This was a bit of a mixed bag for me; but then, short-story collections invariably are as I'm not the biggest short-story fan in general
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Diana Wynne Jones and librarian love! I must have this short story collection!
Also I would like to say a general thank you: this blog has really helped me challenge the default-white world in books and I so needed that, because I grew up in Ireland, which really is (or rather, was when I was a child - with the country growing more prosperous we have a growing number of refugees and to my eternal shame we are generally hideous about them) default white. I deeply needed a pop upside the head that this shouldn't be the case in books.
Tortall in general seems fairly full of random PoCs -- they're not native to Tortall, but they show up not uncommonly as recent immigrants from Carthak or wherever.
The Pierce story was actually set in modern times, but I do think in general Pierce has been trying to include more POC in her works. I just wish more of them were the protagonists, because when they aren't, you get the unfortunate white savior trope.
Yeah the stories would not be problematic if we had a spectrum of PoC. Unfortunately when all portrayals play on well worn stereotypes it is a huge problem.
Yeah.... I, um, actually wrote Sharyn November about it b/c the book intro said she read all the emails from her readers, but am not sure if that will have any effect at all.
I just keep thinking that I should have had lots and lots of stories starring girls of color to choose from growing up (and now!), but it was basically impossible to find myself reflected in the fantasy stories I loved.
Wow. I have mostly drifted away from fantasy in the last couple of decades, and have only very recently started even dabbling the tiniest toetip back into that and/or YA stuff...rather depressing to hear the more things change, etc
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WooHoo! Well done, I'm really glad you emailed her. We should all be able to find representations of ourselves in the fiction we love, that we can't or that all the representations have some stereotype attached to them is beyond fucked up. It's even more fucked up that the people in charge rarely attempt to open their eyes and see it from our position.
"There is so much book love in this story that I couldn't not love it. I'm not sure what to say about the story, except that it so much sums up my feelings toward libraries and books and things like the Dewey decimal system versus Library of Congress, obsessive-compulsive categorization, nooks and crannies, and booksbooksbooks."
Have you already discovered http://www.unshelved.com ? I really like that library comic strip, and they have a POC children's librarian and most of the librarians are female. Although the storyline with Doreen's adopted Chinese daughter is probably not very well thought into.
Then again the males definitely get sent up as much as the females. When they had a recent sale I ordered the print versions and I don't rue it at all (it helped that they even offered free shipping to Germany).
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Also I would like to say a general thank you: this blog has really helped me challenge the default-white world in books and I so needed that, because I grew up in Ireland, which really is (or rather, was when I was a child - with the country growing more prosperous we have a growing number of refugees and to my eternal shame we are generally hideous about them) default white. I deeply needed a pop upside the head that this shouldn't be the case in books.
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I just keep thinking that I should have had lots and lots of stories starring girls of color to choose from growing up (and now!), but it was basically impossible to find myself reflected in the fantasy stories I loved.
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Have you already discovered http://www.unshelved.com ? I really like that library comic strip, and they have a POC children's librarian and most of the librarians are female. Although the storyline with Doreen's adopted Chinese daughter is probably not very well thought into.
Then again the males definitely get sent up as much as the females. When they had a recent sale I ordered the print versions and I don't rue it at all (it helped that they even offered free shipping to Germany).
Reply
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