Every once in a while one needs a reminder about the subtlety of racism in children's books. I've been assuming, wrongly it turns out, that children's writers are enlightened, fair-minded. I even assumed that children's writers wrote about what they knew. But then....I came across this blurb for No Castles Here by A C Bauer.
AUGIE BORETSKI KNOWS how to get by. If you're a skinny white kid in the destitute city of Camden, New Jersey, you keep your head down, avoid the drug dealers and thugs, and try your best to be invisible. Augie used to be good at that, but suddenly his life is changing. . . . First, Augie accidentally steals a strange book of fairy tales. Then his mom makes him join the Big Brothers program and the chorus. And two bullies try to beat him up every day because of it. Just when it seems like things can't get any worse, an ice storm wrecks Augie's school. The city plans to close the school, abandoning one more building to the drug addicts. But Augie has a plan. For the first time in his life, Augie Boretski is not going down without a fight.
Okay, is it me? Am I being touchy here? I'm wondering what a white parent/teacher will think about a blurb like "Skinny white kids keep their heads down."
But wait, this was on one of the writer's websites:
Book: No Castles Here
Camden, New Jersey, is the armpit of the world, as far as Augie is concerned. Home to losers and bullies, its schools offer nothing to someone who isn’t smart, isn’t stupid, and who isn’t a troublemaker. When Augie escapes to Philadelphia dreaming of castles and promise, he becomes a thief and steals a magical book of fairy tales.
Life only gets crazier. For sixth grade, Augie is assigned the meanest, toughest teacher in school. His mom signs him up with a Big Brother he doesn’t want. And he discovers that even in his world, there might be such a thing as a fairy godmother.
Augie is eleven-and-a-half. This is his time for adventure. He hadn’t figured it would begin in a bookstore.
Book Info:
ISBN (Hardcover): 978-0-375-83921-4
ISBN (Library Binding): 978-0-375-93921-1
Release date: October 23, 2007
Pages: 288
Now, honestly, I'm all for creativity. And I haven't read the book. But would such a blurb make me -- someone who lives in the hood, thank you-- want to read this book?
To the eyes of black folks -- especially black folks in a hood-- the blurb for No Castles Here sounds dang racist. The blurb seems to be written to only middle class or upper middle class white folks. The implicit stereotyping going on in the blurb for No Castles here is not only offensive but it shows that some authors are so in their little social cultures that they don't know the truth about other cultures. Interestingly, --and a bit terrifying-- the book got a starred review from Kirkus. Obviously, the reviewers at Kirkus also live in milieus where they think there's nothing wrong with the blurb.
But let's tackle the first basic untruth of this blurb: the notion that skinny white kids in the hood keep their heads down. Honestly, skinny white kids in the hood generally DON'T keep their heads down. By kindergarten every kid --white or black-- is part of the neighborhood and they all get along. How do I know this? Because I live in the hood and white kids and black kids in the hood --places like Camden, for instance-- generally all get along quite well, thank you! White kids in my town don't walk around in fear. The kids all walk around in these multicultural cliques that have nothing to do with race.
It makes me wonder if the author knows about living in black neighborhoods. And actually, if we are to be really honest here, it's generally the black kid in a white neighborhood who walks around holding his head down. Not the other way around. Black folks tend to be pretty inclusive when it comes to neighborhood kids.
And then there is this idea about roaming gangs. Where the heck did A C E Bauer get this idea that gangs bothered innocent kids? Especially innocent skinny white kids? (By the way, is she saying that all the black kids are beefy and overfed?) Reading this blurb and the excerpt on the publisher's site has pretty much convinced me that A C E Bauer has created a world which the white reader will instantly recognize as their worse fear. I generally don't get too annoyed about wrong-headed books but sometimes some stuff just annoy a person no end. And the inclusion of a so-called dignified "African-American gentleman" in the excerpt doesn't help her cause either. I just hate it when a "dignified" black person appears inside a book that seems to be built on racial assumptions about how black kids treat good/smart/skinny white kids.
Folks, we need more black children book writers out there. Or else we need more poor white folks writing children books. You know what I mean. Someone from the hood who really knows what life is like.
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16 comments:
So, this is what I think:
Augie being described as a skinny white kid doesn't seem racist to me.
In fact, it somewhat seems overtly PC. Instead of attributing the negativty of Camden with the race of its main characters, I think the blurb goes out of its way to describe the main character and how he's an anomaly in the midst of this negativity.
Is that racist? I don't think describing how a skinny white kid who lives in the hood with mostly black people is racist (if in fact that's what the book is about).
But this is exactly what I want from the blurb: I want to know Augie is a skinny white kid who is out of place in a neighborhood that doesn't, at least initially, offer him much and he doesn't contribute to as well. Especially if it is crucial to the story. And no, I still don't find that racist.
Just a few other things:
At least in my neighborhood on the far south side of Chicago during the 80s, roaming gangs did bother innocent kids, which is why my parents moved my brothers and I to the suburbs. And currently in Chicago, a fair number of innocent kids are being shot and killed by gangs.
Some were being bothered, some were in the wrong place at the wrong time, but all of these innocent kids are trying to keep their heads down literally and figuratively as they go to and from school and out and about in their neighborhoods.
What do they have to do with a skinny white kid in Camden? They, just as he, do not want to be noticed by the gangs for not being one of them.
Also, I don't think the description skinny white kid juxtaposes beefy black kid. I do believe the colors oppose one another, though. I think it's safe to say we all know obesity is not a race-specific or ethnic issue.
Now, take all of this with the fact that I had not heard of the book until your blog post and don't know what the book is about. I'm just going from what you've posted and the blurb, and I realize I could be way off base.
The part of the blurb that bothered me was this:
He is a skinny white kid who has to keep his head down.
That seemed untrue in my experience. Totally. If she wanted to do anomaly, she should've made the kid black for heaven's sake.
And if the kid is white, she shouldn't make it seem as if his whiteness is the main cause of his being alienated. AS A SKINNY WHITE KID.....defines Augie. And that's not how I think kids define each other.
-C
And Malon, you're reading it like a black person who wants to give the writer the benefit of the doubt. You're not reading it like a white person who lives in a land where white folks are hanging nooses.
I have to be honest here, I'm torn. I do think the blurb could have been worded better, but I also see some connection to what she seems to be expressing from our experiences in Milwaukee.
I'm raising a skinny boy (don't know where he got the skinny genetics from), who even though he is part Indian, with his blond hair and blue eyes is considered white by most people he deals with. Image and the visual is everything around here. Yeah, he loves everyone. it's just his nature. He wants to be friends to anybody, no matter the color of his or their skin. Does he get victimised for it? You bet.
Part of it is he's just different from most of the other kids. As the only non black kid in our neighborhood, that's only a minor difference most times. He isn't as aggressive as most of the other boys.
Maybe that's why he hangs with girls more. He's very gentle natured, even though he tries so hard to fit in with the boys, often he doesn't. As the only non black kid on the bus, he has been a target for years. Is that the reason they pick on him, maybe. They do not allow parents to ride the bus here, so I can't know for certain.
It was never like this when he was younger. When he was 4,5,6, the kids didn't care. he always had someone to play with. At school the kids seem to segregate themselves and often he's frustrated as he became more excluded as he grew older. My son is an amazing kid, he kept trying, and little by little seemed to break some of the race barriers the older kids put up. But not all kids are that stubborn/persistent.
I hope my son and daughter will never walk with their heads down. That shows a lack of self pride as well as targets you as a victim to predators that do exist (no mater their color). Bullies are real. Being small and skinny does often mean you have two choices. You lean to fight, or to hide. I was small, and I chose to fight. My son will not defend himself, however he will defend his friends. Again, my son is spacial, he has the support of his family and a four year old sister who has been known to go feral on some bully to defend him (shakes head). Not all kids are that lucky.
Moon (JMI, though perhaps a wee but wordy, I am on a writing binge today...two more days!!!!!!)
"And if the kid is white, she shouldn't make it seem as if his whiteness is the main cause of his being alienated. AS A SKINNY WHITE KID.....defines Augie. And that's not how I think kids define each other."
But kid do see themselves in some strange ways when they feel outside the "norm". I think the author is saying white was part of his alienation, but so was skinny. He wasn't muscular, so he was seen as weak. Heck when I went to school if you were smaller like me you bet you were a target.
Maybe I do try to give folks the benifit of the doubt. Blurbs are very limiting. You have a few sentences to tell a story and hook the reader, easy to screw up.
I'd like to see one of our wonderful reviewers give this story a good going over *nudge nudge* before I am sure of what's inside. Trust me, I'd just the type of person to complain to the author if I felt the story was racially one sided in its portrail.
p.s. I like the way your neightborhood sounds, wish we lived there :)
Yes, I am giving the writer the benefit of the doubt because I can only take what's written as the blurb and my thoughts, experiences, opinions and prejudices to determine what the blurb is trying to convey.
And no, I'm not reading it as a racist white person would because I am not a racist white person. I try not to guess, assume, suppose and portray what other "real live people" think. Try being the operative word in that sentence because, due to human nature, I can't help but do so at times. Real live people in quotes because the only time I actively and purposely guess, assume, suppose and portray what others are thinking is when they're my characters. If they aren't, I ask the person what their intent was with their words. If I can't do that, then I can't but give the person the benefit of the doubt.
I just had a story published by Creative Brother's Sci Fi Magazine with a girl who gets plastic surgery to go from brown-skinned with curly-curly hair and African lips and nose to blonde hair, blue eyes, white skin and thin, chiseled lips.
I could say this story is about a girl who is ashamed of the dominant physical traits her black father gave her and loves her white mother more for her more "beautiful" genetic traits.
But it's a story much deeper than that. You could walk away from my explanation thinking I might be ashamed of my African features and heritage, or you could pick up Creative Brother's #10, read it and make a more well-rounded judgement about the character and me for yourself.
You can read the blurb and decide it's racist, or you can pick up that Augie book and make a more well-rounded judgement..
Okay, like I needed anything more to read in the middle of my writing binge (rolls eyes). Now I have to got get issue #10 and read this. :P
It sounds like an amazing story. Funny how skin color is veiwed. You go a a beautiful brown skinned girl trying to be more white and a lot of white girls damaging thier skin to be darker. Thenworkld is a funny place, fiction or not. :)
Moon
Malon: I wouldn't think you were ashamed of African features. I'd think you had a CHARACTER who had self-loathing issues.
Moon: I just think that a blurb is all about advertising. A blurb like that, who is it advertising to? To black folks? No. Is the blurb-writer sitting around saying "I'm going to write a book that is for everyone"? Or is she writing a blurb in which she only thinks of white middle class readers --who are afraid of being oppressed by black folks?
Honestly, a part of me wants to read this book...to see if the author is truly as unaware of black folks' feelings as the blurb seems to imply. But it's one of those things where I think I am way observant about stuff like this...and some folks are just gonna think I'm way too sensitive. So even if there were actual racist stuff in the book, folks are gonna give it the benefit of the doubt.
And yes, Malon, that story does sound really good. -C
I guarentee I am far less tolerant of obvious raciast content in the story itself. You better believe I'd be writing letters to the author if I say that crap poisening one of my kids' books.
I will agree the blurb would certainly make most the black kids I know disinterested in reading the story. Not much they can relate to according to the blurb. It would have been far more marketable to say the boy's small size and skinney build made him an easy target for bullies. LOTS of kids can relate to that.
Moon
Honestly, you guys are noble souls who give folks the benefit of the doubt. Maybe I'm a triffle too paranoid but questions i'd ask the author:
Has she ever been to Camden? By the way she obsessively names the city streets I can only guess that she's never been there at all but did a lot of so-called "research" and added it to horrible stories in the media.
Where the heck did she get the idea she has of Camden? Who says it's destitute? Compared to where?
Many cities, destitute or not, have plexiglass bullet-proof cages. Many cities, destitute or not, don't have them.
Has she ever met any skinny white kid from an inner city?
Are there white folks in these Camden gangs she's created?
If the oppression of the white race and white flight is not the subtext of the book, why didn't she just make Augie a black character?
Why does she have the kid "accidentally steal" a book? Can't the kid return it? Or do only white kids accidentally steal?
And once again, the implicit assumption going on with this author, the publisher, and Kirkus is that only white skinny kids actually would read this book because only white kids read.
-C
I think under the contect of concern of how the topic of the book is handled these are all fair questions to ask. As an author I'd be only too happy to answer questions like these if phrased in a calm and respectful manner.
I guess the choice is either read the book to see if these concerns are adressed, or ask them now in hopes the author is willing to clarify where she got her information and what she hopes to do with this story. :)
Moon
"Malon: I wouldn't think you were ashamed of African features. I'd think you had a CHARACTER who had self-loathing issues."
But to me it seems you're doing something very similar: putting a racist label on the writer or the publisher for having the blurb about the character as a description of the book.
I think this is the same as assuming an actor has the same personality or quirks or beliefs of a character they play on tv. The two can be quite seperate.
I've put some racist situations in stories to make a point, as a character flaw, or even as a depiction of real life, yet this doesn't make me racist.
I'm just giving the person who wrote the blurb the benefit of the doubt.
Also, that person, from a marketing standpoint, did their job well. It has us talking about that skinny white kid Augie. I'd say they did their job very well, but maybe not considering I probably won't buy the book and I'm assuming you won't either.
There I go. Assuming.
Malon:
It's about the POV in which the blurb was written. The blurb doesn't say Augie THINKS such and such. It takes for GRANTED a kind of common belief in the evil of the inner city.
Nah, it's not the same as assuming the actor has the same personality as the charcter he plays. I understand POV, I understand narration, I have been reviewing books for years, and I have been a book marketer myself.
Reread the blurb again and see if the POV of the blurb is written in a POV which reflects Augie's thoughts...or if it seems to say that he is right to think so.
I used to work as in the marketing dept of a NY publishing house. Kraus International Publications. Trust me on this. The house I used to work with would have been way more careful than this. There is a way to be careful...even if it means using the clunky "Augie thinks that because he is a skinny white kid etc."
-C
Malon:
One more thing. Moon reminded me when I saw what she posted on another blog. Writers generally have a lot of say about their blurbs.
I'll also add that the author of the book seems to know squat about Camden. Many formerly African-American cities and working class towns now have a large Hispanic population. She says that twenty years ago she visited Camden when she was just out of law school and worked with the worst of that community for four months.
Honestly, I don't trust a white former lawyer writing about a town she hasn't seen in 20 years...and one she saw only for 4 months in a limited capacity as defender of scummy people. She is working from a past memory...and not from the city as it is. -C
See, I have no problem with the POV of the blurb. I truthfully believe Augie would be referred to as the skinny white kid in real life. Not by his mother, his teachers or his close friends, but by those who tangentially know him. The corner store owner who sees him come in every now and then. That homeless person who's always asking for change in a 7-11 cup. Even the gang banger who roams the streets at all hours of the day and night looking for rivals.
And they wouldn't be doing it in a mean or condescending way, but as the best way to describe him with very little information to convey who they are referring to.
Maybe Camden is different from Chicago. Maybe things were radically different when I was growing up. Maybe my experience as a child on the south side of Chicago 20 years ago should be discounted as that lawyer's since it was so long ago as well.
But when I was growing up, we referred to one another by the easy descriptors, including skin color. "That light-skinded girl." I won't even get into the awful descriptors we used for kids with dark skin.
And no, I don't think Chicago has changed all that much socially in 20 years. But that's my opinion.
But I see nothing wrong at all with Augie's description. When reading the blurb, we know nothing about Augie. His description not only allows us to imagine him physically, but also places social context to where he lives and what he may face everyday in his neighborhood.
My wife is Canadian (Hungarian-Japanese) and bristles when she's referred to as "white". Her Hungarian features strongly dominate her Japanese features, but when she was growing up in Canada she referred to herself as Hungarian-Japanese.
Here in America, at first glance, if I introduced you to her and you didn't know her background, I'm sure you'd attach the "white" descriptor to her. You might not ever verbalize it, but it would be a ready descriptor of many to use in referencing her.
Is that any different from the blurb with Augie, especially when it's geared towards a reader who has no knowledge of the book?
By the way, my wife also thinks it's a racist description of Augie.
The truth of the matter is, in America skin color and ethnicity is a major descriptor. I'm not saying it's right, and I'm not saying we should accept it--I'm just saying it is.
The main characters in my story "Eyes" in Creative Brother's #10 are Hermes Black and Sally White. Their last names reflect their skin color and were given to the both of them by society--a society that has complex notions of skin color.
I don't think those notions will change much in the future.
But maybe I'm racist for writing a story like this.Maybe I'm also racist for saying Chicago is evil.
Carole, Just so you know, I've contacted the author and she says that she didn't write the blurb -- in fact, she says that she fought with her publisher against the version of the blurb that I have on Fantasy Debut. She says that another blurb is on the actual printed novel.
I've sent her another email asking her for the new blurb, and asking if I can quote certain things from her email. I am waiting for a response. I'll probably put up another post when (if) I get everything that I asked for.
Oh, and thanks for the link; I've returned the favor!
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