‘Do black people read?’ What my years in publishing have taught me about diversity in books | Natalie Jerome

Malorie Blackman laments the lack of BAME children’s characters. I know – it’s a real battle to get writers of colour publishedMy daughter, like me, is of mixed heritage. She has wildly curly hair, as have I. When she was born four years ago I was given five copies of the same kids’ picture book by well-meaning friends and relatives. It was called Guess How Much I Love You. This book, whose lead characters are rabbits, was a bestseller in the 1990s. Back then it flew off the shelves. What I did not expect when I was pregnant with my daughter was that it would be far easier to find her a rabbit picture book than one featuring a child like her with brown skin and curls.This week Malorie Blackman, author of Noughts and Crosses, told Channel 4 News that of the many books she read as a child “not one of them featured a black child like me”, adding that “it made me feel invisible in the world of literature”. And when, in her mid-20s, she noticed in a children’s bookshop that little had changed, “that’s when I decided that I wanted to write for children ... for the child in me, really, for all the books I wish I could have read as a child”.If we feel disconnected from each other, perhaps it starts in this skewed, unrepresentative vision of the world that begins in our books when we are at knee height Related: Whatever happened to author Dorothy West? Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'

[ The Guardian | 2019-08-17 07:00:41 UTC ]
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20 Kids’ Reading Chairs to Snuggle Into With a Good Book

All bets are off as #1 New York Times bestselling author Iris Johansen introduces gambler Logan Tanner. He lives the exhilarating life of a professional gambler, but all the glitz and glamor hide a dark and violent past as an extractor—a world that comes rushing back to him when the beautiful... Continue reading at Book Riot

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[ The Washington Post | 2021-09-09 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Hanks appointed new publisher at Quarto Children's Books

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[ The Bookseller | 2021-09-08 02:44:40 UTC ]
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Quercus buys Arcadia Books as Bielenberg named publisher

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Sandstone Press to publish puffins book by photographer Morgans

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Reading Women Discusses Books on Incarceration

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[ Literrary Hub | 2021-09-01 08:48:56 UTC ]
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Emirates Publishers Association Sends Team to Ghana Book Fair

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[ Publishing Perspectives | 2021-08-31 12:14:32 UTC ]
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UK’s Publishers Association: 64 Percent of Book Revenue at Stake in Copyright Question

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Mirror Books to publish memoir from Christine McGuinness

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Eloise Greenfield, author whose picture books uplifted Black children, dies at 92

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[ The Washington Post | 2021-08-18 06:43:01 UTC ]
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[ Publishing Perspectives | 2021-08-17 18:09:08 UTC ]
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Remembering The Black Expressions Book Club

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Hachette Book Group Announces Acquisition of Workman Publishing

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