the latest CCBC stats are out!

You can read all about it at Kyra Hicks’ site, Black Threads in Kids Lit–Kyra was the first to introduce me to the CCBC, and I can’t say enough about how important these statistics are.  Last year, there were 83 black authors who had a book for children published–up from 2007, when only 77 black authors got published.  Out of 3,000 authors total.  Forgive me for not celebrating–I’m glad the number didn’t go down, but that’s still less than 3% of the pie…and more non-black authors had books published *about* black people–89!  We’re no longer the leading experts on our own history and culture.  See the great chart at Kyra’s site, or the table at the CCBC’s site.  Any way you slice it, it’s not good.