By Ellie Peterson
On December 14th, the Western Washington chapter of the SCBWI will hold its first Sensitivity Reader panel. I hope many of you attend this monthly meeting and that you get answers to all your burning questions about sensitivity reading.
How do I find a reader? What’s it like to work with one? What…is it? And the question I’m guessing some of you have, but don’t feel comfortable voicing, “Why do we need them?”
We need sensitivity readers because representation matters. I’m hoping most of you are familiar with the diagram which was put out by the Cooperative Children’s Book Center showing the state of diversity in children’s books as of 2018. If you don’t know how to interpret this drawing please read this article about it from the School Library Journal.
If you don’t have the time to read the linked article, I will provide the main points for you. Just kidding. I’m not going to do that. Please make the time to read it if you have any intention of representing a marginalized identify in your book, other than your own.
Read it even if you ARE representing your own. Like, now: read the article from the School Library Journal. And then come back to this article.
You’re back! Fascinating, right? Bet you never noticed the cracks and warps in those mirrors.
Okay, now I will tell you some things that you might not know about this diagram, but that you SHOULD know. The concept for this illustration came from the 1990 article “Windows, Mirrors, and Sliding Doors” by Rudine Sims Bishop, Professor Emerita of Education at The Ohio State University. In that article, she wrote:
“Books are sometimes windows, offering views of worlds that may be real or imagined, familiar, or strange. These windows are also sliding glass doors, and readers have only to walk through in imagination to become party of whatever world has been created and recreated by the author. When lighting conditions are just right, however, a window can also be a mirror. Literature transforms the human experience and reflects it back to us in that reflection we can see our own lives and experiences as part of the larger human experience. Reading, then, becomes a means of self-affirmation, and readers often seek their mirrors in books.”
Quote by Rudine Sims Bishop
Twenty- nine years later, we are still talking about windows, mirrors, and sliding doors. When we look at who is writing these stories we find and even more startling statistics. Of the 10% of books that portray an African or African American, only about half of these are written by people who identify as African or African American. The numbers aren’t much better for Latinx or Asian representation
This means many of us are writing books with characters that are not from our own marginalized identities and we need sensitivity readers to ensure our depictions are authentic and our writing is culturally competent.
We need to do this because representation matters.
And here is what else we need to know. We need more than windows, doors, and mirrors. Last year, Uma Krishnaswami wrote the following in her article, “Why stop at Windows and Mirrors? Children’s Book Prisms.”
“A prism can slow and bend the light that passes through it, splitting that light into its component colors. It can refract light in as many directions as the prism’s shape and surface planes allow. Similarly, books can disrupt and challenge ideas about diversity through multifaceted and intersecting identities, settings, cultural contexts, and histories. They can place diverse characters at these crucial intersections and give them the power to reframe their stories. Through the fictional world, they can make us question the assumptions and practices of our own real world.”
Quote by Uma Krishnaswami
We need sensitivity readers because our readers will make assumptions about our characters. They will put them in a box unless you can authentically portray them as nuanced, multidimensional, REAL people that can and do exist in their real world.
While we do this, we need to keep in mind that certain people have been exploited and misrepresented to such a degree that they have chosen not to share significant aspects of their experience with others.
In an interview with Embrace Race, Dr. Debbie Reese, founder of American Indians in Children’s Literature speaks often of curtains. She said:
“But that curtain is there because we draw the curtains when we don’t want people looking in to see what we’re doing. That’s true of people around the world when we are doing something that we don’t want misunderstood, misrepresented, we draw a curtain and we’re careful of who we share those things with.”
Quote by Debbie Reese
We need sensitivity readers because we need to know when we’ve pulled back a curtain on something that should remain protected. Sensitivity readers provide a vital function for anyone creating characters outside their own lived experiences, especially for those creating children’s literature. Children from marginalized groups should be able to see authentic versions of who they are and who they can be. Children from majority groups should understand these characters as deep and nuanced, rather than tropes and stereotypes. And should we find these representations lacking, we should do what all good creators do: listen, learn, and revise. To learn more, join us on Saturday, December 14, 2019!
- WHAT? SCBWI-WWA monthly meeting
- DATE? Dec 14, 2019
- TIME? 10:00 am – 12:00 pm
- LOCATION? Demaray Hall, Seattle Pacific University
- OTHER NOTES: Before the meeting, join us for the Holiday Bazaar and Cookie Contest.
Holiday Bazaar and Cookie Contest!
Date/Time
Date(s) – 12/14/2019
9:00 am – 10:00 am
About the author of this article:
Ellie Peterson is the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion coordinator for the Western Washington Chapter of SCBWI and a picture book author/illustrator. Find out more about her at elliepetersonart.com.