{"id":1570,"date":"2009-07-13T09:51:00","date_gmt":"2009-07-13T09:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/?p=1570"},"modified":"2018-11-20T05:31:13","modified_gmt":"2018-11-20T05:31:13","slug":"on-more-books-for-boys-and-white","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/?p=1570","title":{"rendered":"On More Books for Boys, and &#8220;White Culture&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/wishiwerebaking\/3715543367\/in\/set-72157621348121446\/\" target=_blank title=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" hspace=\"10\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2551\/3715543367_b94bf5c644.jpg\" align=\"left\" \/><\/a>The sun&#8217;s been shining in Scotland, which means I&#8217;ve been outside &#8211; not working &#8211; but all good things must come to an end. Eventually. While I warm up to actually doing something productive, I&#8217;ll point out a few things I&#8217;ve noticed from the blogs:<\/p>\n<p>Via <a href=\"http:\/\/charlotteslibrary.blogspot.com\/2009\/07\/misc-fantasysci-fi-stuff-with.html\" target= _blank>Charlotte&#8217;s<\/a>, I found out the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/books\/booksblog\/2009\/jul\/09\/fantastic-diana-wynne-jones\" target= _blank>incredibly angering news<\/a> that Diana Wynne Jones has lung cancer. Wow, talk about devastated. I&#8217;m so FREAKING SICK OF CANCER it&#8217;s not even funny. We wish Ms. DWJ health and strength for the fight.<\/p>\n<p>Galaxy Express, which is all about SF and romance (a mashup that more books have than not), talks about the awesome that is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thegalaxyexpress.net\/2009\/07\/future-trend-ya-science-fiction.html\" target= _blank>YA lit,<\/a> and briefly reviews <I>The H-Bomb Girl<\/i>, one I hadn&#8217;t heard of yet. The comments are full of other great YA SFF suggestions.<\/p>\n<p>At <a href=\"http:\/\/thespectacleblog.wordpress.com\/2009\/07\/13\/change-your-main-character-to-a-boy\/\" target= _blank>The Spectacle<\/a>, Parker questions School Library Journal writer Diantha McBrides&#8217;s open letter to publishers, requesting more books for boys &#8212; because boys will apparently only read books with male protagonists, and &#8220;some boys have never read a complete book in their lives.&#8221; (McBride also feels there should be a moratorium on WWII books.) Are characters <i>that<\/i> fluid? Could it really be as easy as shifting genders? Should George Lucas have stuck with Luke as a Luci, which was his original idea, and thus spared us that whole Jabba-and-bikini episode? (And maybe given Leia a purpose in the whole Star Wars series other than being The White Robed Princess Who Must Be Saved?) These and other thoughts pondered, do join the conversation.<\/p>\n<p>If you have been missing the important and intelligent conversations going on at Chasing Ray, as part of her <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chasingray.com\/archives\/categories\/what_a_girl_wants\/\" target= _blank>What A Girl Wants<\/a> series, I want you to know you&#8217;re missing some important discussion among intelligent authors and readers. It&#8217;s more than just talking about the best books for girls. We&#8217;re talking about the teetering of traditional publishing, the opportunity for new paradigms to be established, the choices before readers and writers &#8212; some really deep and amazing stuff, giving a lot of us quite a bit to think about. The latest <i>WAGW<\/I> was on representation &#8212; and it has brought up a lot of &#8230;stuff that people weren&#8217;t sure they thought, but then said and realized that, &#8220;Yeah. I believe that.&#8221; Laurel feels strongly that only Jewish people should write Jewish characters, and Zetta believes that no one can know the African American experience except an African American &#8211; yet Kekla feels fine writing Caucasian characters. Can no one can write the queer experience except for another queer person? Colleen&#8217;s follow-up post to this <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chasingray.com\/archives\/2009\/07\/white_girl.html\" target= _blank>is very thought-provoking. Where <i>is<\/i> &#8220;white&#8221; culture<\/a> in YA lit?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The sun&#8217;s been shining in Scotland, which means I&#8217;ve been outside &#8211; not working &#8211; but all good things must come to an end&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[15],"class_list":["post-1570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-random-notes-and-errata"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1570"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1570\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5671,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1570\/revisions\/5671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}