Coe Booth (and others) at The Atlantic:
"As a little black girl growing up in the Bronx, I had no connection to books about sharecroppers or those books that took place in the ‘50s. I discovered Judy Blume. In those books, the perspective was always from the white character; the black character was the 'other.' In the '70s and '80s, the blackness of the person was the story."
It's worth a read—it gives a good, broad picture with looks at a lot of angles and issues. (And, yes, whitewashing comes up, but there's no mention of the most recent example.)
Why is it always Texas that gets named? Texas is the home of Varian Johnson, Dia Reeves, Cynthia Leitich Smith, Guadalupe Garcia McCall, and Jo Whittemore off the top of my head - a decent line-up of diverse YA authors.
Not that I don't agree with the article, I just wonder why it's always Texas.
Posted by: Liviania | 27 April 2012 at 08:06 PM