step right up

The belt is tightening around many of our best nonprofits and cultural institutions!  I usually make a donation to my favorite aid agency each month, but these days I’m feeling torn: give to PBS? Behind the Book?  Unicef?  The BPL? the garden or the museum…everyone needs a helping hand.  If you’ve got a little extra to spare right now, consider buying a book for an incarcerated child: GuysLitWire is organizing a book drive for incarcerated boys in California–find out more here.  Did you know rapper/actor Common has started a book club for teens?  Check out his Common Ground Foundation and the Corner Book Club at this great site.  I’ve been thinking about men lately–I was actually trying to make a list of black (pro-)feminist men, and didn’t get too far…plus it’s the NBA playoffs, so I was watching Kobe and the boys play yesterday and as usual, the Yankees dominated the nightly news.  How is it possible that we have a new stadium that cost *millions* and yet our public libraries are being threatened with job cuts and closures?  Why can’t some of these athletes step to the plate and keep our libraries open 365 days a year?

I’m doing the CORA Diversity Roll Call this week; you can find the assignment at Worducopia.  This week the meme is: “choose one or more kids’ books or stories. Could be an old favorite you remember from your childhood, or a new one that just came out. Could be a comic book or fairy tale or a ghost story. Did/does the world of the story match with your world? How do you think it contributes to a child’s world view?  Do the characters’ looks, values, social status, reflect the diversity of our world? Would it change the meaning of the story if the characters were different?”

My choice is The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf.  Many of my favorite children’s books were written long before I was born; they’re “classics,” and were easily found in my school and public library, whereas books featuring children of color were not (except for Ezra Jack Keats’ books, which I loved).  I love The Story of Ferdinand because it’s about a bull who loves to smell flowers, and so rejects others’ expectations that he should want to fight all the time.  Despite pressure from the other young bulls, Ferdinand spends his days drinking in the fragrant flowers of the Spanish countryside.  And even when provoked by a matador from the big city, Ferdinand stays true to himself.  His mother supports his choice, and so the book models a way to resist peer pressure and rigid gender roles without being race-specific.  I give this book to all my friends who have kids, and know it informs the way *I* write today: I want my books to offer kids alternate models of self-expression, especially boys who are pressured so early in life to act tough and lash out at others when they’re upset.  I’m taking another look at my latest story, “Munecas,” which is about a boy who wants to learn how to make dolls.  We’ve got to teach kids that it’s ok to be different, there’s no shame in being expressive or creative, and violence doesn’t solve anything.  So often boys terrorize other boys, and that doesn’t stop once they’re incarcerated.  Time to break that chain…