EVENTS

Find black authors on virtual shelf

By Jeff Salamon
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, February 25, 2009

One of the more admirable benefits of Black History Month is that visitors to bookstores and libraries encounter large table displays featuring books by and about African Americans.

Yet according to Austin writer Varian Johnson, too often the same handful of books are recommended over and over by booksellers and librarians.

To promote the much broader world of African American children?s and young adult literature, Johnson and four other authors and illustrators launched the Brown Bookshelf, a Web site (thebrownbookshelf.com) that spotlights numerous such books. (One member of the group is American-Statesman staff illustrator Don Tate II.)

The site?s signature program, 28 Days Later, began last February, when the Brown Bookshelf staff waded through hundreds of books in order to recommend 28 — one for each day of Black History Month. This year, the site has chosen 28 more books that children and teenagers can buy or check out of the library. (Today?s selection is Mary Hoffman, Cornelius Van Wright and Ying-Hwa Hu?s ?Princess Grace.?)

In addition to his Brown Bookshelf duties, Johnson, who has a bachelor?s degree in civil engineeering, keeps busy: His second young adult novel, ?My Life as a Rhombus,? recently came out; he is finishing up his MFA at Vermont College; and five days a week he works at Jacobs Engineering Group.

We spoke to him last week about the story behind the Brown Bookshelf.

Austin American-Statesman: How did the Brown Bookshelf come about?

(Young-adult author) Paula Chase-Hyman and I are on another listserv, and (in 2007) we were talking about our frustration with the amount of attention that African American children?s authors were getting. ? (There?s the same problem) on the adult side — we?ve got the Toni Morrisons and Maya Angelous, and on the other side we have Eric Jerome Dickey and things like that, but we kind of lose some of the middle ground — the mid-list authors. And we thought the same thing was happening on the children and young adult side.

Do you think books for young people by African American writers are underrecognized in a way that adult books by African American writers aren?t?

I do. Our purpose was to try to show that there?s a wide array of books. A lot of times, when folks think about a book by an African American author, they think, OK, the character has to be African American and the story has to have some sort of moral to it, or it has to be about civil rights or slavery or it has to be historical — something to show the African American experience. And it is a good experience to show. Those are important topics. But we also wanted to show there?s a whole wealth of books out there that don?t just focus on the historical, that are contemporary. We just want to find a way to open up the world, or at least some people, to the idea that there?s more than just one type of African American chidlren?s book.

A couple of years ago, the African American novelist Nick Chiles wrote a piece for The New York Times called ?Their Eyes Were Reading Smut,? bemoaning ?the sexualization and degradation of black fiction,? by which he was referring to adult fiction featuring a lot of sex and guns. Are there any similar controversies about African American literature for younger people?

Oh, sure. There was an article a couple of months ago in School Library Journal that had to do with the same thing, basically — the appeal of ?street lit,? urban literature, for teens. ... I think it?s a good thing because it gets teenagers, African American or not, reading. ... That being said, I think it can be dangerous sometimes, depending on how things are glamorized, and I think authors have to be cognizant of that, have to be aware of how their readers could potentially take a subject, internalize a subject.

For the first time, we have two young African American girls living in the White House. Do you think Sasha and Malia might have a role in promoting African American literature for kids?

I hope so. I think it?ll be interesting, with Obama and his family in the White House. I hope they do push literature featuring African American protagonists, but I?m also excited about the idea of pushing literature just by African American authors, despite the (race of the) protagonist. One thing I?ve really liked and admired about President Obama is he?s in office not because of his race or despite his race, but because people think he can do a good job. His race adds color to it, but it doesn?t define his role or his job. And I feel the same way about African American authors. I hate the idea of African American authors, either for adults or children?s or young adult literature, being painted in this corner — ?OK, we have to write about this or we have to write about that, because that?s our experience.?