LeUyen Pham and I are about to hit the road to tour for our new graphic novel REAL FRIENDS, a memoir about the ups and downs of elementary school friendship. Are we touring near you?

TUESDAY, MAY 2 - SAN FRANCISCO, CA

4:00pm Launch Event @ Kepler’s Books
Location: 1010 El Camino Real, Menlo Park, CA 94025
Contact: (650) 324-4321
Link: www.keplers.org/upcoming-events-internal/2017/5/2/shannon-hale-and-leuyen-phan

WEDNESDAY, MAY 3 · DENVER, CO

12:15pm Public Meet n’ Greet @ Second Star to the Right
Location: 4353 Tennyson St, Denver, CO 80212
Contact: (303) 455-1527
Link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/meet-shannon-hale-and-leuyen-pham-at-second-star-to-the-right-tickets-33634709321

THURSDAY, MAY 4 · WICHITA, KS

11:30am Ticketed Event: Lunch Meet n’ Greet
Location: Watermark Books & Cafe, 4701 E. Douglas, Wichita, KS 67218
Contact: (316) 682-1181
Link: http://www.watermarkbooks.com/event/shannon-hale-leuyen-pham 

SATURDAY, MAY 6 · ST. LOUIS, MO

4:00pm Public Event @ St. Louis County Library
Location: St. Louis County Library Headquarters, 1640 S. Lindbergh Blvd. Frontenac, MO 63131
Bookstore Contact:  (314) 738-9384
Link: https://www.slcl.org/content/shannon-hale 

SUNDAY, MAY 7 · ST. PAUL, MN

3:00pm Public Event @ Red Balloon Bookshop
Location: 891 Grand Ave, St Paul, MN 55105
Contact: (651) 224-8320
Link: http://www.redballoonbookshop.com/event/shannon-hale-real-friends 

FRIDAY, MAY 12 · TORONTO, CANADA

Toronto Comic Arts Festival - Library and Educator Day
REGISTRATION REQUIRED: http://www.torontocomics.com/whats-happening/library-educator-day-2017/

11:15am Shannon Hale Presentation to Librarians/Educators
Title: No Boys Allowed: The subtle ways we gender books and cut boys off from reading
Location: Epic Room, Toronto Reference Library, 789 Yonge St, Toronto, ON M4W 2G8

12:15pm Librarian/Educator Lunch
Participants: Shannon Hale, LeUyen Pham
Location: Toronto Reference Library, 789 Yonge St, Toronto, ON M4W 2G8

SATURDAY, MAY 13 · TORONTO, CANADA

Toronto Comic Arts Festival - Kids Programming Day (free and open to the public)
MORE DETAILS: http://www.torontocomics.com/whats-happening/programming/

10:00am REAL FRIENDS Presentation @ TCAF
Location: St. Paul’s Church, 227 Bloor St E, Toronto, ON M4W 1C8, Canada
Participants: Shannon Hale, LeUyen Pham
Description: The dynamic duo of Shannon Hale and LeUyen Pham are teaming up again for the new book REAL FRIENDS! Join them as they explore the emotional roller coaster ride of friendship, from navigating the tricky waters of cliques and bullies to her never-ending struggle to stay in “The Group.” Come help kick of Kids Day!

11:00am REAL FRIENDS Book Signing @ TCAF (following presentation)
Participants: Shannon Hale, LeUyen Pham
Location: St. Paul's Church, 227 Bloor St E, Toronto, ON M4W 1C8, Canada

12:00pm Draw-Along with LeUyen Pham
Location: Beeton Auditorium, Toronto Reference Library, 789 Yonge St, Toronto, ON M4W 2G8
Participants: LeUyen Pham
Description: Come and draw with LeUyen Pham (REAL FRIENDS)

12:15pm Prose to Comics/Comics to Prose PANEL @ TCAF
Location: High Park Ballroom, Marriott Bloor-Yorkville, 90 Bloor St E, Toronto, ON M4W 1A7, 
Participants: Scott Westerfeld, Shannon Hale, Ryan North, Cecil Castellucci 
Description: The biggest names in YA books talk about how what they love about comics, the challenges of writing in a new medium, and if they think it'll change the way they connect with their audiences.

2:00pm First Second Booth Signing - REAL FRIENDS
Location: First Second Booth @ TCAF, Toronto Reference Library
Participants: Shannon Hale, LeUyen Pham

SATURDAY, MAY 20 · SALT LAKE CITY, UT

5:00pm talk and signing @ The King’s English

and, 7:00pm talk and signing, in conversation with Megan Whalen Turner @ The King’s English
Location: 1511 S 1500 E Salt Lake City, UT
Contact: http://www.kingsenglish.com

Hey friends! Like me, many of you were horrified by this news report:

 We want to show love for this school and their outstanding robotics team in the form of a book drive. This is a Title 1 school with a very diverse population. Authors, you can sign books to Pleasant Run. Anyone else who can donate is much appreciated! Picture books, early readers, chapter books, and middle grade books most welcome, especially those written by and featuring people of color. Also early readers in Spanish would be a bonus as they have dual immersion language program for some kindergarten classes.

Mail books to:

Pleasant Run Elementary

1800 N Franklin Rd

Indianapolis, IN 46219

If you have books more appropriate for middle or high school, this diverse district would love those too! Mail to:

Metro School District of Warren Township

975 N. Post Road

Indianapolis, IN 46219

ATTN: Kathy Disney

Thank you! And congrats to the robotics team at Pleasant Run. You inspire us!

When writing any book, I always cut more than I keep. I just have to go through a lot of sentences, try out a lot of ideas, before discovering what works just right. Sometimes what I cut I really like but doesn't work for the best of the story. In this case, Dean and I adored the Epilogue to The Princess in Black and the Perfect Princess Party. It made us laugh. But we cut it for two reasons. 

1. Originally we didn't have a chapter about Frimplepants in book 2, but we decided to add one in order to introduce him again. New readers might not yet be familiar with him. And besides, I just never tire of saying the name Frimplepants. Adding the new chapter 2 also added several pages. We want to be mindful of page count. The more pages, the longer the book for young readers and their parents, the more illustrations LeUyen must complete, and the more expensive for the publisher to print it. This book was already longer than the first, so we had to watch that page count!

2. It was nice to end the story in the celebratory moment with Princess Magnolia and all the princesses enjoying the party. Cutting away to Monster Land after that was funny but also anti-climactic. 

But at the least, I'll post it here. It might be fun to read it with a young PIB reader and help them understand a little bit about the process of writing and editing a book. This epilogue would also be a good one to discuss in terms of reading comprehension and inference.

 

EPILOGUE

The pink monster could not get out of that goat pasture fast enough. It was good to be back in Monster Land. No shiny sunlight. No unpleasantly fresh air. No yelling princesses. 

The pink monster put its clawed hands in its pockets. It went for a stroll.

A slimy monster was heading toward the hole. It had its nose in the air. It was taking in the smell of goats.

The pink monster put out a clawed hand to stop it. 

“ROOAARR!” it said.

That meant, “No goat hunting today, my slimy friend. Things are awkward up there. It’s the Princess in Black’s birthday, you see. I wouldn’t dare go up without a gift.”

The slimy monster said, “ROOAAARRR.”

That meant, “Thank you for the warning. You have been most helpful.”

The slimy monster turned away from the hole. It went home. 

It wrapped a gift.

Hopefully the Princess in Black liked toenail clippings.

DON'T ASSUME MY GENDER

My fourteen-year-old, green-haired, artist of a daughter is dressing as a gender-bending Spock for Halloween. There are no Spock dresses; she is sewing it herself. This is a surprise to no one. Sometimes my kid dresses like a “boy.” Sometimes she dresses at a “girl.” She sees gender as a spectrum and sexuality as fluid, and isn’t afraid to tell you either of those things. 

These ideas did not come from me, though I embrace them. My daughter is part of what I think of as the Tumblr generation, a universe of middle schoolers who are growing up in constant communication with each other, and who define themselves in terms of specific fandoms and individual self-expressions, particular memes and re-imagined cosplay themes. 

In my daughter’s world, gender rules are different. In one of her favorite popular fandoms, Steven Universe has three de-facto “moms,” and Gems like Steven can combine and re-combine into powerful partnerships regardless of their gender. 

Even my daughter’s language is different. She wants to “marry” both Foggy and Matt Murdock from Daredevil, and isn’t afraid to tell you that, in the same way she isn’t afraid to try out “boy” eyebrows in brown eyeliner on her face. On the first day of school this year—at an admittedly arty, liberal private school in an urban environment—she wrote DON’T ASSUME MY GENDER on her arm in Sharpie. Nobody bullied her; in fact, one of the senior girls told her she thought she was cool. 

She is cool, but so is the kid that could say that. Why can’t we all be that cool? Our world changes every day. Why can’t we let it? Why can’t we admit it? All we have left to do, as parents and teachers and educators and grown-ups, is to follow our children’s lead. 

Why should a bookshelf be more rigid than reality?

Sometimes I want to borrow my daughter’s Sharpie and write DON’T ASSUME MY GENDER on every book in the Middle Grade or Young Adult shelves. Books shouldn’t be less gender-fluid than the kids who read them. Growing up, even I identified with Holden Caulfield, Ponyboy, and both Murray siblings, Charles Wallace and Meg. When Pam Ling and Tessa Roper and I held our Dark is Rising fan club under the steps of the classroom bungalow in third grade, we all wanted to be the Seventh Son of a Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, what Susan Cooper considered the most powerful of her magical race of ancient Old Ones. It never even occurred to me that there would be a gender issue there, because we were Will Stanton, all of us. We knew what it was like to be him, because we had been him, for as long as we’d read the books. 

My latest book, BLACK WIDOW: FOREVER RED, out this week, has three main characters and three POV’s. Two are female and one is male. Is it 2/3 a girl book? Or 1/3 a boy book? How do we define either one of those labels? All three characters are equally heroic. All three kick major butt. All three write their own destiny, star in their own story arc, rescue themselves and each other on any given page. 

At YALLFEST and YALLWEST, two book festivals I work with, Veronica Roth invented a panel called “STRONG FEMALE CHARACTERS UGH!” In other words, it’s the WHY DO WE STILL NEED TO HAVE THIS PANEL PANEL. In the same way, when Shannon asked me to contribute to this week of posting, I thought -- books are for everyone. Of course they are. Why do we still need to write a post about that?

DON’T ASSUME A BOOK’S GENDER.

Maybe I can’t write that on all the books, so I’ll try to write it into your brain. Because my kid may not be the norm but the truth she is trying to articulate is far bigger than just one Vulcan in a dress. 

She’s a person.

People are people.

Books are books.

Readers are readers.

Stories are everyone.

———————

Margaret Stohl is the #1 New York Times Bestselling co-author of the BEAUTIFUL CREATURES Novels and DANGEROUS CREATURES novels, as well as the author of BLACK WIDOW: FOREVER RED (Marvel YA), and the ICONS Novels. Prior to becoming an author, Margaret worked in the video game industry as a writer and lead designer for sixteen years. She is also the co-founder of YALLFEST (Charleston, SC) and YALLWEST (Santa Monica, CA), two of the biggest kid/teen book festivals in the country. An alumnus of Amherst College, Stanford University, and Yale University, Margaret lives in Santa Monica with her family, two rescue cats, and two bad beagles.

There’s a feeling I get in the pit of my stomach whenever I see a message from my editor in my inbox with a subject line that says, Cover. I take deep breaths before I click the email open because I know that in many cases, the cover sells the book. The cover is a marketing tool. One image is supposed to convey the essence of the entire novel, while also being aesthetically pleasing, while also whispering to readers, “This book is for you.” And then of course, there are my own feelings. I want to be proud of the cover. That image will be side by side with me on book tours, on posters and flyers for events. I need to like it, want to love it.

I’m sure all authors have some degree of anxiety over the cover. I’m going to assume that female authors who write stories where the main character is a girl might have even more anxiety because we know that books with girls on the cover get put in the “For Girls Only” category. I know many authors have experienced doing author visits to girl-only audiences because the school thought their male students wouldn’t relate to the author, to her book. What this teaches young people is that stories by and about females are less than stories by and about men. It teaches young boys to silence the female voice, to disregard it, to give it less weight than their own.

As an author who is black and female, who writes stories about young black girls, I know that many librarians and teachers will only recommend my book to black girls. And let me say, that I want black teenaged girls to read my work. I hope they see their experiences mirrored in the pages. But I also hope my work opens up the world a bit for readers who are not black, not female. That they learn new perspectives, that they find ways to relate with the characters who maybe seemed so different from them. Most importantly, I want books by and about women, stories by and about people of color, to be made available for all readers. Because our stories matter. Because the young people sitting in our classrooms, coming to our libraries, will soon be adult citizens who will need the life skill of empathy and the ability to understand and analyze themselves, their society, and contribute in a positive way. They will need to understand the importance of valuing many viewpoints.

I am thankful for the educators, librarians, and parents who have shared my work with young people regardless of their ethnicity or gender. These gatekeepers know that themes of loss, change, resilience, love, and redemption are universal. These gatekeepers are committed to pushing against the norm and asking themselves, What if we recommended books to young readers based on the quality of the story, not if the cover has a girl or boy on it? What if we were intentional about making sure young readers have a variety of stories to choose from where protagonists may or not look like them or come from places similar to the place they live? What if the cover of a book that looked “different” or “too girly,” or “too ethnic” was seen not as a deterrent but an invitation to step outside of oneself? What if stories were for everyone?

---------------------------

Renée Watson is the author of This Side of Home (Bloomsbury 2015), which was nominated for the Best Fiction for Young Adults by the American Library Association. Her picture book, Harlem’s Little Blackbird: The Story of Florence Mills (Random House 2012), received several honors including an NAACP Image Award nomination in children’s literature. Her novel, What Momma Left Me, (Bloomsbury 2010), debuted as the New Voice for 2010 in middle grade fiction.  Renée is on the Council of Writers for the National Writing Project and is a team member of We Need Diverse Books. She currently teaches courses on writing for children at University of New Haven and Pine Manor College.

Shannon’s idea of Stories For All is absolutely fantastic … and absolutely vital.

Fifteen years after founding Guys Read (a web-based literacy initiative for boys at www.guysread.com) in response to the dismal underachievement of boys in reading, I still get questions that let me know we have a long way to go in understanding the role gender might play in reading. And a long way to go in using this understanding to help kids become real readers.

I get questions like:

1. “Why do you have women authors in the Guys Read story collections?”

2. “What should I put in a book if I want to write for boys?”

3. “Why don’t you like girls?” 

One of the primary goals of Guys Read is to promote a discussion of gender and reading – how gender might effect reading, how our assumptions about gender might effect reading. Maybe the answers I try to give to these questions can help add to our Stories For All discussion. 

 

1.  The Guys Read story collections are original short stories, grouped by genre, by some of the best writers in kids’ books.  So OF COURSE they would have women authors. 

Boys can, and should read writing by men and women.  

Check out this amazing bunch of authors who have contributed to the first six volumes: Kate DiCamillo, Margaret Peterson Haddix, Gennifer Choldenko, Jackie Woodson, Anne Ursu, Shannon Hale, Rebecca Stead, Candace Fleming, Sy Montgomery, Elizabeth Partridge, Thanhha Lai, Lisa Brown, Adele Griffin, Claire Legrand, Rita Williams-Garcia, Kelly Barnhill, and Nikki Lofton. 

Who wouldn’t want to read those authors?

And yes, girls can read the Guys Read books too.

 

2. No one should be writing for boys. Or writing for girls. Please don’t do that. 

Our job as authors is to write the best stories we can, and maybe help those stories find their best readers.  

If that reader happens to be a boy – great!  

If that reader happens to be a girl – great!

 

3. Efforts to help boys are not efforts to hurt girls.

Literacy is not a zero-sum proposition. Good things we do for boys can make a better reading world for girls.

The more literate any citizen is, the better off we all are. 

While working as our first National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, my platform was “Reaching Reluctant Readers”.  Visiting schools, speaking at conventions, presenting at libraries, I quickly found that what we had learned about reaching reluctant boy readers applies to every reader. Here are some tips and strategies we can all try. For every reader.

– expand the definition of “reading” to include non-fiction, graphic novels, or genres like sci-fi, even if you personally don't particularly enjoy them

– allow readers a chance for choice. Their choice.

– treat every reader as an individual.

And most importantly

– raise awareness about gender issues and reading.

Suspend quick judgment and blame, and have a discussion.

What I love most about Stories For All is Shannon’s call to hear from the experts – teachers, librarians, booksellers, moms, dads, and the kids themselves. This is not a test with a simple right answer or a wrong answer. It’s a discussion, a process, a chance to make a change for better reading for all. 

Let’s.

———————-

Jon Scieszka is the award-winning and bestselling author of a boatload of books, including The True Story of the Three Little Pigs!, The Stinky Cheese Man, the Time Warp Trio series, the Trucktown series, and the Frank Einstein series. He was the USA's first National Ambassador for Young People's Literature and is the founder of Guys Read. Jon lives in Brooklyn with his wife. They have two children.