Reading Outside My Comfort Zone

“You have a lot of privilege and responsibility…when selected to a committee that gets to choose what are considered the best children’s books in the country. I’m wondering about diversity and cultural competency. What have you all done, as past award committee members, to better educate yourselves on experiences outside of your own?”

On Friday, Feb. 9, I had the honor of participating in ALSC’S fifth Morris Seminar, a biennial one-day event designed to provide training in book evaluation and discussion to ALSC members with little committee experience. I met and worked with 32 smart, passionate book lovers who were all eager to take that passion to the next level. It was exhilarating.

It was also hard. The question I open this post with was posed by participant Alia Jones (and reproduced here with her permission), and it was the final question asked of a panel on award-committee work that I sat on. We’d talked about attitude, changing our minds, and the sheer volume of books to read. But, perhaps because my award-committee days are in the past, I was not ready for a question about the future. I said something about being uncomfortable and listening and reaching out. It didn’t satisfy me, although Alia was gracious. And I’ve been chewing on it ever since.

Here is what I wish I’d said.

I seek out voices typically marginalized in the media to read and listen to. I use my smartphone’s news app to find media alternatives where those voices can be heard best, and I do my best to train the algorithm to find more. I also make a point to listen to podcasts beyond NPR’s Code Switch. The world of podcasting in particular has made it possible for me to eavesdrop on conversations I would likely never hear naturally—and the great thing about eavesdropping is that I can’t muscle in with my own opinion; I have to listen to others’ and hear them out. It’s both instructive and humbling. I hope it’s made me a better citizen.

And as a children’s-literature professional, I’ve applied that approach to my own reading as well. I’ve been known to describe myself as “dominant culture AF.” The canon of children’s books I grew up with were written with me in mind. Only very rarely did I see myself through others’ literary eyes. I’ve been acculturated to certain conventions, voices, expectations. And one day I realized that the books I gravitated toward, the books that gave me the feeling of putting on an old pair of flannel pajamas, were the ones that sprang directly from that old tradition I’d grown up in. They were stories by white writers about white girls.

And I wasn’t OK with that.

So I have doubled down on reading Own Voices books that weren’t my voice. I bypassed books that sounded as if they were written for me and concentrated on those whose conventions, voices, and expectations were not mine. I read books that felt like scratchy pajamas with that itchy tag on my neck. And it’s been great.

Just this past year in children’s books, I’ve read It All Comes down to This, by Karen English, about Sophie, whose well-to-do black family lives in an otherwise all-white L.A. suburb and employs an opinionated, dark-skinned maid. The challenges fly at light-skinned Sophie from all directions. I also read The Stars Beneath Our Feet, by David Barclay Moore, about Lolly, who lives in Harlem and who mourns his older brother, lost to gang violence—but whose story is far more expansive than that set-up. It includes a queer mother, a father who’s loving and diligent even though they live apart, and a friend with autism. Both exemplify very different aspects of the African-American experience and give the lie to easy stereotypes.

Then there are this year’s Pura Belpre author honor books, The Epic Fail of Arturo Zamora, by Pablo Cartaya, and The First Rule of Punk, by Celia C. Pérez. In the first, 13-year-old Arturo takes it upon himself to save his Cuban-American family’s restaurant from gentrification—and to impress new friend Carmen. And in the second, 12-year-old Malú, a biracial girl, moves with her Mexican-American professor mom to Chicago, leaving her white record-store-owner dad behind in Florida. And medal winner Lucky Broken Girl, by Ruth Behar, about Jewish-Cuban immigrant Ruthie, who navigates the country she’s moved to from the room in which she’s bedridden by a serious injury. All three kids are Latinx and all three are very different—each a part of a tapestry that is infinitely complex.

I read Amina’s Voice, by Hena Khan, whose musically gifted Pakistani-American protagonist must reconcile her understanding of her Muslim identity with both her visiting uncle’s conviction that music is haram and with white violence directed at her mosque. And I read the graphic novel Pashmina, by Nidhi Chanani, in which Indian-American Priyanka, raised by a single mother, develops a more nuanced understanding of her heritage on a trip to the subcontinent. I read Cao Wenxuan’s Bronze and Sunflower in Helen Wang’s shimmering translation, about two children growing up in rural Maoist China. And I read Newbery Award winner Hello, Universe, by Erin Entrada Kelly, about quietly brave Filipino-American Virgil, who, when his life is threatened, take comfort in the manifestations of characters from the tales his lola has told him. These entirely disparate stories make manifest the intense variety of traditions and experiences of Asia, South Asia, and the Pacific islands.

There were so many more, stories of queer kids, such as Felix Yz, by Lisa Bunker, and kids with disabilities, such as The Someday Birds, by Sally J. Pla. Never enough, but more and more. Each of these stories was very much a window book for me, each one helped me understand the world and the billions of souls who share it with me a little better, each one has help acculturate me to different voices and modes of storytelling, and each one made me incredibly grateful I’d decided to step outside my literary comfort zone.

What Own Voices window books might you suggest?

Vicky Smith is children’s editor of Kirkus Reviews and a member of the ALSC board. She has sat on numerous ALSC award committees and now has the pleasure of co-administering the annual Kirkus Prize for Young Readers’ Literature.

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