Women Writers of Color: Ernessa T. Carter

Full name: Ernessa T. Carter
Date of Birth: January 16
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Website/Blog:- 32candles and Fierce and Nerdy
Genre: Women's fiction.
Most recently published work: 32 Candles

How frequently do you update your site?

I put new stuff up at 32 CANDLES weekly and my community blog, Fierce and Nerdy is updated every weekday.

Is your site designed for interaction ?

Yes, I love to talk with folks on both sites.

Post of note, or something in particular you want readers to check out.

People really seem to like this post about my writing process and how I came to get my book deal.

Can you tell us a little about 32 Candles?

Davidia Jones, a girl growing up poor and unpopular in Mississippi, sees "Sixteen Candles" for the first time and decides that she wants to have her own Molly Ringwald Ending. Disaster ensues when she falls in love with the most popular guy in school. She ends up running away to Los Angeles, only to have him show up on her doorstep fifteen years later, forcing her to answer the question, "Can someone have a Sixteen Candles ending at the age of 32?

I loved Davidia. She is one of the most original characters of the year. Was it difficult selling people in the book industry on the idea of a poor Black girl from Mississippi who loves John Hughes movies?

Actually no it wasn't. There were a few editors who didn't get the concept, but mostly the response was hugely positive. When I was writing it, I wondered who would want to read about a strange black girl. Now that I'm on the other side of the process, I see that different is what a lot of publishers are looking for. My editor straight up said in an interview, that she only wants to acquire works of fiction that are completely fresh and unlike anything she's ever read before. I think a lot of writers worry about being too different, but in my opinion more should worry about not being different enough.

You've been active on facebook and twitter promoting your debut, long before it was released. Do you think this has turned into sales?

I haven't seen any sales numbers yet, but I hope the fact that even my most distant acquaintances know about this book is a good sign. Also I've made way more connections than I would have without the promotion. Figuring out promotion has been the great privilege of getting my book deal. I don't think many other people ever get the chance to say, "Hey, let's not only learn a whole new skill set but also throw a bunch of stuff against the wall and see what sticks." I really do enjoy promotion, and yes, I hope that translates into sales.

32 Candles appeals to a wide audience. Usually when I mention the book's connection to "Sixteen Candles," customers eyes light up. How have the crowds so far been for the booksignings? Mixed or mostly Black?

Mostly white so far! The only time it wasn't was in my hometown, St. Louis and when I signed at the NAACP convention and the Leimert Park Book Festival, which focuses on black authors. And even at the NAACP convention, I had white women coming up to tell me how much they loved Sixteen Candles. You're the first person that's asked me about that.

Is there anything else you'd like to share with Color Online.

I love hearing from readers, even the ones that haven't read my book. So please feel free to drop me a line at etc at 32candles.com!

Women Writers of Color: Lola Shoneyin

Full name: Titilola Shoneyin

Birth date: 26 February 1974

Location: Abuja, Nigeria

Website/blog: www.lolashoneyin.com

Genre: Fiction, poetry

WiP or most recently published work:
The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives

Writing credits:
So All the Time I Was Sitting on an Egg; 1997 (Poems)
Song of a Riverbird; 2002 (Poems)
For the Love of Flight 2010 (Poems)

How frequently do you update your site?
When there’s news...

Is your site designed for reader interaction?
No, I tend to communicate with readers through email and my fan page on facebook.

Post of note, something in particular you want readers to check out:
The poems on my website

Top 5 reads you’re looking forward to reading in 2010?
An Elegy for Easterly by Petina Gappah
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake: A Novel by Aimee Bender
Overcoming Speechlessness by Alice Walker
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet: A Novel by David Mitchell
Swallow by Sefi Atta

100 words or less how would you describe your work?
I enjoy writing about women, and the experiences of African women in particular because she is underrepresented in literature. For too long, she has been defined by cliché, sketchily captured on magazine covers that I fear the world is missing out on her rich, exciting, sometimes unique complexity. When writing therefore, it is important that I capture her ways, her words, her sighs and her triumphs, her humour. A young lady once told me that The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives was too raunchy. I was taken aback because I could only remember one occasion in the book where I had to describe a woman deriving pleasure from sex after years of painful, uncomfortable intercourse. Now that bit had to be sexy, didn’t it?

100 words on less please share your thoughts on one of the following topics:
I have a lot to thank black women writers for because it was reading their work that gave me the courage to express myself in verse. It was the honesty of their writing that told that maybe, just maybe, my story was important too. Where would I be without Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon? At university, my thesis was based on the African presence in this illuminating novel. I worked tirelessly and got an ‘A’, all the time driven by the fact that this single novel had shown me, an African, how significant my Africanness was. It was both a humbling and a liberating discovery.

Women Writers of Color: Alaya Johnson

Full name: Alaya Dawn Johnson

Birth date: March 31, 1982

Location: Washington, DC

Website/blog: www.alayadawnjohnson.com

Genre: Fantasy

WiP or most recently published work: Moonshine or The Burning City (they came out within weeks of each other)




Writing credits: The first two books of The Spirit Binders trilogy: Racing the Dark and The Burning City. Also, unrelated, Moonshine, the start of a historical fantasy series staring Zephyr Hollis.




How frequently do you update your site?
Infrequently. Mostly when I have big publishing news to share (book covers, pub dates, big sales, etc.)





Is your site designed for reader interaction? No.





Post of note, something in particular you want readers to check out: I wrote a guest post for The Angry Black Woman this summer about race issues on one of my favorite television shows, Supernatural: http://theangryblackwoman.com/2009/09/09/an-open-letter-to-eric-kripke/



Top 5 reads you’re looking forward to reading in 2010?


Blackout by Connie Willis

Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin

Bite Marks by Terence Taylor

White Cat by Holly Black




100 words or less how would you describe your work?
I hate repeating myself with my writing, so the next thing I'm working on is usually very different from the last. Moonshine and The Spirit Binders trilogy are about as far apart thematically as you can get while still falling under the broad category of fantasy. But my overarching themes tend to center around issues of family, female relationships, love (romantic and platonic), and broader issues of coming of age and identity.


100 words on less please share your thoughts on one of the following topics:

Writing life

It's a cliche, but writing is one of the hardest things you can do, and one of the most rewarding. When it's going well, I'm immersed in my stories, my characters and my worlds and I can barely spare the time to eat before I have to get back to them. Unfortunately, it doesn't always go well--many days I stare at my computer screen and wonder why I ever thought I was capable of putting a sentence together. But no matter how difficult it gets, there's never been anything else I've wanted to do. Frustration comes with the territory, but I never forget how lucky I am.

Women Writers of Color: Kyra Davis

Full Name - Kyra Davis
Birth Date - August 22nd
Location - Los Angeles
Website/blog - KyraDavis.com and Kyra's Web Log
Genre- Chick Lit/Women's Fiction

Most recently published work
Vows, Vendettas & A Little Black Dress

Writing Credits
I've had six books published. Five within the Sophie Katz Mystery Series and a novel called So Much For My Happy Ending

How frequently do you update your site?
I try to update my blog three-four times a week

Is your site designed for reader interaction?
I encourage readers to leave comments on my blog (or on my Facebook or Twitter page to which the blog is linked) and I try to respond to reader's questions promptly.

Post of note or something in particular you want readers to check out.
"Yesterday's news," probably isn't as irrelevant in the world of blogging as it is in the world of newspapers but I do think that last week's news lacks...well, if nothing else, immediacy. So rather than point to a blog post that is important to me at this particular moment I would rather encourage readers to check in every few days to see what's going on in the present

How would you describe your work?
The Sophie Katz mysteries feature Sophie who is a hip, multiracial, quick-witted novelist who is constantly stumbling into the path of danger. With the help of her eccentric and diverse group of friends Sophie investigates the crimes that are happening around her and finds ways to bring the bad guys down. It's Sex And The City meets Murder She Wrote. So Much For My Happy Ending is about a woman who discovers that her new husband has a serious psychiatric disorder. It’s the story of her path to self-discovery as she learns to cope with the ramifications of that.

I love your Sophie Katz books. I was very sad there wouldn't be any more. How does an author say goodbye to a series that ends too early?
Well, you don't say goodbye. Shortly before I got the news from my publisher I was talking about the series to this guy I was on a date with. He was a bit of a jerk on a whole but also a VERY successful business man. I joked that I would probably be more financially successful if I started self-publishing the series and he looked at me like I was an idiot and said, "Well of course you would be. You may hold on to your readership for several more books but you're not going to grow it by a significant percentage at this point in the series nor is any publisher going to dedicate a meaningful marketing budget to promote the 6th book in a series that hasn't yet made The New York Times list. If you self publish you'll lose a lot of readers but with social networking you should be able to keep your base and you'll keep one hundred percent of the profits which should make up for the lower circulation. That's obvious." At the time I was slightly (and perhaps unjustly) offended by his intimation that I was being dense for not having already realized all that. Then a month later I got the news that my publishing house was going in a different direction and, out of necessity, I found myself thinking about that conversation again. The reality is that bookstores are, in the face of a tough retail environment, cutting inventory and as a result publishers are focusing all their attention on trying to get as many of their blockbuster books into the stores as possible and are giving less and less attention to driving up the sales for their midlist authors. But with the Internet making up more and more of the market share and with this new ebook revolution (iPad, Kindle, Nook, Google's upcoming ereader and so on) midlist authors may not need to be so reliant on traditional publishing anymore, particularly if they already have a loyal fan base. Of course it's a lot more work that way. You're essentially going into business for yourself. You have to be your own art department (for the cover), editor, publicist, salesperson and so on and so forth. But it's absolutely doable. Since my announcement last week that Mira will no longer be publishing Sophie I have received just under three-hundred emails from readers pledging to purchase the next Sophie book regardless of whether or not I choose to publish it myself or even as an ebook exclusive. With support like that I should be able to keep Sophie alive for a little longer.

Can you tell us a little about Vows, Vendettas and a little Black Dress ?
Sophie Katz attends the engagement party of her best friend Dena Lopiano's cousin, Mary Ann. But the party takes an ugly turn when someone shoots Dena. She was shot in the back while alone in a room and there were no witnesses. Dena survives the assault but it's questionable if she'll ever walk again.

Enraged, Sophie vows to find Dena's attacker. Sophie's boyfriend Anatoly, who is a P.I., tries to convince her to leave the investigating to the police but to no avail. Sophie has known Dena since high school and she's sure she knows everything there is to know about her: her likes and dislikes, her friends, her lovers (past and present) her habits and hobbies, her missteps and successes. Now, as Sophie's loathed to admit, she even knows the color of Dena's blood. Yet Sophie is shocked to find that there actually are an enormous number of people who have a motive for trying to kill Dena. With more suspects than she knows what to do with Sophie sees that she has her work cut out for her. But she won't be deterred even if it means facing down a killer on her own.

Thanks Kyra. I must confess I checked out your blogs for the first time and will probably become a lurker. I am very happy to hear we haven't heard the last of Sophie Katz. Vows Vendetta and a Little Black Dress is out now and its soooo good. My review

Women Writers of Color at the Asian Festival of Children's Content

I was in Singapore last week for the inaugural Asian Festival of Children's Content (AFCC). The AFCC consisted of four programs: the Asian Children's Writers and Illustrators Conference, the Asian Children's Publishers Symposium, the Asian Primary and Preschool Teachers Congress, and the Asian Parents Forum. I attended events for the Asian Children's Writers and Illustrators Conference and the Asian Children's Publishers Symposium and learned SO MUCH about Asian children's and young adult books.

I'd like to share pictures I took of some of the women writers of color who were speakers, presenters, and panel moderators at the AFCC.

First up are pictures of popular Indian children's book writer Anushka Ravishankar. Anushka has won national and international acclaim for her verse-tales published by Tara Books. Rights to her books have been bought for the US, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Korea, Italy, Japan, and Spain.



Rukhsana Khan is an award-winning Pakistani Canadian author for young readers. Her books include stories set in India and the Middle East.


Uma Krishnaswami is an Indian American author for young readers. She is part of the faculty of the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA program in Writing for Children and Young Adults.













Author/illustrator Naomi Kojima was born in Japan and grew up in the US. She currently resides in Japan. Her picture books have been published in the US and Japan, and have been translated into French, Swedish, and Indonesian.







Dr. Murti Bunanta is the author of fifty children's books in Indonesia, five of which have won international awards. She is the president and founder of the Society for the Advancement of Children’s Literature and the Indonesian Board on Books for Young People.



Misako Ohnuki is the director of the culture division of the Asia/Pacific Cultural Center for UNESCO (ACCU). She has written picture books and textbooks for children, and is a professor of children's literature at Japan Women's University.



Mita Kapur is a freelance journalist and literary agent in India. She is the founder and CEO of Siyahi, a literary consultancy.



Teri Tan is an international correspondent for Publishers Weekly. She has worked for Simon & Schuster (Singapore), Prentice Hall (Malaysia), Thomson Learning (Singapore), and Pearson Education Asia.






Shamini Flint writes children's books with cultural and environmental themes and crime fiction for adults.


Daphne Lee is a children's book writer and editor in Malaysia. She has a weekly column on children's and young adult books in The Star. She also heads The Dram Projects, a non-profit organization that uses bibliotherapy to reach out to marginalized youth.




For more about the AFCC, check out my blog posts:

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

If you have any questions about the AFCC, please leave them in the comments below. It was an incredibly inspiring conference and I would love to discuss it with all of you!

Women Writers of Color: Dia Reeves

Full Name: Dia Reeves

Birth date: November 27, 1977 (Sagittarius, baby!)

Location: Texas (No, I do not wear cowboy boots or a cowboy hat.)

Website/blog: http://www.diareeves.com/

Genre: YA paranormal

WiP or most recently published work: BLEEDING VIOLET (It released January 5, 2010 from Simon Pulse.)

How frequently do you update your site?

Whenever I feel like it/remember to/am bored.

Is your site designed for reader interaction?

People can comment, send me an email. On the Contact page I tell everyone if they really wanna know what I'm up to, to find me on Twitter or Facebook.

Post of note, something in particular you want readers to check out

The F.A.Q. page. Please PLEASE before you email me, read it first so that I don't have to say, yet again, that there's no sequel to BLEEDING VIOLET. Think of my carpal tunnel syndrome and have pity!

100 words or less, how would you describe your work?

Weird, dark, sexy, unapologetic. You know how some people write books that are uplifting and family-friendly? I write the opposite of that. You have been warned, people. Mwahahaha!

100 words or less please share your thoughts on the following: POC in YA fantasy/sci fi

Ain't a whole lot, is there? Other than stuff by Nancy Farmer and Nnedi Okorafor. And me. I don't know why. But I loved dark, creepy stuff growing up, and I'm glad to be in a position to show POCs kicking monster butt and taking names! Instead of, you know, being the first ones to get killed. ;) Hanna's not biracial for a reason-she is who she is. However, her being Finnish came about because there are a lot of Finns where I live. It was just a detail I remembered and built on. :D

Anything else you want to share with CO readers?

I'm really glad to see the positive response and attention BLEEDING VIOLET is getting. Just in case anyone is thinking that a YA paranormal with a POC character (right smack on the front cover at that) doesn't sell as well as other books, I'm glad to stand as an example of how wrong those people are. ;)

Thank you so much for this interview Dia. I just read Bleeding Violet and it's unique and wholly amazing! Plus, the cover is gorgeous. Read Ah Yuan's review of Bleeding Violet. Thank you, Dia, for writing books where POC are kicking major butt and exploring new worlds and allowing readers to escape into a world so different from their own. Also, everyone should check out Dia's website. She's funny, sarcastic and she spotlights lots of movies and songs that fly under the radar. A very cool website, and she coined one of my FAVORITE quotes "The part of me that's cool doesn't manifest itself in any visible way; it's all internal. I wear my cool on the inside; that's why my hands are so cold."

Women Writers of Color: Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa

Full name: Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa

Birth date: September 8, 1949

Location: New York City

Website/blog: llanosfigueroa.com

Genre: Fiction

WiP or most recently published work: Daughters of the Stone

Writing credits:
1993 “Passing On” Shooting Star Review
1997 “Mapping” The Writer’s Voice: Magazine of the Emerging Writers
2003 “Papichulo” Lost and Found: Anthology of Teachers’ Writing
2005 “Mapping” Acts of Emancipation: Anthology of Teachers’
Writing
“Cuban Portraits” Rosebud
“The Healing” Chicken Soup for the Latino Soul
“The Clinic” Chicken Soup for the Latino Soul
2006 “Hair Inspection” Growing Up Girl: An Anthology of Voices from
Marginalized Spaces
2007 “Cuban Portraits” Narrative Magazine (on-line version)
2007 “Cuban Portraits” Narrative Magazine (soft cover version)
2008 “A Writer’s Journey” and
“Hair Inspection” Wordsetc (South African literary journal)
2009 Daughters of the Stone. St. Martin’s Press, NYC (novel)
2010 “Maggie” Women’s Work (upcoming)

How frequently do you update your site?
I check on reader responses every day and update my events calendar once a month.

Is your site designed for reader interaction?
Yes, there’s a section for reader input. I’m looking forward to reading family tales or stories that have been passed down. But no one has left me stories yet.

Post of note, something in particular you want readers to check out:
Check out the “Share Your Story” page on my web site and contribute your story. Also, if a reader likes my book, he/she should review it on Amazon or Barnes & Nobles.com or one of the social networks. That’s one way of letting publishers know that there is an audience out there for our work.

Top 5 reads you’re looking forward to reading in 2010?
(Sorry, can’t limit myself to just five)
Half of a Yellow Sun and Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Shanghai Girls and Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See
The Book of Night Women by Marlon James
The Known World by Edward P. Jones
The Angel’s Game by Carlos Zafon


100 words or less how would you describe your work?
I write first and foremost, because the stories I was given to read in school didn’t reflect my reality at home. They did not tell of the lines in my grandmother’s face or my father’s broken hands or the smell on my grandfather’s skin when he came home from the fields. Nowhere did I see the many hues of my cousins’ skins or hear the music of the Caribbean or the sound of my mother’s voice when she called me mamita or nena. I write because I want other little girls like me to be able to find themselves in the stories they read or watch on television.

100 words on less please share your thoughts on the writing life:
From the time I was in high school, I knew I wanted to be a writer. But writing wasn’t a reliable way to earn a living. While I never gave up on my dream, I realized that I needed my day-to-day experiences to lend truth and life to my fiction. I was the best librarian and teacher I could be during the week and took evening and weekend workshop, honing my skills for the day when writing would be my life. When I retired from teaching, I was ready.

Women of color writers:
I have met so many fine writers of color who have wonderful work, which isn’t being promoted by the publishing industry. The assumption seems to be that our folks don’t read. How long will it take them to realize that if you give folks what they can relate to, they will spend the money? All you have to do is look at the success of Push. Not only was the book a success, the movie is a critical and financial smash hit.

Writing and activism:
For me, fiction is a powerful form of activism. In a novel, it’s not about statistics or dry historical recitation. Fiction puts a human face on events. Its purpose is to touch the reader on an emotional as well as an intellectual level. Statistics don’t move me. I need to see the effect of those statistics on a human being.

Dahlma, thank you for allowing us to promote and support your work.

Women Writers of Color: Neesha Meminger

Full name: Neesha D. Meminger

Birth date: October 17th

Location: Bronx, NY

Website/blog: Neesha Meminger.com and Cynical, Ornery, Sublime, Lush

Genre: YA; Fantasy and Contemporary

WiP or most recently published work:
Most recently published work-Shine, Coconut Moon (McElderry Books, 2009)
WIP--YA Fantasy
I also write other genres under a pen name.

Writing credits:
Much of my writing has been published in journals, newspapers, anthologies, quarterlies, and online magazines. If you do a search for my name you'll see plenty of earlier work pop up :).

How frequently do you update your site?
I would say every couple of months or so...? *Editors note: blog is updated weekly.

Is your site designed for reader interaction?
Readers are always invited to email me with questions, comments, thoughts, and opinions. On my "For Readers" page, I have some fun activities related to SHINE, COCONUT MOON including music, family portraits, and teen responses to interesting questions.

Post of note, something in particular you want readers to check out:
Many of my posts of note deal with race and representation in children's publishing. I am always interested in the ways race, gender, sexuality, and class representation intersect with popular culture and mass media. My undergraduate degree is in film and media, so that might explain it. I also want to point to Amy Bowllan's Writers Against Racism series that *everyone* should check out. But here is a sampling of posts (some on my blog, some not) about issues that matter to me:

My guest post on Justine Larbalestier's blog, Colleen Mondor's What A Girl Wants series on her blog, Chasing Ray. One that is particularly close to my heart is the "Mean Girls" post and The SHINE cover story.

On giving back when one uses another community's representation in their own interests and
Books I've cherished and Who Gets to Represent?

100 words or less how would you describe your work?
My work is (and will always be) about the lives of women of colour. That is what I know and it is what I am passionate about. I think if you write something to a trend, or try too hard to bend yourself to a market, it shows in the final product. So, I try to stick with topics that ignite something within. Topics that mean more to me than just telling a good story. Usually those topics include redefining the boundaries set for us as women and people of colour; social and economic justice; the equitable distribution of resources; basic human rights for all citizens, such as health care and the right to live free of fear and violence; envisioning the world in a new way; seeing new paradigms and new possibilities. Every single thing I write incorporates these sensibilities because they are an extension of who I am.

100 words on less please share your thoughts on writing and activism:
This is a bit of an extension of the previous answer. To me, writing and activism are inextricably linked. My writing--*all* of my creative expression--IS my activism. When I made films, they dealt with the same topics and issues as my writing. When I do anything creative, it is an expression of who I am as a whole. And, because part of who I am includes a passion for social change, that passion inevitably finds its way into my characters, my plotlines, the structure of my stories. I think, in part, this is what writing by any group (from the inside) is. It is the *lived* experience of a struggle for change and equality. Anyone can write a character. Anyone can infuse that character with universal emotions and slap a colour on that character. But adding the layer of struggle, the layer of not just passion, but a desperate need to see a new way of being--THAT is what makes any representation of the "other" layered and complex. And that doesn't mean ONLY depicting characters who are down in the dumps, whose lives exist solely within the context of violence and degradation. Anyone can put that together, too. But again--layering that experience with the hope, the unrelenting urge to soar beyond daily confines, to expand outside of the stifling conditions of racism, poverty, misogyny, and homophobia...THAT is where authentic representation comes in. If an author doesn't breathe her own LIVED experience into a character, that character remains dead on the page.


Thanks, Neesha. Looking forward to our book discussion on Friday.

Women Writers of Color: Dorina Lazo Gilmore

Full name: Dorina Kailani Lazo Gilmore

Birth date: 05.01.1977

Hometown: Chicago, Illinois

Current location: Fresno, California

Website/Blog: www.health-full.blogspot.com, www.shens.com

Genre: Children's picture book

WiP or most recently published work: Cora Cooks Pancit (Shen's Books)

Writing credits:
My most recent children's book is Cora Cooks Pancit (Shen's Books). My poem "City Jazz" was just published in the February 2010 issue of Cricket Magazine. I also have two other picture books, including Children of the San Joaquin Valley and A Stone in the Soup: A Hmong Girl's Journey to the United States (Poppy Lane Publishing). I was the editor and a contributing poet for the anthology, Mosaic Voices: A Spectrum of Central Valley Poets (Poppy Lane Publishing). I am a frequent blogger and freelance writer for various magazines. Before I became a mother, I worked in journalism and was published in The Fresno Bee, The Arizona Republic, The Chicago Tribune and other publications.

How frequently do you update your site?
I update my Health-full blog weekly. It's a place where my husband and I write about food, nutrition, exercise. I also share my original recipes on that blog.

Is your site designed for reader interaction?
Yes, we encourage comments, questions and feedback from our readers.

Post of note, something in particular you want readers to check out:
My husband and I are also involved in connecting resources with Haiti. We would love more people to know about our non-profit and to join us as we send relief to our dear Haitian friends since the January 2010 earthquake. www.christianfriendshipministries.org

100 words or less: How would you describe your work?
My writing is decidedly multicultural. I am fascinated by the nuances of culture as represented through music, food, stories and dance. I grew up in a multicultural family and I believe there is a need for today’s young reader to have more exposure to multicultural stories and books with multi-ethnic protagonists. My writing, in both poetry and prose, seeks to illuminate a new face and give voice to a different storyteller.

100 words or less: Please share your thoughts on children and reading.
Every day I sit down with my two daughters (and sometimes more children) to read. It's my favorite time of the day as we explore the world together through stories. My mother always read to me and recited poetry. She inspired me with her love for good books and the way she made the words come alive. Books are a place where children can actively learn to interpret the world and understand it. I believe it is imperative that we work together to produce and promote more multicultural books for children so they can find themselves in books.