For the record, I’ve never had a nose job, or tried to bleach my skin. I do not straighten my hair—not that there’s anything wrong with that. The fact is, for decades now, I have worn my hair natural in celebration of my African heritage. I am now, and have always been black and proud.

That said, I take issue with the fact that reviewers routinely begin every discussion of my books by identifying my characters as African American. Now, before you chime in with comments about ethnic pride (“My Greek friends refer to themselves as Greek Americans,” one woman told me, while another said “I’d never call myself Greek-American”) that’s not what I’m talking about, here. Under consideration here are how books are defined in terms of race.

As I noted in a conversation on Facebook, if I were Italian, no reviewer would refer to the characters in my book as Italian-American, unless that heritage was of particular consequence in the storyline. Yet, when it comes to my books, no such distinction is made. The specter of race is raised right out of the gate, with every title, nearly every time, subject notwithstanding. Just recently, I read an otherwise wonderful review of my latest novel, Planet Middle School that did exactly that.

Sigh.

I know it’s possible to write a thoughtful review of this book without mentioning race because K.T. Horning created one for Booklist. Now, since I’ve been in the business for more than 30 years, and most of my books have centered on characters of African American descent, it can be assumed, without prejudice, that my new book does so as well. However, race is by no means germane to the subject or treatment of this particular novel. You’d never know that, though, according to the first review referenced above. Why does that matter? I’m glad you asked.

I understand why librarians might want to be able to quickly identify titles of particular interest to African American readers. And were I a first, or second, or third time author, with no track record, or body of work, or status in the children’s book community, one might argue the importance of mentioning race, at least initially, in connection with my titles. However, none of that is the case.

At this stage of the game, most people involved with, or making use of, children’s literature know that I’m African American, and that my primary characters are, in the main, African American, too. Mind you, I’m not suggesting that I’m “famous” in the sense that we speak of celebrities (God forbid!), but merely that I am well established in the children’s book community, and it is a fairly simple matter to ascertain that the characters of most of my books are African American without having the fact mentioned in review after review after review. Besides, the cover art makes it plain, does it not? (I’ve all but begged publishers to consider creating covers for my books that are not always race-specific, but to no avail!)

“But,” you ask, “what if the cover art is not included in the review?” No problem. Take two seconds to go to IndieBound.org or Amazon.com or the Barnes and Noble website, click on the title in question, and up pops the telling cover art, in no time flat. Problem solved. And oh, by the way, if race is the only common denominator book buyers are interested in, they’re free to check out the special listings publishers produce each year to highlight their own black and multicultural titles. Most publishers’ catalogs I see, these days, have a section set aside for those titles. And don’t forget the annual Publisher’s Weekly issue on black books in—when is that? February?

Of course, my issue with the whole race question in discussing children’s literature (or any literature, for that matter) is, if you will, more than skin deep. I have a problem with segregating teaching or reading practices in all schools, whether a school is segregated or racially mixed. Be a student black, brown, yellow, or white-skinned, he should be encouraged to read a diverse selection of good books by authors of every race. Period.

Is a book well written? Is the story well told? Will the subject matter resonate with readers? Does the book have the potential for making an emotional connection with readers? These are the kinds of questions teachers and librarians should be focused on. In the case of books in which race is central to the storyline, race should absolutely come in for a mention. But where it does not, it should not. That is my contention.

Race, as an explicit designation in books, has a marketing component that can’t be overlooked. Books identified as “black” are frequently marginalized in the marketing plan. Their appeal is automatically considered to be narrower than books written by Caucasian authors, sometimes even when those books are about non-white characters. The point-of-view is assumed to be universal, simply by virtue of the white author’s race. In the sellers mind, a so-called “black book,” i.e., a book written by a black author, should be exclusively marketed to black buyers. As such, said books are rarely made available in outlets located in predominantly white neighborhoods. This makes me crazy because I have avid fans in those neighborhoods, too. I know because I meet them during my school visits, and find their letters among my fan mail. Luckily for me (and them?) they were exposed to my work at their local library.

I can’t help but wonder how many students are missing out on these reading experiences because my “black books” aren’t being marketed to a broader audience. I never know whether to ball my fists or cry.

I find myself annoyed by reviewers who give my books left-handed compliments. In the first sentence of their review, they’ll mention the African American lead character. Then, in the final sentence, they’ll offer some version of “but the story has universal appeal.” Well, duh! If that’s the case, why bother to point out the fact that the character is African American?

(A question just came to me. Can you imagine referring to a computer program design, or a medical breakthrough, or a work of architecture as “black” simply because the creator was African American? I’m just wondering. Where do we draw the line?)

As I sit at my computer, typing this blog, I think back on some of the gorgeously crafted, well-imagined books I read last year as a judge for the National Book Award. I would hate to think that African American students will miss out on the titles that don’t happen to feature African American characters, or that white students will miss out on those books that do. What a crying shame!

I might be inclined to shrug my shoulders and say, “Maybe it’s just me,” except I know it isn’t. There are other authors of color who are bugged by this issue, as well. (And what about those authors who are from South Africa, but are not black? What kind of box do reviewers put their books into? Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to give race more than its due!) Still, I can’t speak for all authors of African descent. It’s quite possible that some are content to have their entire body of work boiled down to the color of their skin. As for me, I’d rather be known for writing books that are moving, inspiring, impacting, emotionally charged, beautifully written, cleverly constructed and—oh, yeah—universally appealing!

But that’s just me.

While channel surfing the other day, I came across a reality show about child beauty pageants. A four or five year old contestant was asked what she wanted to be when she grew up, and her answer was “famous.” Her parent seemed pleased with that response, never once suggesting to her daughter that, perhaps, she should identify a career or profession for which she would like to be known. Being pretty and being known for anything seemed to be the point of it all. I myself found the child’s answer wince-worthy.

To be sure, I’ve met many a child, and not a few adults, whose chief goal in life was to achieve celebrity. They clearly crave the status of being famous for being famous, never mind identifying and honing a talent, or learning a trade, or developing craftsmanship in some chosen field of endeavor. And we won’t even discuss the possibility of pursuing a career in higher education. No. Fame’s the thing.

What’s all that got to do with the push to publish? Everywhere I go across the country, visiting schools and libraries, I encounter young people whose sole focus is on getting published. Note, they are not focusing on becoming good, let alone great writers. They simply want to be known for their writing, and that acknowledgement or fame, if you will, comes in the form of publication.

There’s certainly nothing objectionable about wanting, or needing, validation for one’s work, but that assumes one has actually worked. That is to say, one has striven to hone one’s craft over a reasonable period of time, through study and practice. In the case of a person interested in pursuing publication, it is assumed that one has first done the hard work of sharpening language skills, studying a chosen genre and mastering that singular skill of inestimable value, revision. Said person knows what it is to read, read, read and to write, write, write. (I love Jane Yolen’s answer to questions about the secret to writing a book: Butt in chair!) Once a young writer has done all of the above, I think he or she is ready to pursue publication. But, it appears I would be in the minority.

Nowadays, as early as elementary school, I hear students being referred to as “young authors.” I cringe every time I hear the phrase. Don’t get me wrong. I understand the desire to give children a sense of success, and desk-top-publishing their work may achieve that, in the short term. However, that success won’t be real unless it is earned.

I, for one, would like to see a move away from the push-to-publish model, a shift from “How can I get published?” to “Am I ready to publish?” That shift has to begin in the classroom.

We all know teaching is one of the world’s toughest and least-appreciated jobs. And we understand that most teachers are doing the best they can, despite being hamstrung by requirements to teach to the test. So the last thing I want to do is criticize. But might I gently suggest that there are ways to encourage students to improve their writing that don’t begin and end with publishing? After all, not every child will be inclined to dig deep to do the hard work of revision if he knows he can slap anything on paper and get it published by his teacher or school librarian. Why not make publication an end-of-year goal that students must strive for? Meanwhile, here are a few ideas to keep them writing, along the way. Obviously, since I am not in the classroom myself, I won’t know the best ways to apply these ideas, but those of you who teach will. I’m just throwing my thoughts out there for you to consider.

Challenge students with competitions. Include winners—and not everyone is a winner, otherwise the word would have no meaning—include winners in an end-of-year school publication. Create categories for recognition: Voice, Originality, Descriptive Language, Most Challenging Vocabulary, etc. No one child will achieve in all categories, but several children will achieve in one or more.

Assign students the task of researching magazines and journals that publish work by juveniles, and then encourage those students whose writing merits it to submit their work.

Display the best writing in class. Invite the best writers to read their work out loud. Make this a scheduled time so that students have ample time to prepare work for sharing. I know one teacher who has a poetry chair in her classroom. Once or twice a week—I can’t remember exactly—a student gets to sit in that chair and read one of his or her favorite poems. There’s a great deal of pride attached to the experience of getting to sit in the poetry chair, and students look forward to the opportunity. The same idea could be applied to a student’s own writing. Why not? (Here, again, categories might be useful. Students with different writing strengths could have those strengths honored, week-to-week.)

Okay. Those are some suggested “Dos.” Here are a couple of suggested “Don’ts” for teachers and parents, alike.

Every child can learn the basics of poetry, but not every child is a poet. Please stop telling them that they are. I know some of you will gasp at this notion, but not everyone who learns to draw has the potential to be Picasso. He is encouraged to draw, anyway! I’m no Shakespeare, but my teachers managed to encourage me to write despite that fact. In the process, I discovered my own voice. Teach poetry? Absolutely! But don’t label a student a poet unless he tells you he is. And once he does, challenge him to develop his skill. Guide him to poetry collections to read so that he can discover what is possible in his own work.

Stop seeking mentors for your preteen child who wants to be a writer one week, but will decide to be a basketball player the next. I was seventeen before I sought out my first mentor, and I was pretty hard-core. I’d already begun publishing my work in literary journals, and I sought out a mentor on my own. Most kids, even at 17, aren’t ready for that level of commitment. If they decide they want to make writing their life’s work, they’ll gravitate toward a mentor on their own, when the time is right. Don’t force the issue. This is a tough career, with massive amounts of rejection. One should not set out on this path until he or she has reached a solid level of maturity.

Let’s put publication aside, for a moment and talk about the work ethic, in general. It’s difficult to sort out, but somehow, in the last generation, we’ve lost a respect for, and forgotten about the satisfaction that comes from hard work. We’re all about instant gratification, now—instant everything, in fact. What about the bone-strengthening impact of achievement? What about the self-esteem that derives from working towards, and then achieving, one’s goals? We’ve gotten away from that and our fascination with the new technologies hasn’t helped. We no longer stop to consider whether or not we should do a thing. We only ask whether or not we can, and that definitely applies to publishing. Sigh.

I had a great English teacher in high school. Her name was Evelyn Wexler, or Mrs. Wexler to me. Mrs. Wexler encouraged my writing, and made sure I was familiar with the important African American authors of the day. But one thing Mrs. Wexler never did was give me an easy A+. She made me work for it. I was already quite a good writer, but she wanted me to strive to be better, and if I didn’t challenge myself to do so, she would not reward me with an A+ no matter how much better my essays or book reports were than everyone else’s in class. She was pushing me to be my best, not the best. It was a great lesson for me to learn.

Throughout high school, and beyond, I worked long and hard to create work that was worthy of publication. The result? When I finally saw my work in print, it was cause for celebration. As for the rejection along the way, it made my ultimate success all the sweeter.

I’m not suggesting that young students need to experience rejection in the classroom, but they need not be handed the reward of publication so easily, either. In the long term, it will not serve them well.

I write for a living, and it would be easy enough for me to dash something off and publish it on my blog with little forethought. But I don’t, and there’s a reason for that. As a student, I was challenged to make sure my writing was the very best that it could be before I turned it in. Thanks, Mrs. Wexler. I’m still listening.

Imagine for a moment: you are an author devoted to creating beautiful and inspiring books for children and young adults. Perhaps, somewhere in the back of your mind, you wonder if, someday, your work might be honored to receive a National Book Award. Then imagine that the impossible happens: You learn that your latest book was selected as a Finalist! You are barely over the shock and awe at your good fortune, and are settling into happy anticipation of the coming awards ceremony, where—who knows— your book might even be chosen the winner! Then, suddenly, all hell breaks loose. A book that was not selected is mistakenly announced to the world as a finalist. The aftermath is downright nightmarish.

Once the full truth comes to light, you are as distraught as everyone else for Lauren Myracle, the author in the eye of the storm. But, at the same time, you are heartbroken because your special, once-in-a-lifetime moment was swallowed up in a controversy not of your own making. The national press and social media are all over the story, of course, but the title of your honored book scarcely comes in for a mention. Ouch!

Here’s the thing: the authors selected as this year’s NBA finalists in Young People’s Literature are as blameless in this fiasco as Lauren, and yet, in a very real sense, they too were harmed. How? In the midst of the firestorm that followed, their singular achievements were overshadowed, overlooked, and almost completely ignored. That’s just plain wrong.

I’m not going to rehash the details here. Everybody knows them already. Suffice it to say, grievous mistakes were made, and have been corrected, outrage has been voiced, copious amounts of mud have been slung, and apologies have been offered. It’s done. Now, let’s take a deep breath.

For the record, there were a number of extraordinary books that just missed being chosen this year, and each judge had a favorite title or two fail to garner enough votes to secure a place among the finalists. (I’m still in mourning over the loss of one of my faves. I fought for it right up until the very last vote!) But that is the nature of the beast. There were more than 270 books submitted for consideration, and there were only five spots to fill. We read, discussed, and deliberated over these books for four months, and we chose as carefully and thoughtfully as we could. The work was arduous, and the hours long, but we considered it an honor, and handled it accordingly.

Now, speaking as one of the judges for this year’s NBA panel on Young People’s Literature, I think—we all think—it’s time to shift the dialogue, and give some overdue, positive attention to the books selected. Here, then, are descriptions of the five finalists.

My Name Is Not Easy by Debby Dahl Edwardson

Set in Alaska above the Arctic Circle, My Name Is Not Easy interweaves nature, culture clash, religion and science into a vivid, multi-voiced narrative. The time is the early 1960s at the Sacred Heart Boarding School near Barrow. Eskimo, Indian, and White kids huddle at their own tables. Nothing is easy for kids uprooted from their villages: the food is not what they’re used to (where is the caribou meat, the whale fat?), the Catholic school rules are forbidding, the Cold War looms. This novel is deeply informed by the history and landscape of the high arctic region, where the relentless march of modernity presses on native culture. Back home the villagers still hunt, but now with the help of snowmobiles, not sleds. Though, as a wise elder remarks to a young hunter, “How is that snow machine going to find its way home in a blizzard?” This novel is deeply authentic; Edwardson lives where she writes, and she never falls into cliché. Even the nuns and priests are fully realized characters, with dilemmas of their own. This novel gives voice to an overlooked, outlier part of America, yet the dilemmas and victories of the characters are universal.

Okay for Now by Gary Schmidt

If you were fortunate enough to read the Newbery Honor book, The Wednesday Wars, you’ll be familiar with the main protagonist here. In the summer of 1968, Doug Swietek moves to a small town in upstate New York, which he fondly refers to as “The Dump.” Not that it would matter much where he lived, since he’d still have to contend with an abusive father, a delinquent brother who routinely mistreats him, while sorely missing the oldest, most beloved brother who is away in Vietnam. Desperate for inspiration, Dough clings to a one-time encounter with a baseball star in this tour-de-force. What are the stats? A town that offers up a literary dugout of eclectic characters with bite and wit: a librarian/art teacher, an eccentric playwright, past her prime, a feisty female friend who proves she is more, and a host of grandmotherly neighbors who show Doug was kindness looks like. Schmidt uses these, along with Audubon’s Birds of America, to layer a rich story about choice, inner strength, and the transformative power of art. In fact, this is the first work of fiction I’ve come across that actually takes the reader inside of the process of creating art, while allowing him to experience, along with the character, the wonderful ah-ha moments that comes with exploring the creative process. An additional element that made this book a standout was the prominent place of the library in this narrative. Altogether an amazing achievement!

Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai

Immigration was a recurring theme in the books we read this year but this one, which happens to be a novel-in-verse, was the clear standout. In a pure and authentic voice, a girl named Ha tells the story of her family’s harrowing escape from Saigon as it falls, the horrific ship-ride to America, and the other-worldly experience of landing in Alabama where the coldness of strangers awaits them. Ha, a tough and tender ten-year-old fights for her place in America while relying on the strength of the culture that gave her birth. The emotional impact of this story is felt as much in the words that aren’t said, as in the words that are. With hints of humor throughout, the poetry carries the rhythms of the Vietnamese culture. Readers will think more kindly toward the immigrants in their midst after spending time between the pages of this book. For me, this was love at first read!

Flesh and Blood So Cheap by Albert Marrin

This work of non-fiction explores the infamous Triangle Fire, one of the worst, and most preventable, work-related disasters in American history, eclipsed only by the events of 9/11. In the hands of Marrin, the scope of this story is deep, and wide. The book traces key points in the history of Southern Italians and Russian Jews—the primary victims of the fire—exploring the reasons their forebears immigrated to America, and what brought their descendents into the factory sweatshops of early New York. Readers learn about the so-called “Black Italians,” the impact of the Mount Vesuvius eruption, the Russian pogroms, the Pale of Settlement, right up to Ellis Island, once known as “the Island of Fears,” and the fall of Tammany Hall, illuminating bits of history connected to the Triangle Fire event. The book then follows the impact this disaster had on shifting labor laws and practices to create the more humane, and safe, working environments we all enjoy today. Mirren also brings to light unheralded heroes and heroines of the American Labor movement who rose up to lead reform, and organize unions to push for necessary changes in the workplace. There is drama, poetry, and music in the language here, allowing this history lesson to flow with ease.

Chime by Franny Billingsley

Don’t be fooled by the cover. There is nothing cookie-cutter about this novel. Take twin sisters, a boggy landscape, a handsome young stranger, a ghost or two, then add a magic cauldron, and stir. This book features some of the most lively, original, engaging line-by-line writing you’ll find anywhere. What’s more, the lush language is at the service of a story which manages to explore a dark psychological bond that will be eye-opening for alert, self-reflective readers, and heart-pounding for fans of romance in a kind of steampunk fantasy landscape. This book will be a stretch for many readers, but the remarkable use of language makes the journey a singular experience.

Now that you’ve had a chance to learn something about these outstanding books, I hope you’ll check them out for yourself. They are well worthy of your attention and the authors deserve all of our support. Just imagine, for a moment, if you were one of these authors.