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Re: jake (of MINN AND JAKE), multicultural poetry, and the NBGS annual list
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From: Uma <uma_at_gobrainstorm.net>
Date: Fri, 07 Feb 2014 09:47:44 -0800
Sending this again -- the previous one bounced on account of too many quoted lines.
I just want to say that Janet's Minn and Jake books were far ahead of the curve in the subtleties they employed and in their intentional shifting of focus from the identity narrative. I am not implying that stories about ethnic, racial, and cultural identities are unimportant—far from it. But we need all kinds of stories with characters from diverse backgrounds, so that identity and belongingness, home and people and coming to terms with who one is, do not become the single story defining culturally grounded books. We need to see books that are specific to a single cultural experience and others that exist in the borderlands where cultures collide, mingle, overlap, and fuse.
Thanks as well, Janet, for the Poetry Friday Anthology heads-up.
Also, not quite transitional chapter books but Lulu Delacre’s lovely Rafi and Rosi early readers which broke ground in depicting culturally specific animal characters.
Finally, the NBGS list kept my first novel, Naming Maya, alive for quite a bit longer, I’m sure, than it would otherwise have survived.
Uma
On Feb 5, 2014, at 6:03 PM, janet_at_janetwong.com wrote:
> Dear All:
>
> What a terrific discussion!
>
> Jane Fleming: in response to your post, can I introduce you to my multiracial boy character Jake of MINN AND JAKE? He's short but he's jumping up in the back of the room, saying "Hey, I'm 1/4 Korean!" (Note: his ethnicity is not mentioned at all in Book 1 but comes up incidentally in the sequel when we meet his grandmother.)
>
Date: Fri, 07 Feb 2014 09:47:44 -0800
Sending this again -- the previous one bounced on account of too many quoted lines.
I just want to say that Janet's Minn and Jake books were far ahead of the curve in the subtleties they employed and in their intentional shifting of focus from the identity narrative. I am not implying that stories about ethnic, racial, and cultural identities are unimportant—far from it. But we need all kinds of stories with characters from diverse backgrounds, so that identity and belongingness, home and people and coming to terms with who one is, do not become the single story defining culturally grounded books. We need to see books that are specific to a single cultural experience and others that exist in the borderlands where cultures collide, mingle, overlap, and fuse.
Thanks as well, Janet, for the Poetry Friday Anthology heads-up.
Also, not quite transitional chapter books but Lulu Delacre’s lovely Rafi and Rosi early readers which broke ground in depicting culturally specific animal characters.
Finally, the NBGS list kept my first novel, Naming Maya, alive for quite a bit longer, I’m sure, than it would otherwise have survived.
Uma
On Feb 5, 2014, at 6:03 PM, janet_at_janetwong.com wrote:
> Dear All:
>
> What a terrific discussion!
>
> Jane Fleming: in response to your post, can I introduce you to my multiracial boy character Jake of MINN AND JAKE? He's short but he's jumping up in the back of the room, saying "Hey, I'm 1/4 Korean!" (Note: his ethnicity is not mentioned at all in Book 1 but comes up incidentally in the sequel when we meet his grandmother.)
>
---
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Received on Fri 07 Feb 2014 11:48:16 AM CST
