“One of life’s greatest joys is to create spaces where young people feel safe, welcome, and beloved. Stories are one such space.” — Mitali Perkins
When I read Mitali Perkins’ article in School Library Journal in 2007, No Place Like Home: Books Can Create a Strong Sense of Place, I knew I had found a kindred spirit. She, like I, had lived many places before seventh grade, and geography and place were very important to her. She wrote: “Many of the books I read again and again as a child shared one attribute: they offered a strong sense of place.” I wrote to her after reading the article, but I no longer have access to that original email because my Yahoo! account is no longer accessible.
In November of 2007, I (and all my email addresses) joined Facebook. So all of a sudden, I had over 300 friends, including Mitali! When I joined Twitter in 2008, I followed Mitali’s account there. Our friendship was now via email and on two social media platforms!
At some point in 2010, I went to the hospital, and Mitali commented on my post on Facebook. I replied to thank her for her kind words in an email.
We used to only have phone and mail as ways to reach authors (Did you know Amy’s phone number in I am the Cheese by author Robert Cormier was his home number?) Now social media has flattened the playing field, and authors can be our “friends.” But Mitali and I were on our way to becoming friends without the quotation marks, as I continued to pour my heart out every time I saw something she had written, such as her April 2009 article in School Library Journal, “Straight Talk on Race: Challenging the Stereotypes in Kids’ Books.”
“It seems it was an SLJ article eons ago that got us acquainted. I loved today’s, which I printed off the SLJ site and marked up with notes and underlines.
Wow! It brings up so much. As a woman who lived overseas (both in European and Latin American countries), I was often the minority by language and cultural barriers. In Honduras, Spanish was the main language on the playground. The school I attended was 10% foreign born, 5% of that being American. So maybe there was one person in my grade that looked like me, spoke English natively.”
I started reading Mitali’s many books and her blog, Fire Escape, that referred to the one place as a child where she could be quiet and read. Something I forgot, when I went through the emails was that Mitali had started a Kids Heart Authors promotion for Valentine’s Day 2009, to promote authors and New England Independent Bookstores. I had just been passed over for a job and a project like this seemed likely to cheer me up. Valentine’s Day was too soon, so I and a few Pittsburgh librarians and authors started Mothers Love Kids Books. Here is an excerpt from an email to Mitali:
“The update on Mothers Love Kids’ Books: We have four bookstores and about eight authors. My main lesson is that I should never do PR on my own, I will be happiest on May 11 when this is over, but it has stretched me beyond myself and that in and of itself is wonderful. It’s good to do something you’re not so good at and realize it.”
So an epistolary friendship grew. Besides our shared life of traveling as children, and a love for books, we shared a faith piece, as we were both Presbyterian.
Eventually we met in person–I think our first meeting was at the Festival of Faith in Writing conference at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Mitali taught a session, my friend and I sat in the front row, and afterwards we talked. I continued to connect with Mitali on Twitter and Facebook and through email.
Just as COVID hit the world, Mitali’s book Rickshaw Girl was made into a movie.
“Rickshaw Girl is a children’s book, but the filmmakers have made it into a young adult movie,” Perkins says. “It’s a story of a girl who wants to help her family with her art. What do you do as a teenager when your vocational choice doesn’t meet with your parents’ blessing, and yet you have this passion and want to do this work?” (Diablo Mag, accessed 7/26/2023)
The United States premiere finally happened on May 5, 2022 at Village East by Angelika in New York’s East Side. I was licking my wounds again, this time after a bad breakup. I decided on a whim to buy a bus ticket to New York. Mitali was thrilled, and in a Twitter DM, she wrote, “Gosh, that’s love.” Here we are, in a picture taken by her husband:
Photo by Mitali’s husband
And here is the theater marquee:
photo by Suzi Wackerbarth
Mitali and I continue to converse via email and social media and have even talked on the phone! Her latest book is Hope in the Valley (Macmillan, 2023).
What stories do you have of encounters with authors? At conferences or online? Is there an author you would like to get to know? Let us know in the comments below.
Today’s guest blogger is Suzi Wackerbarth. Suzi is a children’s librarian for DC Public Libraries. She is also a former Bechtel Scholar (an ALSC sponsored fellowship) and has been a librarian since 2002.
“Please note that as a guest post, the views expressed here do not represent the official position of ALA or ALSC.”