 Welcome everyone to the Maine Library Children's Center here at the San Francisco Public Library. We are so pleased to welcome you today as we celebrate diversity in children's books. My name is Lynn Davidson, and I am the program manager here at the Maine Children's Center. And I'm going to start by asking each one of my three panelists to just spend a few minutes describing themselves and their work and why they feel it's important to focus on a diverse range of books for children. We can start with Maya. Okay, so I've been making children's books for about, goodness, 20 years, a little over 20 years. And when I first started making kids' books, I never saw books that looked like me. Like, there weren't big, round, cheeky faces in the books I grew up around. And so it was this revelation to start creating books that looked like me and looked like people I grew up with and sounded like me. Even though I grew up not speaking Spanish, I grew up around people who spoke Spanish. And part of why I wasn't taught is my father thought he was doing me a favor by not teaching me by prioritizing English at that time. So as I started kind of coming into contact with these books, and the first one I did was speaking about not getting political was for Gloria Anzoldúa, who is a renowned Chicana philosopher, who really looked at doing a children's books as a way to kind of communicate more. So she took this very popular Mexican myth, La Llorona, and she basically changed it and empowered the ghost woman instead of being this more colonized version of perceiving things. So that was my introduction to how powerful children's books could be. And I think what happened is that mixed with my own experiences, seeing myself reflected by my own hands and hearing stories that sounded like my own family is my commitment really dropped into this deep place. So since then I've not only created a ton of children's books, I started writing children's books because I initially intended to be a writer, never an artist. And it eventually started my own press. And using my own press as a way to talk about what I've been teaching for the last 20 years in universities and across the country, about when we see reflection, it really changes our experience internally and how that really empowers kids to start understanding their own voice and where we belong in the world. So now I have my main thing that's focusing on a program I created called Right Now Make Books, which is a free online program that centers POC, Indigenous people and queer people as a way to start reclaiming storytelling as a powerful tool to come into our own sense of agency in a world right now that is really trying to invisibilize us and silence us yet again. So I see children's books really as the most radical thing you can do. And I actually met both Jeanine and Robert because of that, because we hold this kind of perspective. And I think that there's a growing movement right now to start voicing ourselves ourselves. So now I'm going to be quiet because I'll have tons more to say later. Thank you so much and welcome. Hi, my name is Robert. And I started working on Children's Book. Well, I started the journey to work on Children's Books about a little over 10 years ago. And this book right here for Conscious Flat Top is the first one that I wrote. I've worked on three other books, which I illustrated for authors. And I started getting into it for similar reasons that Maya said, like wanting to see a reflection of myself, but also being a parent and seeing that there weren't any books that looked like my kids. So I decided to make some and to kind of work with other people who are doing the same. So, yeah. Welcome and Jeanine. Hi, my name is Jeanine McBeth. And let's see, I have a very, I would say similar inspiration as Maya, not seeing myself in books and realizing that that gave me a sense of a limited, have limited opportunities for what I could or couldn't do when I grew up. When I realized that I, you know, that I really could make Children's Books that just because I didn't see any kids that looked like me in books and I couldn't make them, I dove into studying publishing with the goal of starting a publishing company. And actually my first, one of my first internships in publishing was at the publishing house that published the La Ligurona book, Pre-Itita, that Maya just mentioned. And that is how I first met Maya. And that was long ago. And let's just call it out for a second because it was very seminal in what we're continuing on now, which was Children's Book Press and Harriet Romer, who was an amazing visionary and started one of the very first multicultural presses in the United States. I think it was the first one ever. It was. And so I think it really impacted, I think, the environment in Children's Books and what was possible. Children's Book Press came about in a time when there weren't books by for about people of color. I believe Harriet got a grant to do a set of five books initially and they, you know, very bold books, different than Children's Books that were out at the time and, yeah, just really groundbreaking. And so when I was studying publishing at NYU and everyone had been saying, you have to find Children's Book Press because that's what you want to be doing. And I was like, yeah, that's the kind of press I want to start one day. And so when I got there, I realized, you know, what an oasis Children's Book Press was in a desert of children's literature. Unfortunately, in the 80s with Prop 227, bilingual education was banned and a lot of diversity in children's books were defunded. So, you know, coming out of that, we've been, you know, trying really hard. Blood Orange Press almost folded but was absorbed by me in low books and so now is an imprint of Lee and Lowell. Children's Book Press. I'm sorry. I don't even know what I'm saying. I know I'm like, Blood Orange didn't fold, girl. My mouth is just saying things. Thank you. Thank you all three very much for being here. We're going to talk some more about Children's Publishing as the conversation goes forward. One of the things I first wanted to mention also is the theme of mirrors and the theme of windows. And mirrors and windows is a theme that we as children's librarians in the San Francisco Public Library have been discussing for a couple of years now. It's a way of framing the way we look at children's literature, meaning that we believe children need both mirrors and windows. And when children have mirrors in books, that means that they can see themselves. They can see like Maya was referring to. They can see a face that looks like theirs, that looks like people in their family, in their home. And they can see cultures and hear languages that reflect what they know and love in their homes. And when children have windows in their books, that means they can look through them and they can also become empowered by seeing what life is like for children who don't look like them or speak like them or eat the same foods they do or play the same games that they do and grow their hearts and grow their minds and enlarge their worlds. So I would love for the three of you just to riff on the theme of mirrors and windows and what that's meant to you, to your children, to your readers. Since I went first last time, I'll be quiet first. One thing that we've been kind of throwing the idea around, especially around mirrors and windows, is I forgot who wrote the article about sliding glass doors as well so that we can see and we can also walk into new experiences and opportunities in publishing and literature and writing and expression and creativity. So I'll just throw that out there as we're talking. I think the first person I heard use that term was Zeta. And for those of you who are familiar, this is the person I'm talking about. Her name is Zeta Elliott and she's a very, very prolific children's book writer. She's an activist in the community in the East Coast side of things. And she used that term and I thought actually she was the one who came up with it. But later I found out that she quoted it, but I just didn't hear the quote at the time. This woman named Rudine Bishop Sims, right? I just wrote down Rudine Sims on my page. So this woman, she came up with that phrase and before this author said that, I had no idea that there was a phrase like that. I had never heard that in any other circles. She talked about the injustices that were in the community that I kind of instinctually felt, but didn't really know, I didn't have the words to say. And when she said it, it really made me mad and really wanted to ball up the fists and get frustrated. But it also made me put a fire under me as well to do some work. So not just be angry, but to do something about it. So now I can find books to give to my kid to say, this is something that looks like you. So I have to say where I go a lot of times is how do we contextualize this? How do we understand what's going on? And there are statistics that are put out every year about what kind of books are being made and by whom. And I think what we need to start questioning at this point when we start thinking about reflection, about mirrors and windows is the idea of the children's books industry's capacity to actually reflect us, that it's predominantly populated by white cis straight women who don't have these kind of experiences, don't have windows and doors and mirrors basically available in their personal life. And when I started looking at the numbers of what was happening, what I was finding out is really specifically understanding what populations are not being presented and why we're not seeing ourselves there. So this idea that we need when we look at the numbers, African-American population needs an 82% increase in children's books. That ends up being like 500... Let me see. It's just crazy. And look at these numbers every time. Is that really true? We need 500 more books per year by people like Robert. That's crazy. And the children's book capacity, it doesn't even have the place to hold that right now. When it comes to Latinx people like me, we need another 769 books per year. This is astronomical. And so I think we need to start looking at this idea of windows and mirrors and where they're really available to us. Which is why I think it's really important to notice the work of Jeanine and Robert and myself where we're really saying, okay, we're not being reflected in children's books. The industry literally doesn't have the capacity to hold an appropriate, equitable capacity for us. What are we going to do about that? And what is also the impact of having been that invisibilized and that silenced in our society? So really opening up those questions about what it takes to start your own press, to make your own books, to tell your own story, to create your own art. These are really important questions I think that we need to not only have with ourselves as grown-ups, as parents, as caregivers, as teachers and librarians, but also kids start understanding that we need your stories. We need to hear your voice in our books. It's not just about us coming up with these stories. If we're going to impact numbers like these, if we're going to actually follow Rudean Sims and that per, like, I brought this book upset as Myles Museum, this is a super awesome book, because she started her own press and she started telling the stories that she knew kids needed to hear, because she needed to hear them. And when she wasn't finding a doorway into the publishing industry, she's like, I'm going to make my own doorway. I'm going to start sharing the books I know we need in the world. So I can't separate basically the context, especially since Rudean Sims is an African-American woman, that she's really talking about a much bigger question than just diversity. We can talk about white supremacy. We can talk about invisibilizing. We can talk about that until we're blue in the face. But if we really want to have an impact and we want to create numbers that are different, I think we have to take control of that. We have to really claim storytelling as our own again. And again, I'll be quiet. I get very excited about this, because this is a shifting point and I think starting our own presses, creating our own stories for Khan's first flat top is just like that's a story that needs to exist. That's a classic tale. And Lauren's new book that you just produced and published, really voicing the voices that aren't getting heard in the world and getting them into libraries and having people like Lynn bring us in and highlight these books I think is really valuable. I would love to hear what you all think about. What would that shift take? Because we hear, we feel, we've heard the community crying out. We want to see ourselves in books. We know our stories are important. We've, you know, the educational sector, from kindergarten all the way up through college, I feel like, is prioritizing our voices. And yet those, this community isn't necessarily empowered to create or to fund the making of the books themselves. And so how, what would it take, what would it take for us to get all of these 1500 more books a year to represent under, it's way more than that I imagine. When you take into account other communities and other faces, how can we do it? I know. I think most recently when I was thinking about if I'm going to do another book and how much of a task it is to crowd fund, it's just a whole other job. A lot of it is skills, being able to write, being able to illustrate, but beyond that you need a whole team of people to work with you and you need money. Everybody needs money to be able to, if you're working, take time off from work to do the work. If you're going to be delegating responsibility, take time off to do that. And if you're going to get printed, you need money to do that. One of the models I've been looking at is independent film and how nationally in the U.S., Canada and other countries they have government funds set aside for people to not only get a percentage of their product written off, but they get grants or funds additionally to work on films especially if it's made in that particular country or state or region. So I think that nationally for children's books where people who don't necessarily have the time to look up all the different team members that you need in order to get a book, they just have a story and they want to get it out to give them funds so that way they can increase the numbers because otherwise the publishing industry is not going to do it. Unless it's making them hell of money if they're not going to do it. And then have like much more independent film festivals the way you have like Sundance and the New York Film Festival in Toronto, like they need to have something like that for children's books where people can get the funding and where people who have the money can go to the festival and be like oh I want to give money to that person or they can just be on the lookout for new people to give money to. That's one way I think. So I think this is really interesting to pay attention to. So I come at things from a craft model which is really much more grassroots excuse me and much more politically like grounded just like in kind of sustainability and locality and like trading more like alternative styles. So when I started looking at it I love hearing what you're saying Robert because I think this is where we need to go we need to start stepping outside of this traditional publishing model because it's not sustainable specifically in a system that doesn't want to voice us, that doesn't want to reflect us and so I think acknowledging its roots and understanding how it's blossom helps us really kind of say okay well that didn't work for us what does work for us? So where I go is from a very like mentorship very like folk based craft model because I was living in freaking Eugene, Oregon where craft was just like it's where all good hippies went to die and there was like this huge craft model where it was really organized and really like extensive and I was like god this is great so I immediately started teaching people what I knew so I started a school so that people understood everything that I learned because I'm a queer Chicana like I accidentally got into the children's book industry. Harriet slipped me in in children's book press and now I'm at Leigh & Low and so it's really hilarious that I have made so many children's books writing them and have my own press so I'm like so everybody needs to know what I know right because this is often very like held tight. So first we teach everybody what we know so I really call all authors and artists who make children's books to start teaching everything they know if you got in then let's open those windows speaking about windows let's really make this information be something that is about people reclaiming storytelling so then I go to that next step and I start thinking again of the craft model so I don't have money to publish a book the way traditional publishers do and you end up really tied into commercial success like you end up with thousands of books that you not only have to house but you have to sell. I'll tell you I'm an artist hands down I'm an author like that's not my forte so I use a print on demand method that prints within the US and it relies on this economy so I only ever print what I am need in that moment so it takes out that huge investment so I have created a model now and I have a 10 month program where I teach people basically how to start their own press and how to manage themselves creating a children's book and how we can do it for like under $500 maybe even less than that right so creating these models that are accessible to everyone because the stories we need to hear are everybody's stories not the few who are carrying one around and say this one out like we need those too but we need literally all the stories like we're not going to be a whole people we're not going to understand each other until everyone has access to storytelling and feels the power to let that rise in them right so in my imagination we need to just make this stuff as public and accessible as possible as well as modeling that we're making these kinds of choices like showing our kids that we value not only telling our own stories getting them out in the world but even creating our own presses and supporting other people to do that so I think there's some kind of like compilation of all of this at some point and I love this idea of like a clearing house where we can go and be like okay here's all the indie presses here's what we're doing I need you know African-American books that look like this or I need a cross blend you know spiritual and Asian-American you know I need this you know I need that where we can start sharing each other's work and I'm on it but it just there's no money and so you know it's how you do it how you allow it to develop and I call it the long dance is that this is going to take us a while and it's you know I've been doing it for 20 years already but now I feel like we're at this really powerful point where we can create our own independent presses we can use print on demand everything is at our fingertips and we can do it affordably we don't have to be tied in to really expensive commercial traditional styles we can start looking at alternative ways well and I wonder how we can collectivize our energy or juice or fire so that it we we're building and we're because this model you know for the past however many years that we've been explore these models were exploring and creating as we go from my own personal experience right now I'm really burnt out you know and how how can we take care of ourselves how can we pay our bills how can we continue to be joyful human beings and create the creative beings that we were meant to be and still share what we know and create as what and be creators ourselves and and raise our kids and and and and is is the is I'm at this breaking point and so I'm trying to figure out how can this continue to live on beyond any person or people so that we're building a culture of like you say storytelling exactly exactly really opening up the idea of reclamation of voice bay area independent children's book something family association are you creating it right now that would be dope they can give the blueprint not hoard it well I think what you've all three touched on is the fact that it's hard and I think about I was going to introduce the topic of publishing conventional publishing later in the discussion but since you've already started opening that up I'd like to hear more about what each of your experiences have been what you what your goals are because it seems to me that traditional publishing that we're talking about that's dominated by majority culture people that in my feeling as a children's librarian and as a writer myself the impression I get is that diversity is considered something to which one might give lip service or to which what one might put into a niche sort of a market and publishers in my way of visualizing this are saying to themselves okay well now we have hit all these marks for diversity we have this author we have that author we're done and listening to the three of you talk we are by no means done so so maybe talk about more the publishing world as you've experienced it and just the difficulties that creative artists like yourselves actually face well I could speak to right now reviews that's one concrete thing I could think about so for those of you who are listening anytime you get a book that's in this library not every single book that's here but I would say maybe I don't know 30% of the all new books that come out they have a system of reviews otherwise you wouldn't hear about it the same way movies have a system of reviews otherwise you wouldn't hear about it like if it's a big company that has a lot of money to put a poster up of Moana on every single corner so that you cannot miss it when you on the way to the store then you're going to hear about it but if if you don't have the budget to do that you have something that's like a much larger company like let's say YouTube or Channel 2 or the San Francisco Chronicle and they'll say oh you have a new book out we'll review it for you meaning they take it they put a picture of it they talk about it a lot of people who do independent books they don't get the opportunity to get their book reviewed and a lot of that is because it's an old model it's an old traditional model where they say well you got to have whistles on it and you got to have bells on it you don't have bells and whistles okay I'm sorry I can't review your book so it really is a struggle to use what the internet is which is kind of like a democracy of information at some times because some people they just make their own blogs or they make their own ways to review so if you're lucky you can get someone who's created their own thing outside of the old guard to review your book but if you want to get into a much larger distribution for libraries where you're not just talking about your family and your friends and your folks and all the people you know in your city but you're talking about people with communities like yours all across the US hearing about it like it really is quite challenging to get your book seen by people like it's one job to make the book but it's a whole other job to get it seen and so I feel like um yeah getting reviews is like a big challenge and there's so many more but that's like one I could think of anybody else I think so yeah social media is kind of you know giving is the what's it called the wild card in the scenario that we can hustle and we can you know leverage social media to expand you know the grass roots approach to publicity and yeah I mean like well so in children's books there's reviews and there's awards like American Library Association awards that elevate visibility and so where's that alternative market where's that platform that because ALA for example my book wasn't uh considered for awards because I was also the publisher and so there are all these rules there are lots of rules and so if you're not if you don't fit all of the rules um you're off the list but um but yeah but how can we create our own list and I feel like in this conversation it's coming together like you know it's it's what we've all known this whole time but we just don't get enough time to vision together and build I think this this brings up another question about this idea of gatekeepers and this idea of interacting with the like we were saying earlier I was saying earlier a system that didn't really uh originate or or is designed to make space for us or even has the capacity at this point to make space for us and and I think what what a lot of especially young I don't know what you guys if you have have pursued anything like this but back in the day like I would not have there were no presses that would have taken somebody like me I it wasn't even on my radar to be honest to be a children's book creator I was an artist and because of the model children's book press had they got storytellers from communities and aligned them with artists from those communities so they weren't necessarily book people and it was because I kept making books and finding out how powerful they were that I began to understand why I wanted to stay attached to them but I didn't pay attention to any of the words my books got I never noticed what reviews were saying for many many years and now what I find is that as I've gone back into saying okay children's book press closed where am I how do I want to function in this area is that the doors are even tighter like I feel like things are closed even more so much so now that I'm teaching people to make a book so that they have a book to show people that they can make a book so that they can get a job making a book right because that's how it is now it's like much much more uptight and so I look around and I was like I know someone like me I feel really grateful to be with Lee and Lo and I have a book coming out this spring with somebody I've worked with for many years through children's book press with them so it keeps my name relevant and it keeps me in that game but what I find after 20 some years in the industry is I want to leave the game I want to go more grassroots I want to go someplace that's separate from that model because I think that whole model is messed up and so that's the doors that I I see opening and so like how do we reframe the idea of a need for awards and reviews how does it become more of a local more of a community model and because of the books that we originally started doing we're about gender we're about teaching we're about artistic you know creativity in the classroom what we found is that we didn't publicize I simply was me out in the world and so people's knew me and so they came to my work that way and then through you know talk in this and that and so that's the model that we're actually pursuing is a more relational more community more in alignment so that we actually stopped looking at this this basically white supremacist model that doesn't want to voice us and say okay well that's over there and we're going to walk over here and hang out with us and what we need how do we connect what's important to us so it's really actually a revisioning of the whole thing and I think it's from the luxury of having the luxury of having been connected to the system for so long and that is very interesting to me too and as I hear the three of you talk I think an unspoken question for me is what can people in the publishing and library system I mean I'm somebody who's in love librarians librarians love you that's great and I think that that appreciation is definitely returned but I think librarians and publishers and gatekeepers as you say can all be part of the problem sometimes without recognizing that there is part of a problem so what I also wanted to hear about was how can people in these professions publishers reviewers librarians gatekeepers of all kinds how can we be more responsive because we are not doing our job one for that one of the libraries I wanted to get my book into is a library across the street from the high school that I went to been going there ever since I was a kid but once I had a book there there was a gate keeping me from getting the book into the library and that was in Berkeley but it's not just Berkeley it's any library they said in order to get the book into the library you need to have it reviewed by a certain source and you need to have it go through I think they have their own union I think it is a library so whenever a group of organized workers whether it be one branch or one city-wide system if they have a union that stipulates this is how we buy books you know we're getting it from a larger distribution but this is how much we have for independent books if they have their I don't know I guess a more open minded criteria as far as like independent books and saying that you know I don't know exactly what the criteria but basically making it a little bit more open for people who make their own books to have their books seen or have some place where they get sent and actually read by someone as opposed to just tossed that would be dope because I've called other library systems and it's not as easy because I'm not in the city I can't go and walk to them but I've called other library systems to be like can I get my book into here and it's like the same thing that's like a gate that's like I mean on the one hand there are people who they don't get but if given the chance to like craft and build on it they could you know it'll get better every single time so I would say like an independent door like it could be smaller but like at least have some door where people can bring in their book and say this is mine you know I would love to get it into the library as opposed to having like a door shut on you it's like oh no you don't have this then I can't talk to you at all so any other ideas on that? Doing like your own education around understanding this larger context about how books are published and why so many of them are white and straight and being like okay you know like so how do I hold this whole thing so it's not just being a librarian in that moment it's actually being a librarian and understanding the whole publishing industry which also means understanding the society that it rose out of and so I think that that's really responsible and I think that is something that our publishing industry is making you were saying the term lip service I think a lot of what I hear in the industry being kind of batted around is I hate that diversity sells and so because it's a commercially based system they're still looking at it within that same context and that was really hard for me as a transition because Children's Book Press was a mission based it was mission driven it was about reclamation and storytelling and so I think understanding even like those bigger concepts really challenges like gatekeeper folks how to be responsible and understand the different voices that are available and how to lift up the voices that aren't being lifted up did I mention Zetta Elliott again speaking of and that's I mean that's I think a powerful word for all of us to keep in mind did anyone else want to contribute anything to that part of the discussion it also and you mentioned it Maya and you too a little bit Rob how can we awaken that self knowingness of I do have a story to tell and I do you know welcome welcome the stories that we don't even know exist but that deserve to be told right and that's really interesting this idea I work a lot around Pat Morris Dia de los Niños the day of the child in the libraries because it's really about how do we make our libraries feel welcome to everybody not just like a select few and so I think that idea of the library feeling like a welcome place like my stories live here my voice is valued here I can go hang out here and feel comfortable like I belong here is a really important beginning to kids feeling like they have stories to tell right Maya can you talk a little bit about the work you're doing with young people and the books and reflection press and reflection press yes thank you and school of the free mind and then also like kids make books now I'm messing up the name of it yeah yeah the right now make books that was the thing I was and I've got postcards if anybody needs one is right now make books right W R I T E is a free online program it's got over two hours of video with me and it's got a whole downloadable packet that basically goes through there's a map that teaches kids exactly how you go through the process from thumbnails and how you develop art and your story into creating a book and then there's a practice book that you can make and when I go into the classrooms and the libraries I show kids this book as like this book looks like you know like kind of a funky like thing to start making but it actually teaches you the same exact way that Jeanine Robert and I use to make books and the truth of the matter is is that I still use that process and make mockups just like this around books that I then end up publishing so this a lot of times is how my books still start out so I wanted to start teaching kids how to make those books so it's completely centered on the kinds of stories we want to hear and how they rise because a lot of times we're told oh well you're not telling your story right you're not you know using English the way it's supposed to be used or you're supposed to only use English or a million other things right and it's just like I basically blow all of that out of the water and say no we need to start understanding that the page is ours and so really again sharing as much information about what I learned making children's books as possible so it's demystified right so you know what a bleed line is so you know what a gutter is you know what it's like to you know think about where does the title go where does this information go and then feeling like all that power you're like and here's my story and here's my face and here's the face of the people I know in my life you know so that the book becomes an ownership of ours right it's no longer something that we go to the library and check out and it's somebody's name that we don't even like relate to this is my story these are people that I know right and I think that's this thing where we really start creating that open space that our story is dying to jump into right because we all have stories I've been teaching for 20 years right what I know for a fact is that everyone is a storyteller and everyone is an artist I know that for a fact and we've forgotten that and so books especially children's books are this way that we can reclaim that again and be like yes this is mine and it doesn't matter what the industry is doing right I personally believe everyone should make a children's book that would affect the numbers you're giving me ideas for a library program so be careful can I riff a little bit of what you were just saying all three of you and especially what you just last said Maya because I think that's important as a children's librarian and as a writer myself this is one of my passions when I serve the kids who come into the children's center is that every time they come in and ask for a book I ask them for listening because I want to make sure that they know that a real person like themselves like people they know has written a book that this is a job that somebody can have and that they also can make a book of their own right now about themselves and they can if they want to become a writer so I was hoping maybe to hear from all of you about writers or mentors or people in your lives who have influenced creativity and influenced your passion and what you're doing right now well these two like I said I started 10 years ago and my son's 12 now so it was like when he was a baby but when he was a baby I said damn like I want to make some books like this too so at the time I didn't know a thing about it not a thing and I actually despised reading myself so I started to have a love for reading through reading the kids books with my son and so I asked Maya like years and years and years ago and I was lucky that she wrote back and like there's a lot of people who you can ask them for help and they're not going to say they're not going to write back they're not going to give you any advice but she did and then later on when I was starting to like get entrenched in it I was like it's almost like you're putting your running shoes on and you're walking towards the track like I'm almost ready to run when I was doing that Janine was like already on the track like lapping people and I was like damn like watching her go and being like okay how do I do that and so I asked her and she gave me some words of wisdom as well so I just hope that I get a chance to talk to anyone old, young whatever who wants to ask questions and matter of fact any of you who are hanging out if you have questions please ask that I just get to share something because like I feel like I know a tiny little bit and you know I owe that to both of them and like so many people from our community just for sharing like not holding on to and be like you know I don't have time to learn yourself like no here's what I know like take it and run with it I spent some time here at the main library and and also in Oakland and I've wondered how they organize the books for children can somebody explain that I can explain that to you it depends on how long you have we take most of our fiction is organized by the author's name so it's the author's last name and that's why it's just really important to me to talk kids through that the process of finding books on the shelves because they reflect the fact that these are things that somebody made the three people sitting with me now made these books as part of their job as part of their passion as part of their commitment to making something beautiful for the world and to me it's honoring them by arranging books by their name and making sure that children know their names and the names of all of these creators of books living and dead people who have influenced our culture and what we do and think today and then we've got the nonfiction that's organized by subject but that's a whole other topic does that answer your question enough? Oh age, okay so you're asking me about whether we organize things in the library by age we do and we don't so that's for children's librarians that's which is it's kind of a tangent for me that I don't want to go too deep into the weeds on but I will say that we are not like the schools so our goal at the library is for lifelong learning and for kids to have a real passion for books so I don't want to say oh you're in fourth grade here are the fourth grade books this is where you have to read and you can't read any other books but these fourth grade books I think there's a place for that in the schools to organize things by reading level or grade level for their instructional purposes but for my purposes and for most public librarians purposes the goal is to have children love books and feel very comfortable with books so we don't have a place where we set up a system of organizing books by reading level we've got very broad reading levels like for example our chapter book fiction is organized by authors last name and that can encompass authors writing for second graders all the way up to eighth or ninth graders so every library does things a little bit differently but most public libraries are going to focus on the passion and not the instruction so there's not going to be that rigid age category does that really answer it okay and we've got a quick question from our audience member over here our young lady right here what did you want to ask us um um actually I you know how you said you don't know if librarians organized by age well my librarian at my school her name is miss notes she actually she actually um she actually like I help her a lot when the little kids come in from kindergarten and pre-kids and stuff like that and like I help her with the little kids and they ask me and they ask me where are where are a certain book and they like help them look for it and I feel like a library oh awesome yeah you are definitely a junior librarian thank you um yeah so your teacher is doing exactly what she's supposed to be doing she's she's trying to help you guys improve your reading skills and so it makes sense for her to put things in the way that she does in the school library like I think it makes sense for us to put things in the order that we do here in the public library so that was an interesting discussion thank you for letting me talk about libraries um I wanted to also speak to to my panelists here about any other influences writers artists other creative spirits and mentors that you've had Robert was telling us um that the two of you here Janine and Maya have been influences on him what about you two what are your influences and your mentors I'm going to call out Harriet again Harriet was I think because Harriet used her position her power and privilege where she was standing and really gave it over to to like shared it in a sense to lift other kinds of voices up I think that was the most impactful thing I experienced um that that that changed me in a way I don't think I even expected at the time and when I look around I think that no matter like there's so many artists that are amazing there's so many writers that are amazing um that don't get heard or get attention and I think that's where I kind of go where it's just like how do we start changing that terrain so that's where I always think of Harriet and because just because just because it's it's a challenging question almost when you when it feels like we're paving the road while we're walking it like there's like I could cite artists I could cite writers but like they're not necessarily in children's publishing right and it's really I think that door up is the the power right now Janine and I are actually an alliance together we like um talk about this regularly with Zetta Elliott and so um this is something that's so important to us that we make time every month to actually listen to each other and also voice ourselves and create community because it is a bit deserty it is a bit deserty I would say it's such a blessing to be in the Bay Area um and you know when you reiterated your question Lynn about you know mentors or inspiration Maya you're a huge inspiration for me like you know Maya just spreads her wings and she says come on in and let's talk and what do you want to do and oh yay let's share ideas and let's let's just be creative in our way of connecting and um you know so I would definitely throw out Maya and Rob and Zetta I mean it's not it seems like a bunch of self aggrandizement but it's not it's just the reality of being in a day and a time when there isn't a deep there isn't a deep history of this in the way that we're trying to do it and um we're actually taking a very deep history and trying to pull it through many generations of silence and invisibility and give it life again give it some sort of feet like I like this hit the round hit the ground running kind of vibe and and I'll also call out um you know Santo who did as for activist and is now doing multiple books and actually yeah just people who have been just like I'm gonna do it and I'm doing it and you know see ya um it's happening I think that's the most inspiring and those are very beautiful words and inspirations so you guys are inspiring me um as I'm looking at the clock and realizing I should probably wrap things up pretty soon um I wanted to to just throw one more thing out there um we've got a little stack of books to my left including books by all three of you and we also have some older books from the Effie Lee Morris collection of historical um literature for children that I was referencing earlier um and I wanted to not fail to mention the fact that in that collection Ms. Morris herself an African American pioneering librarian in children's literature and in access to books for children um from all backgrounds Ms. Morris specifically focused a lot on what we now call changing portrayals in that collection and that means to us in this collection the fact that over time children in children's literature have been depicted differently in most of the books that we have in that collection we have um we have many books that depict children of color and children of the diverse backgrounds we have here in the Bay Area in books written by majority culture white authors um some of those portrayals are surprisingly warm and and rich and empowered and then many many more are portray children in a way that I would not even recognize um if if I were reading children's books today um the portrayals look to us very stilted and very um very negative and very limited um very stereotypical so we keep a lot of books in that collection for research purposes so that people can find out how children were portrayed over time in children's literature and if you went into that collection you could actually probably get a PhD just by using the materials in that collection um if you were writing on the subject of how children were portrayed by by authors over time and I just wanted to call attention to a few um some of these are very old and some of these are are by white majority authors this one is in German it's called Hanselman travels around the world a German children's book written generations ago and the portrayal of children of different cultures is very stereotypical as we'll see in this picture of children in Africa the drawings and the faces are are comical in ways that are very offensive to us today um but I think it's important for writers, for artists for activists to understand that this is how people saw children um and then over time you would see in the 1960s and 70s you would see the what I as a librarian consider the nascent um diversity in children's literature in which people like Ezra Jack Keats who himself was a white writer and illustrator began to really give human give humanity children of color and children from diverse backgrounds and you had artists like Leo and Diane Dillon who drew and rich colors um faces um of African people African characters and African children um and then you have today all the way up to today when we have books written by authors with sometimes very very intentions but that keep children of color in a certain narrative for instance we have some beautiful and very enriching books about African American children and their and the experience of slavery or the experiences during the civil rights movement which are wonderful and we should have them but for a long time we in children's literature didn't see a lot of portrayals of children of color as normal children in normal books going to school having friends um getting in trouble with their parents and now all of a sudden I'm starting to see books like Liberty Porter First Daughter by Julia DeVilliers and in this book the daughter of the president of the United States is African American just like two young ladies that we got to know and love over the past eight years and I see books like Eddie Redd Undercover Mystery on Museum Mile by Marcia Wells and we've got a kid who lives in New York City solving mysteries and he is a young African American kid and we've got a book by Eric Kimmel called His and it's about a kid who wants a pet snake and all about his adventures and his getting in trouble with his family with his pet snake and the kid happens to be Muslim and the book references his background and his culture as a normal part of the book but it's not the focus of the book is not to teach us about a culture it's to show that Muslim children or African American children are our children they are us they are part of the fabric of our community so I think in closing what I wanted to ask all three of you is to reflect on that where we have come from in our portrayal of so-called diverse communities where we are and where you think we still need to go we'd love to dive in there I'd say where we've come from is a place where we wasn't inclusive of all of us and where we're going now is the we that's really all inclusive of we wants to keep moving and maybe go in a different direction and so yeah I think the we is different before we weren't in the we and now we're making a we that's always been there but been left out I'm gonna start blabbing really so I think it's really great that you said so-called diverse communities because I think when we start saying things like this is a this is a panel about you know talking about diverse children's books or talking about diversity immediately all the hairs start standing up on my neck right because I think when we start claiming that that diversity is something that needs to be addressed what we're doing is we're acknowledging the fact that there is no such thing as we that it was always focused on white cis straight folks and that inclusion was never part of the equation and so I think when we start looking at language and we start looking at how we're addressing this we need to really pay attention to that because what's happened is that when we focus on things like diversity we're continuing to other and what I'm hearing you say Lynn is this visual of really including everyone in this arenas you know where arenas includes all of our children all of the time right all of the people and so when we say diversity we're still really othering you know everyone and I I often use the word diversity myself and I often say this is the current euphemism that we're using as a bridge to come into real inclusion because when we keep saying diversity diversity diversity really we're just saying okay well all the people of color all the indigenous people are still all over here and are different than the norm so in some ways it's a designator I think of where we're at so I'm actually really grateful that you brought that up in closing because I was like writing all these notes and I was like oh I gotta make sure and get this in but you just nailed it so thank you Lynn and I think we're reliant on librarians especially in positions like this some place like the San Francisco Public Library to have that kind of awareness and to really lead with it all the time and be really open and flexible when people like me show up and say well like diversity actually makes my hair stand up not because you know it's a bad thing but because we need to have those conversations and those are hard conversations to start having because we're wanting to come together right but there's we have to walk for a little bit because of our history I would say I think one of the a place that I would like to see it go is that whenever we have discussions like diversity that it not be labeled or I would say not put in its own little just kind of what like mine was saying like not put to the side but rather put it in unexpected places where a bunch of people are coming to hear something and they don't even know they're about to hear about it like they may be coming for American Library Association or something like they're not expecting to hear what we're about to say but to kind of like put it in front of them anyway because otherwise they wouldn't come like if you just said oh let's check it out there's really cool talk is going to be happening they'd be like oh cool yeah yeah I don't really need to know about that but it's like people that do need to know about it so like taking us and putting us kind of like I don't know in a space where I guess it wouldn't be expected the other thing I think I would like to see and I think they've started to in San Francisco public schools is to make ethnic studies a part of the program so like the more it's not that I want to be like institutional about it but I'm just like there's so many kids and I was one of those kids that grew up in public schools that I wish I would have seen like half of the books that I see now like at that age because it would have made me really like to read and it would have made me a learner much earlier so to put it in a way where like ethnic studies is not like you said like the other like it's not on the side skirt as like something you could take as an elective like no this is the if you don't take this you don't graduate like making it as like a part of the core thing so that way we can make books about historical figures for sure things that have happened in the past for sure but like the everyday life things that people I mean right now people have some misconceptions about what it means to celebrate Islam and they don't know a damn thing about it and just just to have some very basic like this is what I do when I get up this is how I pray before I eat like just something like that like very basic level that's what I would see or that's what I would like to see it go to yeah thank you any other reflections from any of the three of you that we haven't touched on yet that you would like to share yeah thank you so much I forgot to mention I'm yesterday was the lunar new year and so happy new year to everyone you're happy lunar new you've gotten a few chances for fresh starts in the past couple in the past month or so so fresh starts are good and yeah let's do it yeah so thank you all three for your very empowering words your wisdom your commitment and and for sharing with us some sometimes difficult conversations and also some very beautiful conversations through through the honesty and the the respect and the sharing that we've had so on behalf of the San Francisco Public Library it's my pleasure to conclude this part of our program with our three authors with Maya Gonzalez and Robert Lu Trujillo and Jeanine McBeth I thank you all three so much for your wisdom and sharing your time and your experiences with us today and I would like to invite not only my panel but also our audience to join us for a special tour of the F. E. Lee Morris historical collection of children's literature because that's a special behind the scenes tour that I would love to share with you all of those richly diverse books that reflect the history of children's literature and on behalf of the San Francisco Public Library I will also say that we are definitely committed to we we as the main library are not only the main research library for the City of San Francisco we are also a community neighborhood library for the Tenderline one of the richest and most diverse communities that has ever been my privilege to work with and so all of our children are our children and we want them to enjoy and benefit from everything that we have in the library so that they can make books like all of the people who are here with us today thank you so much for coming today thank you