An Activism Panel in Texas

I’ve always wanted to attend TLA, the annual meeting of the Texas Library Association. It’s the largest state library association meeting in the country, with school and public librarians and other educators eager to see the new books and meet authors who can speak to young readers. Over the years Texas developed a reputation as a great place for authors to visit, as I found out when Rogue was selected for the One Book, One School program at Alexander Hamilton Middle School in Houston. I was also thrilled and honored when Gringolandia was chosen for the Tayshas, the state high school reading list in Texas, in 2011, and I enjoyed reading students’ essays that teachers sent me over the years. My favorites were debates over whether Daniel was a bad boyfriend, or Courtney was a bad girlfriend. Or both.

Although I was invited, I could not attend TLA after Gringolandia‘s selection. After seeing others report on the fun they had, I worried that I had missed my chance. When Moonwalking came out, my publisher pitched me, but we were turned down. Fortunately, thanks to the efforts of Carolrhoda author buddy Kerry O’Malley Cerra and Leander, Texas librarian Becky Calzada, I was invited to be on a panel for 2025 that was accepted. And I also got into the Texas Tea, reserved for authors of award winning books. I will be there in my Chuck Taylors. Chuck Taylors because the last time I attended an awardwinners’ breakfast — at ALA in 2010, also for Gringolandia — I was so honored that I wore a skirt and heels. Then I fell off my shoe on the way to the breakfast and suffered a severe midfoot sprain that left me limping through the event and the rest of the conference. I told everyone there, including many librarians from Texas, that the next time I get a chance to attend such an event, I’ll wear Chuck Taylors. I promise pictures.

Anyway, the panel we organized, titled “Kidlit Quest: Spurring Activism and Social Justice Through Children’s Literature,” comes at a critical time. Texas is one of the states pushing draconian censorship laws, including one that would hamper booksellers who sell children’s books to schools. Courts struck that law, SB900, down, but thousands of books across the state have been pulled from school library shelves. Would a panel on spurring student activism rile up the censors? I don’t know, but at our planning meeting earlier this week, I heard that advance registrations point to a potential standing-room-only crowd at our presentation. (No pressure, huh?)

Because of recent events, we decided to change our focus from how to set up displays for activist books to the importance of these books and how to select and present them. That said, I’ll still show a world map in Lego, created by Polish teenager Jakub Połkowski, because I want to highlight the importance of historical and global/international books. With some exceptions, historical novels and books set in other countries tend to avoid the book banners because they present these topics at a distance — long ago and far away — and rely on readers to draw parallels to our situation in the present. These books also tie into the curriculum. Gringolandia, Moonwalking, Torch, and Eyes Open could all be used for a unit on the Cold War. At our planning meeting, Becky talked about the importance of Constitution Week in Texas. Torch in particular highlights the difference of government structures and institutions of civil society (religious institutions, sports teams, the press) between a constitutional democracy and a dictatorship based on an ideology. What if teenagers lived in a society under a very different constitution? Or a constitution that sounded enticing in theory (like that of the Soviet Union and its satellite states) but the rulers made no pretense of following it?

The four authors on the panel — Kerry O’Malley Cerra, Nancy Tandon, Ali Terese, and myself — plan to talk about how activism takes different forms. Sometimes it’s small acts of kindness that ripple outward. In Nancy’s novel The Way I Say It, a boy who has been bullied because of a speech impediment uses the example of Muhammad Ali to reconnect with an old friend who had joined the gang of bullies but is now ostracized after a traumatic brain injury. Sometimes it’s standing up to those in charge to make life easier for girls at school (Ali’s National Book Award longlisted middle grade novel Free Period), or to protect animals in danger of extinction (Kerry’s Make a Little Wave). And sometimes the stakes are so high that an act of kindness can cost one’s life or save a life, as in Torch.

I’m looking forward to the panel and will report on some of the themes we discuss and the questions we get. And if you’re lucky enough to be at TLA, come see us on Thursday, April 3 at 2 pm in Ballroom C2.