No matter if words or illustrations, books or e-books, every form of modern children’s books struggles with issues of representation and inclusion of children and families of all cultures, races, religions, classes, ethnicities, and backgrounds.  Far too often works for children do not reflect the diversity of the world, English-speaking or otherwise. Since our own forum is cyber-based, it only makes sense that the question of multicultural e-books for children should arise on this PaperTigers feature.  Here is a far from conclusive set of suggestions for initial forays into the multicultural children’s e-book world, arranged approximately by reading age, youngest to oldest.  This post rounds up our focus on multicultural children’s e-books.  If you’ve just arrived in the discussion, do take a look at my earlier post, e-troducing the e-book, as well as our interviews with authors Janet Wong and Hazel Edwards.

Janet Wong, illustrated by Sladjana Vasic,
Once Upon A Tiger: New Beginnings for Endangered Animals
OnceUponATiger.com, 2011.

Learning has never been this interactive. Poet and author Janet Wong supplements her poems about a range of endangered animals, from the familiar whale and polar bear to the tongue-twisting axolotl and mouth-filling Sumatran rhinoceros, with nonfiction information about each particular animal’s stories. A Once Upon A Tiger website pushes interactivity, allowing readers to write and send poems of their own.

Dub Leffler,
Once There Was a Boy
Magabala Books, 2011.

Ages 3+

This exquisite, fragile picture book tells the story of a boy who lives alone on an ancient boat on a beach until one day, a girl appears. A disarmingly evocative, gentle story of friendship, separation and reconciliation propelled through breathtaking illustrations.

Andrea Cheng,
Only One Year
Lee & Low Books, 2010.

Ages 7-10

This slender, gentle chapter book introduces readers to a serious subject rarely discussed in children’s literature. After he turns two, Di Di’s parents, immigrants from China, decide to send him to China for the year to live with his grandparents, learn Chinese, and know his family. Told from the point of view of Di Di’s older sisters Sharon and Mary (ages 9 and 6), Only One Year addresses the confusion, shame, embarrassment, and sadness they feel trying to come to terms with this common immigrant family custom, and to their own fears that their American friends will not understand, and that Di Di in turn will return having forgotten America and his American sisters.  Read a full review.

Monica Brown, illustrated by Rafael Lopez,
My name is Celia / Me llamo Celia: The Life of Celia Cruz /la vida de Celia Cruz
Luna Rising, 2004.

Ages 8-12

Growing up in a large Cuban family, baby Celia loves music more than everything, even though her father wants her to be a teacher. After revolution begins in Cuba, Celia flees prejudice and violence and learns how to make her way through the world, sharing her love of music with everyone she meets. The other two titles in Monica Brown’s My Name is/Me llamo… series, My Name Is Gabito and My Name is Gabriela are also available as e-books.

Ching Yeung Russell,
Tofu Quilt
Lee & Low Books, 2010.

Ages 9+.

Yeung Ying’s mother might understand that girls are just as good as boys, but in 1960s Hong Kong, all Yeung Ying hears from everyone else is how important boys are. After her mother saves precious money to send Yeung Ying to school, she begins to imagine a dream centered around writing, relayed here in thirty-eight poignant, free-verse chapters that tell the story of a girl and a culture each finding their identities.  Read a full review.

Guadalupe Garcia McCall,
Under the Mesquite
Lee & Low Books, 2011.

Ages 12+

Mexican-American Lupita struggles to keep her seven siblings and herself together after their mother is diagnosed with cancer. Facing chaos at home and the normal struggles of social life at high school, budding actress Lupita finds refuge “under the mesquite,” where she turns to writing to make sense of an unscripted world.

Hazel Edwards and Ryan Kennedy,
f2m: the boy within
Ford Street, 2010.

Ages 14+

Authors Hazel Edwards and Ryan Kennedy take on a subject until recently virtually absent from teen fiction, transgendered identities. When all-female punk rock band guitarist Skye decides to make the change from female to male – which is how she feels on the inside – she must come to grips with not only the physical changes her body undergoes, but also the emotional challenges of making and sticking to the decision.

Looking for more? Often the easiest multicultural books to find are those that have won prestigious awards, like the Newbery, CBCA or former Smarties Award, such as Where The Mountain Meets the Moon, The Watsons Go To Birmingham, or Hitler’s Daughter.

For one of the best resources for free e-books about all cultures, check out the International Children’s Digital Library, an online resource where you can sort by title, author, country, and award-winner.

As more publishers embrace e-publishing, more multicultural e-books will become available. In turn, as the technical potential for reproducing picture books increases, we will hopefully see more picture books making the leap. Today both traditional print books and e-books still consistently neglect and under-represent those peoples who themselves historically remain neglected and underrepresented. In turn, many of those engaged in the world of multicultural children’s literature hope that the ease e-books offer, particularly with new horizons of self-publishing and viral promotion, will impact both the ability to offer more books for children that represent all children in the world, as well as give all children access to books they might not otherwise reach.

Like the publication of multicultural children’s e-books itself, this list is a beginning. As always, we welcome your thoughts and suggestions. What other multicultural e-books have you read that you would recommend?

As we continue to explore the world of e-books on PaperTigers, we’re asking practitioners and people on the ground about some of the challenges and triumphs they personally have faced creating e-books, as well as the challenges and triumphs they see for the industry as a whole. Last week we spoke with Janet Wong ; today we chat with Hazel Edwards.

Hazel is a 2012 Astrid Lindgren Award nominee, and Ambassador for Australia’s  2012 National Year of Reading, and writes a story each birthday for her grandkids. f2m:the boy within was a 2011 White Ravens selection. Hazel is also a director of the Australian Society of Authors and especially interested in e-books. She is perhaps best known for her There’s a Hippopotamus on Our Roof Eating Cake series, as engaging and creative as the author herself, which recently celebrated its 30^th anniversary with the release of the Pocket Bonfire short film that screened internationally at 2011 film festivals.

We first interviewed Hazel back in 2007, and since then she has been a regular guest on the PaperTigers Blog; we’re delighted to welcome her back now to tell us about her involvement with e-books.

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What was your inspiration for writing e-books? Was that your intention from the get-go, or was there an evolution in your creative process?

I enjoy e-books, both as another innovative format for my stories and to read myself. Inclusive of print, not exclusive. Audio already exists. Maybe smellovision next?

Change should be embraced, not feared. So, although I’m format-challenged, my aim is to learn one e-skill per day and slowly add e-stories to my website. For e-skilled children who are more visual rather than verbal, I’d prefer them to exercise their imaginations reading mysteries on screen, than play violence-based computer-games.

As a 2012 National Year of Reading Ambassador, I’m keen on any aids to literacy, and reading ‘on screen’ is seen as ‘cool’ by challenged readers, whether kids or adults. That’s the reason for adding my mystery series and performance scripts as an easy way of sharing reading for a fun purpose.

‘Us mob likes your e-stories’ was a response after an outback web-chat with an indigenous literacy program.

Fan mail proves e-books work for challenged readers, whether read on laptops or other devices. Educator Robyn Floyd forwarded this fan mail. And it’s genuine responses like this that make an author’s day.

Recently, my e-mentor daughter streamlined my website to allow sales of my print books, along with a slow move to all e-books, for the ease of readers beyond bookshops and libraries. This also makes my books available for international schools or remote web chats.

Experimentally, I grouped some of my easy-to-read children’s mystery stories into an e-book series, Project Spy Kids, starring Art, a challenged reader who is a sleuth and excellent problem-solver.

My mainstream publishers have my print titles as e-books on Amazon etc.  These include the nonfiction Aussie Heroes series Sir Edward Weary Dunlop and forthcoming Dr Fred Hollows and eco-fantasy  Plato the Platypus Plumber (part-time). An early e-book series was Duckstar.

So why did I become an e-publisher?

• Some of my publisher merger ‘orphaned’ titles were requested by readers and I had no copies. Rights-reverted titles could be re-published in new formats, from my own site.
• My aim was speed of reader access (they get the e-book within 24 hours) plus extras like free finger puppet patterns or Antarctic polar ship plans.
• I write in varied fields. Writing a Non Boring Family History, my most popular e-book, helps grandparents or parents wanting to write family stories for children of their extended families internationally.
• A non-fiction title in print and e-book format is Difficult Personalities with Dr Helen Mc Grath. This has an audio Louis Braille version as well.
• International web-chats with authors are more relevant when the e-book is instantly accessible. f2m:the boy within is a significant  gender transition (and punk music) print novel easily and diplomatically available for international readers via Amazon etc.

In 2009 I was an Author Ambassador with the Nanjing International Cultural Exchange.  We did webchats in dual languages, and wrote some school-based stories about school pet turtles in Mandarin and English to exchange between the Australian and Chinese schools. Now some of my titles are in Mandarin.

So although I see my core profession as author, I’ve become an authorpreneur, unintentionally.

Children’s books, particularly picture books, present specific challenges to the e-book industry in terms of faithful reproduction of art and story. They also present exciting opportunities for new forms of interaction. What limitations or challenges, expected or unexpected, have you personally experienced creating e-books for children, and in turn, what benefits have you discovered as compared to printed books?

Picture books are a greater technical e-challenge in terms of preserving the quality via aps but Blue Quoll is innovating with selected picture book titles of mine. Certain stories are better suited to certain formats, but there is enormous potential for adding/changes languages and using the audio as a literacy aid. This is the MOST exciting area.

Plato the Platypus Plumber Part-time is available in Spanish, German and English as an e-book as well as a print picture book. The eco-water issues plus the ‘tool kit’ for fixing watery problems, but also grumpy people, is relevant for the age group, but there are still quality-formatting-conversion challenges to e-books.

However the Pocket Bonfire’ production of There’s a Hippopotamus on Our Roof Eating Cake is an excellent example of the director retaining the sentiment and childlike focus of the original book, but using the strengths of the medium to add new insights via sound, pausing, visuals etc.

I would like to see the Hippo stories in e-book apps formats. But that decision is for the publisher Penguin and when they think the timing and technology appropriate.

Particularly in English-speaking countries, a common concern is the lack of diversity in children’s books. How or do you think e-books might address such concerns, and how has your work engaged with issues of multicultural children’s books?

Stories crossing media into theatre or film and going into formats such as Braille or Auslan signing for deaf kids have always intrigued me.  My books have been translated into Indonesian, Mandarin, Finnish, French, Polish and American, where Mum became Mom and taps became faucets.

I live in a multicultural suburb of Melbourne. Our neighbours are Chinese, Vietnamese, Greek, Dutch, New Zealander, Serbo-Croatian , Somali and Italian. That’s just my street. Hence my Frequent Flyer Twins are Asian-Australian 10-year-old sleuths. Authors draw inspiration from their communities, but the best stories always have universal appeal through compassion.

Originally a popular print series, the Frequent Flyer Twins books now have new covers, e-formatting for all kinds of e-readers and merchandise such as stickers, t shirts, etc. by graphic designer/illustrator Jane Connory.  We met serendipitously in a local park when I was doing a Channel 31 “Kids in the Kitchen” program linking food and reading my picture books.  I had my grandson cooking Hippo footprints on camera (pancakes). Jane now designs all the new e-books in the “Project Spy Kids” literacy mystery series and illustrates the covers.

In the twentieth century the development of children’s rooms in public libraries marched hand-in-hand with growth in the children’s publishing industry. Do you think e-books will change roles of traditional libraries, and how do you envision e-books reaching children of all incomes and backgrounds?

Digital libraries are the key to providing e-books for readers of all incomes. But it’s also necessary to recompense the creators, without illegal copying depriving them.  Currently Australia has PLR (Public Lending Right) and ELR (Educational Lending Right) recompense for surveyed usage of creators’ books in libraries. This is a very significant part of most creators’ incomes. However audio and e-books are NOT included.

Distribution of digital books is a key issue and currently there are discussions of ways creators need to be compensated for library usage.

Stories about minorities need to be better distributed and recompensed, so readers can learn more about other worlds.

We love sneak previews! What are you working on at the moment? Do you plan for it to come out in print, as an e-book, or both?

The Parts of Speech TV Show and the L of a Difference literacy performance scripts have just been uploaded to my site.  Next is the sequel to my chapter book Sleuth Astrid the Mind Reading Chook called Lost Voice of the Grand Final.

This month, I launched a picture book A Safe Place to Live by Bic Walker, a former refugee/boat person from Vietnam and now an architect, who has written a universal story of change from a child’s viewpoint, based on her experiences. I highly recommend this self-published book, and have suggested to Bic than the e-book should be her next challenge.

This is a time of expediential change with e-books. We are all learning together. Next up, I’m going to write Authorpreneurship, a “how to” writing book, just as an e-book, not print.

If you were a fortune-teller, where would you predict the future lies for the evolution of the printed book vs. the e-book generally?

I’d predict that internationally more emphasis will be on audio stories with pictures for future literacy and ease of changing the language. What that technology will be called and in which format, is in transition now.  These are exciting times as regards technology, but the world still needs storytellers, so we can see the world from another’s viewpoint.

Titles, covers, chapter headings and blurbs are especially important for e-books. Readers expect more ‘gadgets,’ but currently print-book conversions work quite well. I predict that the game-book will be the next development, which is why I have been experimenting with my junior mysteries to encourage reader involvement.

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Thank you, Hazel.

New YA novel f2m: The Boy Within by Hazel Edwards and Ryan Kennedy (Ford Street, 2010) by no means sets out to be sensational but it is likely to get a lot of people talking nevertheless. It charts the eighteen-year-old narrator’s physical transition from Skye, female, to Finn, male. Co-author Ryan, a female to male transgender person himself, was able to bring his personal experiences to bear on ensuring the verisimilitude of the narrative.

I read the book at one sitting – it’s a fast-paced and compulsive read. Of course, Finn’s decision to transition does not just impact on him. One of the strong-points of the novel is how Finn tells his family and friends (in particular his fellow members of a feminist punk band) of his decision, and how they then react. We get a fair inkling of the medical process, including counselling and psychological assessment, though Finn’s main source of information comes from internet forums and websites. I came away with a strong feeling of inevitability – as though deep down everyone around Finn knew, like he did, that this was the real person now showing on the outside – so that opposition and prejudice fall away.

This is a novel with a happy ending and very little fall-out – Finn emerges with his relationships intact and indeed, many of them stronger than before. Real life is probably a bit messier; however, f2m: The Boy Within will be a boon to any teenager with feelings of gender anguish and will help to promote tolerance of, and indeed empathy with, those who feel trapped in a body of the wrong gender.

You can read my 2007 interview with Hazel here. She was awarded the prestigious ASA (Australian Society of Authors) medal last year but this, her latest book shows that she is not resting on her laurels! This photo of Hazel and Ryan was taken at the launch of f2m: The Boy Within in Melbourne, Australia on February 14th. We couldn’t be there but we are happy to welcome Hazel and Ryan to the PaperTigers Blog to tell us a bit about the background to writing the novel. With Hazel in Melbourne and Ryan in New Zealand, this was definitely a project that exploited modern means of communication!

So over to Hazel Edwards: (more…)