#cbcdiversity

For a long time, that felt like enough.

But as production after production went by, a problem became painfully clear to me: although these stories were being directed and designed and acted by lots of queer people, they were never about us. Part of this was due to the limited canon most theaters worked from, while another was the assumption of straight audiences. I can count the number of canonically LGBTQIAP characters in the dozens and dozens of plays I performed in on one hand. Sometimes we were thrown a few precious scraps of subtext: I relished the Olivia and Viola scenes in Twelfth Night and dreamed of a version where the ladies forgot about Orsino and ruled Illyria together. When I reached college, directors became bolder, inserting queerness into their productions even when it wasn’t in the text. It was almost never in the text. And in the rare cases when it was, things got tragic. Fast. *In a dozen years of constant auditioning, I ran into no joyfully queer comedies, no gorgeous Sapphic verse plays, maybe two gay characters in musicals (seriously??) and definitely no love stories with happy endings.

When I sat down to write a book set in the NYC theater world, I knew the play being performed would be a classical, lauded boy-girl love story. But the real love story would be unfolding between two girls, one an actress and the other a talented young designer. I wanted to push back against the expectation that we’ve been given that truly epic love stories, the ones we should put under the brightest lights and tell time and time again, all look the same. I wanted queer people to see a little bit of themselves, finally onstage.

*I’m now aware that a radical and fantastic queer theater has been alive for a long time, but when I was a teenager it didn’t exist in a way that was accessible to LGBTQIAP young people across the country. I definitely hope that’s changing!

2. What about this form did you like, and what were some of the challenges in using it to tell your story?

What I love about the Golden Shovel form is that it feels very much like sculpture to me.  I never know, at the start, exactly what I'm going to end up with, or what shape the poetry is going to take.  I simply chip away at the source material and see what emerges.  Here, what emerged was the tale of a boy and a girl, one a person of fear and faith, the other a bully riddled with doubt.  The story of each impacted the other as they engaged on a deep emotional level.  This story happened to be about bullying, but the truth is, whenever we engage with faith, we are changed in some way, no matter the context.  As for the primary challenge of the form, it's the source material itself, namely the language.  Once you choose the line, or lines, you will borrow from your source poem, you are stuck with the words within.  How do you write something meaningful, for today's audience, using antiquated or formal language, or phrasing that feels uncomfortable in the mouth?  How do you use words that repeat several times?  The word slumber proved problematic, for example, because it's not a word we use today.  "Watches" was also difficult because its repetition required finding fresh ways to use it, each time.  Then there was Israel.  How was I to interject the name of a foreign nation in the middle of a poem set in America?  In this case, my solution was to make it the name of a character. 

3. What are some things you'd like for kids to take from this book?

Bullying is an enormous problem, today. The advent of cyber bullying has exacerbated the problem, and so I believe it is an important topic to tackle in children's and young adult literature, as often as we can.  In The Watcher, my focus was on planting seeds of empathy—something sorely lacking in our society, at present.  When readers understand that we are all more alike than we are different, and when they glimpse the pain underneath the actions of the person who bullies, that reader's heart is enlarged in a way that suddenly makes tolerance and forgiveness possible, while at the same time making the reader less inclined to act like a bully him or herself.  And maybe, just maybe, readers will dare to reach out to the bullies in their midst, as Jordan reached out to Tanya in this story.  That may be a lot to ask of a book, but I've seen books do powerful things!  That's why I keep writing them.  That's why I wrote The Watcher.

I remember how alone I felt, sitting on the rug with my classmates watching me. I remember how desperately I wanted to explain that I couldn’t choose, that the very idea of such a choice was impossible. But I was seven and couldn’t find the words, and so I responded only with silence, unable to articulate what I knew, even then, was something intrinsic to my very being. My teacher, clearly aggravated, said that she’d call my home that night to “get the real answer.” It’s to my mother’s eternal credit that she in fact found that “real” answer that night when she listened, flabbergasted, as my teacher explained the problem at hand. “She’s a Susan!”  I heard my mom bark into the phone. “Put that on your survey.”

This episode was a defining one in my childhood. At the same time, what’s striking, as I look back, is that it wasn’t really a surprise. That moment on the rug merely confirmed something intangible that always followed me, the logical progression of a question that tends to plague the children of mixed-race couples: “What are you?”  

This question was so common that as a child I felt it was simply to be expected in a family as unusual as mine. I’m a child of Russian Jews and first-generation Chinese Christian immigrants who fled communist China because my grandfather was an evangelical Christian minister. Needless to say, my childhood was a confusing, sometimes hard, though often wonderful time (and there was always excellent food).  

The idea for my debut novel, Cilla Lee-Jenkins: Future Author Extraordinaire, grew from a desire to write about my family. I imagined a child misunderstanding the question “What are you?” and, in doing so, joyfully reclaiming it.

In her first few iterations, Cilla was missing a key component of her story— the impending birth of a sister. I’m the oldest of three sisters, and I knew that Cilla would get a sibling someday. But I thought her story should, at least at first, be about the silly things, her family, her friends, her misnomers, and, of course, her destiny as a future author extraordinaire. Yet the more I wrote, the more I found myself circling back to the girl on the rug, to the difficulties and intricacies of identity that, as a child, I’d struggled to articulate. I began to think about my own sisters, and other children of mixed-race families who find themselves presented with complex and difficult questions of race and identity at a young age, forced to confront the idea of themselves as a “what” long before they’ve begun defining themselves as a “who.” Suddenly, my story wasn’t simply a matter of a young girl amusing the world with her precociousness and misunderstandings, and a younger sister emerged in a narrative that had really been thinking about her all along.

With Cilla, I’ve hoped to live up to my mother’s answer to my teacher all those years ago by creating a character whose identity is inextricably linked with her racial identity, but who is just as much allowed to define herself, to be a character all her own, without the need to answer to any higher category or type. I’ve worked to reclaim the “What are you?” demands familiar to mixed-race children.  And in doing so, it seems I’ve found the words that eluded me all those years ago.  

I’m so pleased to share them with you, and I hope you enjoy them.

Girl’s Day is about tradition, but it also celebrates experiences handed down from mother to daughter. When my daughter was born, I made a new, special tradition. On the last day of summer, we would have “Mommy and Caitlin Day,” a full day of whatever we chose to do together. Just the two of us. We created our own version of Girl’s Day.

Years later, I read a newspaper article about a multigenerational Japanese-American family that made mochi the traditional way for New Year’s Day: by pounding sweet rice in a mortar and hand-rolling it into mochi. I was fascinated. Soon after, I heard a girl’s voice in my head. She wanted to make mochi, but her family thought she was too young. Plus, she didn’t want to do the traditional women’s job of rolling mochi. Instead, she was eager to perform the men’s job and pound mochi. She kept pushing me to tell her story –– so I did, and Jasmine Toguchi, Mochi Queen was born.

In book two, Jasmine Toguchi, Super Sleuth, eight-year-old Jasmine is excited to celebrate Girl’s Day with her mother, sister, and best friend, Linnie. Jasmine, who is Japanese-American and lives in Los Angeles, can’t wait to share this part of her culture with her friend. And I, in turn, can’t wait to share Jasmine and her stories with readers.

While I was inspired by that newspaper article, I was further encouraged by my desire to see more diverse characters in contemporary books. My daughter, Caitlin, has always strongly identified with her Japanese-American half. Growing up, she bemoaned the lack of Japanese-American characters in stories. Because of this, I’m especially pleased to write this series.

Each of the four books in the series has a thread of Japanese culture, such as mochi making or taiko drumming in Jasmine Toguchi, Drummer Girl. But like Jasmine herself, the books are about more than just Japanese-American culture. In Mochi Queen, Jasmine wants to escape the shadow of her bossy big sister. In Super Sleuth, she must figure out how to mend her friendship with Linnie after a fight.

The heart of Girl’s Day –– celebrating culture, family, sisterhood –– permeates all of the Jasmine Toguchi books. But as important as heritage can be, so too are new traditions. And I’d like to think that this series offers a balance of both. Jasmine is confident, creative, and adventurous. She is Japanese-American, and also a friend, a flamingo-lover, a sister, and a tree-climber. I hope these books allow Asian-American girls a glimpse of themselves in a contemporary light. And I hope it lets girls everywhere see that, despite outward differences, they share many commonalities. Shared experiences promote connection and compassion and community, and in this way the series is not only for children who identify as girls, but for all young readers, too.

This Girl’s Day, I’m celebrating something new –– the forthcoming publication of the first two Jasmine Toguchi books –– by revisiting something old. For the first time in over twenty years, I displayed my family’s dolls. I’m honoring their history, remembering special times with my family, and wishing good health and happiness for all children around the world.

The traditional definition of family as a married mother and father and their children living under the same roof is woefully outdated, not to mention exclusionary. In crafting The Other F-Word, I wanted to represent a spectrum of families—kids with lesbian moms, kids with single moms, kids with happily married heterosexual parents—linked together by the Twin Cities Cryolab and donor #9677. I wanted to present a range of emotions from the half-siblings as they discover each other and begin to track down their donor.

Fifteen-year-old Milo, who loves both his moms but has always wondered what it would be like to have a father, is the catalyst for the search. Even though he knows it’s stupid, he wanders through his Brooklyn neighborhood, looking at all the dads and wondering if one of them could be his.

Fourteen-year-old Hollis, angry and confused after the death of her non-biological mother, Pam, wants nothing to do with her donor. In fact, she’s pissed at the guy. Sometimes she fantasizes about meeting him, setting up a time and place to meet, and then—right after she says, “Hi, I’m Hollis”—slapping him across the face.

Sixteen-year-old Abby already has a half-sister because—funny story—about 17 years ago, when her mom was trying to get pregnant, her dad was diagnosed with “azoospermia oligospermia,” which basically means low sperm count. The odds of Abby’s parents conceiving a baby together were slim to nil, so they started looking into donor sperm. Enter #9677. Abby’s mom got pregnant with Abby, and then, two months after she was born, surprise! Abby’s mom found out she was pregnant again, with Abby’s sister Becca. Turns out Abby’s dad had a few swimmers after all.

Noah and Josh are twins. They share 100% of their DNA, but they are nothing alike. Noah wants to find their genetic father. Josh thinks searching for their sperm donor is a slap in the face to their “real dad.”

Milo. Hollis. Abby. Noah. Josh. Where do their loyalties lie? Where does the line between nature and nurture blur? What is the true meaning of “family”? I loved grappling with these questions while writing The Other F-Word, and I hope that my readers, whatever their families look like, will enjoy the ride.

When a child is about six years old, he suddenly becomes aware of “differences making a difference”. Now, the same children he or she has been playing with since the earliest years of preschool become, quite suddenly, viewed in a different light. These early best friends are now seen through the eyes of their parents, their siblings, and their caretakers. The six-year-old who is desperately seeking positive re-enforcement receives it from these guardians whenever he imitates the words that come out of their mouths, whether they be praise or prejudice. 

Because children imitate someone else’s point of view in order to receive praise, it is all the more important that caregivers are provided with the fuel, such as characters in books, to support a child’s early perception that differences don’t make a difference. Hopefully, characters in my books will give children the courage of their own conviction.   

Years ago, I wrote a book called Feathers and Fur. It is the true story of a cat that saved eleven tiny ducklings. I took the story further and made it about the duckling’s parents who tell them to stay away from the cat because, “Feathers and Fur don’t fit.” The book shows how the little ducklings and Tuesday, the cat, come to love each other even though the duck’s parents try and keep them separate. They parents soon observe the love between those with feathers and the one with fur. The differences are put aside and the love is brought forward is this blended family.

In Kai to the Rescue!, I once again bring up the subject of a blended family. The story features a little green fire truck that is sent to a firehouse with three large red fire trucks. Being made to feel out of place and unwanted by the hook-and-ladder, Kai crayons himself red to look the same as the others though he is still very small. When he accompanies the other trucks to a fire he is told to stay at a safe distance. When a small underbrush fire erupts, Kai is the only truck that can fit below the trees to get to the flames. His red crayon melts and Kai is once again green, but proves himself a valued member of the firehouse.

I hope Kai to the Rescue instills a sense of pride and a genuine strength-in-self in every child who experiences it. More importantly, I hope this book and all my previous stories inspire parents and caretakers to embrace diversity and open up conversations concerning differences, pride, and prejudice.

 Every book I write, whether it be a Kissing Hand book, an individual story, or part of the Mystery of Blackbeard’s Cove series, the stories and characters are intended to inspire pride and help find ways in which to allow, and accept, differences in others.

In Chester Raccoon and the Almost Perfect Sleepover, the characters embrace the differences in their friends. The porcupine offers her quills for the game of darts. The skunk makes ‘stinky puffs’. The opossum learns manners. And the little raccoon leaves early to sleep in his own hollow. All of these stories are written with the hope of reaching children before their opinions are tainted by prejudice. Hopefully, children are armed with the tools and spirit they need to continue seeing their early friends through their own eyes and not the eyes of those who are prejudicial.

I stood in the kitchen, frozen in fury. But I had to say something, so I said what I believed most African American mothers would say to their sons in this situation.

“Look at Jackie Robinson. He didn’t have any other black guys playing on his team, but that didn’t stop him. He went out there and showed those guys just how good he was. And because of him, other black players were invited to join Major League Baseball.”

I waited for my son to acknowledge my story was a good one. But he didn’t. Instead, he changed my way of thinking forever when he looked me in the eyes and spoke truth.

“But I don’t want to be their Jackie Robinson. I just want to be the shortstop.”

What message was I sending to him, telling him about Jackie Robinson? Was I saying that his race, not his talent, was going to make a difference in his making or not making the team?  Yes I was.

He eventually went to tryouts, made the team, and earned a scholarship to play baseball in college. The sameness in ability on the ballfield made the differences in race obsolete.  

So you may wonder what this has to do with The Magnificent Mya Tibbs, and why you should care.

Let me explain.

When I was asked to create an African American Ramona Quimby/Clementine-type character, I wasn’t sure how my character should act. Both Clementine and Ramona are memorable for their personalities, families, and storylines. However, there is nothing about their characters or their stories that is race-driven. So why would I make Mya Tibbs any different? Mya, to me, symbolizes acceptance and inclusion. She is funny, friendly, open to things that are different, and learns from her own experiences.

Being a jewelry-making cowgirl is just as natural to her as everything else that makes her who she is. When it comes to her friends and family, she sits high in the saddle and includes them in her everyday life. But the real beauty in Mya Tibbs is her genuine acceptance of those who don’t look like her. I’ve purposely made her friends, and even some family members, different. For instance, Mya’s twin friends, Starr and Sky Falling, finish each other’s sentences, dress alike, and Mya’s not positively sure that they are not aliens. Her brother Nugget is extremely smart, but his head is shaped like a chunk of chicken! Why?

Diversity in all its forms is another way to avoid illiteracy. If diverse books are not introduced to students, they will lack the ability to understand other races, cultures, religions, and gender differences. Mya’s issues are not driven by race. They are driven by the kinds of circumstances and experiences encountered by all children.

We are different for many amazing reasons, but we should also focus on the beautiful details of why we are the same. Mya Tibbs is African American, but race will never drive her story. That’s because she, like my son, doesn’t need to be anybody’s Jackie Robinson. She just needs to be Mya, a yippee-kai-yay kind of nine-year-old girl, with a boot-scootin’ love for her family and friends.