999 that were written or illustrated by Latino authors and artists. Little wonder that the Belpre Awards are given only biannually. (I personally am convinced that the Belpre Awards should be given annually with an option for the jury to decide that no award will be given in a year when none of the eligible books are deemed outstanding - should that ever occur.)

The CCBC professional staff has expected that the two awards established in the 1990s to draw attention to outstanding Latino books for children and young adults might have encouraged publishers to seek out works to add to this important body of literature. Along with the Belpre Awards first given in 1996, the Americas Award was established in 1993 with its mission to provide visibility for excellent books about Latin America and Latinos in the United States. The Americas Award jury has a comparatively larger pool of books to consider in that only Latino content matters.

With this background in mind, consider why and how to appreciate each book given visibility by the 2000 Belpre Awards process.

With this information at your fingertips, do any of the book publishers and editors in the CCBC-Net community want to talk about why it is apparently challenging to publish Latino literature for children or young adults?

With these particular Belpre books to think about, do those of you who know young readers have reflections - positive and otherwise about any of these books?

Ginny Moore Kruse (gmkruse at ccbc.education.wisc.edu) Cooperative Children's Book Center (www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/) A Library of the School of Education, University of Wisconsin Madison Public Service Hours during the university's Spring Recess: Monday through Saturday 9:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Received on Thu 09 Mar 2000 12:23:37 PM CST