Monday, November 9, 2009

Book Events: Children's Literature Cafe Cybils Panel

On Saturday I hooked up with new friend Rachel and attended the New York Public Library's Children's Literature Cafe panel on the Cybils. I have to confess, I was super excited to be attending an event about kid/YA lit that was geared towards adults - at a lot of these events that I tag along to, I feel like the odd one out. I'm old enough now that I can't really pass for a high school student, but I am also clearly not chaperoning a teen of my own. So it was kind of fun being one of the youngest in the room for once - there were three or four rows of chairs filled with people old enough to be my parents, and then a back row of twenty-somethings. I am terrible at estimating numbers, but it's safe to say that we were definitely in the minority.

The panelists were Pam from Mother Reader; Anne Boles Levy, founder of the Cybils; Susan Thomsen of Chicken Spaghetti and Elizabeth Burns of A Chair, a Fireplace and a Tea Cozy. The press release said the panelists would "discuss the state of children's literature online today including ethics, publisher/blogger relations, transparency, influence (or lack thereof) over published titles, and what it means to represent an online community of children’s literary enthusiasts."

The panelists did a good job of touching on all of those points briefly, but I definitely felt we were hindered by having only an hour for discussion. There was quite a bit about ethics and transparency in light of how book bloggers were curious about how the FTC's blogging guidelines were going to affect people like bloggers who review publisher-provided ARCs. Also discussed at length were the controversies surrounding the cover of Liar and Scholastic Book Fair's attempt to censor Luv Ya' Bunches. A bit of time was spent discussing the Cybils themselves, but I think the panelists may have thought we knew a lot more about the Cybils than we did, because the only question presented to us, the audience, by them was where we thought the Cybils should go in terms of funding - non-profit status, seeking grants, etc. Since I know nothing about funding a literary award, I have no idea what applying for non-profit status would entail or mean, and it didn't seem like the audience as a whole had solid ideas, either, so that fell a bit flat.

I have to admit, I was also a little disappointed in terms of representation. Pam had a short little speech prepared to open the panel, and in it she listed all the different types of people who are active in the kidlitosphere - teachers, librarians, moms, dads, teenagers, professors, etc. And yet the panelists were four white women who had careers related to books (reviewer, librarian, etc), and most were mothers. I felt it presented a very narrow look at the kidlitosphere, and did nothing to support Pam's claims of diversity.

I am super excited to know now that the Children's Literature Cafe meets monthly - I definitely plan on going back again. I just wish it lasted longer! An hour really isn't enough time to get a great discussion going, but thanks to everyone that came out and made the hour that we did have worthwhile.

7 comments:

Liz B said...

Thank you so much for coming to the panel. You're right; one hour was definately not enough time!

Susan T. said...

Bookish, I'm glad you came to the event! There was (and always is) a lot to talk about.

I hope to attend more of these children's literature salons, too.

Susan
Chicken Spaghetti

Greg Pincus said...

Wish I coulda been there, too. I'd note that the children's literature blogosphere is diverse... though it does skew heavily female. We're also a group that's wildly spread out, which makes it more challenging to show that diversity. Still, it's great to see the feedback, as it's something we need to be cognizant of in our national gatherings, too.

Thanks for the front-line report!

Unknown said...

Liz and Susan - thanks for stopping by to comment! It was great hearing your thoughts at the panel, and I'm glad you found my little corner of the internet!

Greg - Glad you enjoyed the report! I'm not surprised that kidlit blogs skew female, since it seems like a lot of the bloggers have "real lives" that skew into heavily female areas, ie english teachers, librarians and mothers (okay, that one's more than "heavily" female). It just felt a little awkward to have one panelist highlight the diversity of the blogging community...and then have such a *non*-diverse panel.

Unknown said...

A similar comment about diversity was made about the recent SLJ cover. The problem is that while there are some fantastic diverse bloggers of children's literature out there, they don't live in New York. What's more, these were the people who organized the Cybils and they happen to be white women. If I'd invited and thrown in someone simply because they were ethnically diverse onto the panel, but who hadn't created the Cybils like them, that would have been offensive rather than inclusive.

Clearly we need a larger representative swath working on the Cybils today. But location is another problem. Bloggers don't tend to live in New York. And since my Literary Cafes don't pay for anyone to speak at them (everyone does it for free) I'm limited that way as well. For this particular event, almost everybody took trips from their homes (Anne is from Arizona) on their own dime just to speak. So I was honored to have them there.

But no, there wasn't enough time. Some discussion was made of having another Lit Cafe about blogging, just so that we can touch on more issues.

Unknown said...

Hi Betsy, thanks for responding! This was the first lit cafe I've attended, but not that I know they're there, I really appreciate that there's a "real life" place where adults can gather occasionally to discuss kidlit, so thanks for organizing them.

Thanks also for clarifying some of what went into finding panelists and getting them to New York.

Mai Helmy said...


ان عمليه التنظيف تكون من اصعب المهام التى تتطلب الدقه الشديده والجهد المتواصل شركة تنظيف منازل بجازان
مع شركة نسيم الجنوب شركة تنظيف بجازان
توفر لك كل سبل الراحه شركة نقل عفش بجازان
من كافه اعمال التنظيف بجميع المراحل اليومية
شركة مكافحة حشرات بجازان
ان شركة نسيم الجنوب من اعرق الشركات
شركة مكافحة النمل الابيض بجازان فى اعمال التنظيف مع شركة نسيم الجنوب وداعا تمام للتعب والجهد والمشقهه

شركة تنظيف سجاد وموكيت بجازان
ونعم للراحه وتوفير الوقت ان الشركة تمتلك افضل انواع المعدات
شركة تنظيف كنب بجازان بالبخار
التى تستخدم فى عمليه التنظيف
شركة اعمال لياسة بجازان
كما ايضا تمتلك افضل العماله المدربة
شركة اعمال سباكة بجازان
على اكمل وجهه ختى تقدم لك خدمه تتناسب اسم الشركة
شركة اعمال سباكة بجازان كما ايضا يتوفر كل انواع المواد التى تمتلك الجوده فى اعمال التنظيف

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