#scholastic

It’s Halloween

(Jack Prelutsky, Scholastic 1977)

GreatPumpkinCookbook

(Charles Schulz & Jane Dutton 1981)

16.03.20

I’m going to take advantage of the three week break from school…by studying my booty off :/

It’s inventory week in the library! That means I scan each book in the collection to, as I explain to my kids, “tuck it in for the summer.” Basically, I need to make sure everything’s accounted for by the end of the school year and know if anything’s gone missing.

My predecessor inventoried every year, but I’m learning she wasn’t super big on weeding out the collection unless she absolutely had to. I started inventory yesterday and I already have a small mountain of books to remove from the collection behind my desk.

Out of everything I’ve found, here are my favorites:

• A Scholastic book fair VHS from the 90′s that states on the box that it was supposed to be returned to Scholastic after the book fair.
• To Hell With Dying by Alice Walker– She’s an incredibly famous author, yes. But what is this doing in an elementary library?
• One particularly politically incorrect fairy tale book from the
  1950′s.

Tune back in on Monday for more weeding gems.

¡Qué bonita bandera! AKA what heritage(s) do you claim?

I am Peruvian. Born in Peru to a mother who was born in Peru whose mother was also born in Peru and so on and so on.

When was the first time you saw yourself represented?

I didn’t really see myself represented in books until fairly recently—but maybe that’s my fault for being a less-than-stellar reader as a kid. The first books that were read to me were picture books in Spanish, and they’re books that I still have and treasure. But when we moved to America it was a huge cultural shift and all the entertainment I consumed was super Americanized. I didn’t really see any Latinx characters in anything I read until adulthood when I picked up Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. I was honestly delighted to read Spanglish right there on the page—Spanish words that weren’t translated into English. To me that was a clear message that this was written for me, for us. Reading that and identifying with the Hispanic/American/New York cultures in that book was a thrill.

In YA it was really cool for me to see a Jewish/Latina character in Anna Breslaw’s Scarlett Epstein Hates it Here and an undocumented character in Nicola Yoon’s The Sun is Also a Star.

How do you connect to your heritage through your books (if at all)?

In my latest novel, No Good Deed, the protagonist is named Gregor Maravilla—a nod to both his Eastern European and Latino heritage. A motif in the story involves his bunkmate constantly teasing him for being just another white boy and Gregor constantly having to stand up for his heritage and remind his bunkmate that he’s actually half-Latino. That was written from experience. There’s been plenty of times in my life where people pull the classic Mean Girls line and ask me why I’m so white if I’m really Latina, or they don’t believe me because of my name. It was important for me to show that Latinxs come in all different forms, and we’ve all got a connection to our Latinx heritage.  

What do you hope for the future of Latinx books?

I hope to learn more from cultures that aren’t my own. I want to see every kind of Latinx on the page.  

What is the book that inspired you to write for kids/teens?

Gossip Girl!

What are you writing now?

Working on something brand new but it’s way too early to talk about it just yet. My latest novel, No Good Deed, just came out this summer from Scholastic.

Goldy Moldavsky was born in Lima, Peru, and grew up in Brooklyn, where she still lives. Her debut novel, KILL THE BOY BAND, is a New York Times bestseller, and her latest novel is NO GOOD DEED. Both books are published by Scholastic in the US and MacMillan in the UK.

Website*Twitter*Instagram*Buy

Alex Gino Debuts New Title and Cover for Groundbreaking Trans Novel

AAAAH WHAT GREAT NEWS! The novel formerly known as “George” is now being published under the (much more correct) title “Melissa.” This reflects the main character, whose real chosen name is Melissa, while George was her deadname. You can read about how the book came to be called “George” initially and what the process was for changing it at the link (and please do before commenting, I promise it’s not as malicious or ignorant as it first appears to be!). The author, Alex Gino, is genderqueer (they/them) and has been mulling this over for a long time, and it’s really exciting to see Scholastic fully supporting them.

If you already have a copy of the book under the old name, you can print materials to change the cover here:

Alex Gino

tessaviolet:

ningcomepoop:

wholmesianmisfit:

Who remembers

Motherfucking Scholastic

Book

Orders

And then the magical traveling circus of scholastic would randomly show up

at the motherfucking BOOK FAIR

love

seriously the best ever.

Right in the childhood..

Editorial Assistant, Graphix/Scholastic

Books have ruled my life since birth. I can’t remember a time that I wasn’t carrying either a novel or a journal in hand. There’s a picture of me at my sister’s high school graduation, holding Goblet of Fire,which I was re-reading for the millionth time during the ceremony. This image about sums me up.

So when the time came to choose a college major, naturally, I chose biology.

Confused? So was I.

But the reality is that, like many of us who grew up in the farthest, intimate little pockets of the country, growing up in Texas, I hadn’t heard a single thing about the possibility of publishing as a career option. To add to this, I was born to Indian immigrants who’d rather I pursued the straightforward life of a doctor or lawyer.

I got lucky. I had a sister who paved the way (edit: went to war) for me and chose an equally unique career path for herself. So when my time came around, my parents were skeptical, but willing to listen, especially when I didn’t shut up about it for the years to come. Unable to let the possibility of working with books go, and aware that I was about to begin an arduous, and possibly fruitless, journey, I wheedled my way into an internship with a local magazine with a tiny print run, and an office that was crammed with all sorts of strange antiques and Texan memorabilia. I’m forever grateful for that job, because the team had so much faith in me and gave me responsibilities far above my title. The following year, I made the insane choice to take on two unpaid internships in one semester; one at a larger magazine where I was one of many minions, and the second at a tiny indie publishing house.

As graduation neared, I pondered over my next step. Part of me dabbled with the idea of teaching English abroad for a year or two, maybe in Japan or Russia, but without any savings, that idea seemed far-fetched and fantastical. Even more fantastical was the thought that I’d land a coveted job at a publishing house straight out of school. Instead, I spent all of May begging the staff at my local Barnes & Noble for a job, despite the fact that they weren’t hiring at the time. Finally, they yielded. (The manager who hired me told me multiple times that she appreciated how proactive I was about getting a position there.) The four months I spent there were absolutely invaluable.

When September reared its ugly head, I decided that the entire month would be dedicated to job applications. I sat in the public library every day after work and worked until my eyes blurred. After about the 100^th application, I got called in for an interview—at Penguin Random House, in New York City. I was astonished. And beyond excited. I booked a roundtrip flight, a room in Crown Heights, and carefully ironed my suit. I rode the subway during rush hour the morning of, met with HR and the hiring manager, and was out the door and on my way to the airport just a few hours later. On the flight back, I realized that the job just wasn’t a good fit. I had a feeling I wouldn’t be receiving an offer. Just as we were preparing for takeoff, my phone buzzed with an e-mail. The team at Cambridge University Press, also in NYC, wanted to meet me—tomorrow!

Luckily, they were kind enough to conduct a phone interview the next day instead—and I received my offer letter just three hours later, standing behind the register at Barnes & Noble. I’ve never screamed louder or jumped higher in public—and the best part? All of my B&N colleagues were jumping right alongside me.

Since my role at CUP, I’ve worked at Penguin Random House, and am currently at Scholastic, where I have the unbelievable pleasure of working on children’s graphic novels. Truth is, publishing isn’t for the faint of heart, and there are so many barriers in place for those from marginalized backgrounds. My parents still aren’t quite sure what I’m doing, but they’re supportive, and I’m exceedingly privileged to have that support. But if your path feels unconventional and messy, relish it—that’s what makes it yours. And don’t worry, there’s room to falter. Just don’t stray far. The road ahead may seem boundless, but you’ll get there, eventually.

Akshaya Iyer is an Editorial Assistant at Scholastic/Graphix where she works with a stupendous team and incredibly talented creators on the best children’s graphic novels in the industry. (She may be biased.)

She was born in the Midwest, raised in the South, and is now settled in the Northeast where she wonders if she’ll ever get used to the bitter cold.

What are your literary influences?

My literary influences come from disparate sources. I studied a wide variety of theory in college and graduate school — everyone from Roland Barthes to Judith Butler to Gloria Anzaldua and Cherrie Moraga to Bell Hooks to Mikail Baktin to Subcomandante Marcos. I also read poetry voraciously including everyone from Waslowa Simbroska to Lorna Dee Cervantes, Audre Lorde, Rumi, Wole Soyinka, Juan Felipe Herrera. I was marveled by the fiction of Milan Kundera, Arundati Roy, Elena Poniatowska and all of the Latin American magical realists – Asturias, Garcia Marquez, Allende, Esquivel. But also, American writers such as Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Helena Maria Viramontes, Ana Castillo, Julia Alvarez and Christina Garcia. I was drawn to authors from the margin almost exclusively. In a sense, I created my own canon in this way.

It wasn’t until I became a mother that I truly started reading children’s literature. My children and I found an oasis in our weekly visits to the library. In Oakland, we are fortunate to have a comprehensive Spanish language collection at the Cesar Chavez Library and we often checked out the forty-book limit! However, many of the books were authored by non Latinx writers and were translated into Spanish. While these books served to reinforce the Spanish language in our family, I saw the huge lack of writings from Latinx creators. I wanted to be a part of filling that gap. I wanted for my children to not only see their language reflected in books but their cultures and their sensibilities. That is why I always praise the work of those Latinx authors who forged the way so that new Latinx kidlit authors could have a seat at the table. We stand on the shoulders of giants and I would be remiss if I didn’t mention their work. Authors such as Pura Belpre, Gary Soto, Sandra Cisneros, Alma Flor Ada, Pat Mora, Carmen Lomas Garza, Francisco X. Alarcon, Juan Felipe Herrera, and Victor Martinez really set the stage for us to be able to tell our stories to young audiences too.

What was the first book you read where you identified with one of the characters?

As a young child, I didn’t understand that I was missing in the narratives of books that I read. I loved Judy Blume. I loved Shell Silverstein. I loved Encyclopedia Brown and Choose Your Own Adventure books. I connected to those books by default, in a similar way that I connected to mass media that also didn’t include me in their blond-haired blue-eyed middle-class, English-only narratives. There was no other option. It wasn’t until I was eighteen and in college that I enrolled in a Latino (we called it that back then) literature course that I saw myself reflected in a book. I remember reading the short story “My Lucy Friend That Smells Like Corn,” in Sandra Cisneros’ Woman Hollering Creek and feeling a moment that I can only describe as grace. I realized that I had been missing in almost everything I had read up until that point. My experiences were alive and validated in that story. It was exhilarating.

Did that experience lead you to want to write books for readers with diverse backgrounds?

I was so inspired by reading all of the books in that Latino literature class. It was an awakening not only to the world of Latinx literature but to the possibility that I too could be a writer. I had been writing poetry and stories since I was a young teenager but those writings remained in my notebooks and journals. After reading their work, I began to take myself seriously and began to understand the writing that lived in my heart could be something I could aspire to do as a living someday. However, my awakening is one that should have not taken eighteen years and I want to be part of making sure that doesn’t happen to other children.  

Your characters in The Moon Within have interesting intersections. Could you speak to why this was important to build into your book?

I did this intentionally. My children are multi-racial and bi-cultural like two of the characters, Celi and Iván. It is not uncommon to see many different mixed children in the San Francisco Bay Area where we live. I find it beautiful how they navigate multiple cultures – sometimes with a sense of wonder and pride and sometimes with neglect or shame and every feeling in between. It’s complicated and certainly isn’t always seamless given so much discussion over racial and cultural purity that is happening today. Through those characters, I wanted to show this negotiation, how they deal with these fusions. I wanted to show readers what it might look like for someone to celebrate and embrace all of who they are. Similarly, I wanted to show with the gender fluid character, Marco, the intersectionality of his identity as a gender fluid Mexican that happens to be in love with playing bomba (a Afro-Puertorican form of music). It was important to show readers that we could be queer and Mexican, Black Puerto Rican Mexican, and Black and Mexican. The range of identities are part of the beauty of who they are, and serve to strengthen and not weaken them. 

Music infuses the whole world of The Moon Within …can you speak a little on that, a little on what role music plays in your own life?

Ironically, I am not a musician though I have a good ear and I love to dance. I am married to a musician and there has not been one day in the eighteen years since we’ve been together when we did not engage in some way with music – listening, playing, singing, dancing or just being in a house filled with instruments and an extraordinary recorded music collection. Our children were naturally born into this environment and took to music right away. I realized that this was a unique experience and that it could be a wonderful world to explore in this book. I wanted to normalize music and the arts as a way of life but also, wanted to inspire readers to seek out the arts as a way to find agency as the children in the book did through traditional music and dance. These are superpowers that unfortunately, with the cutting of the arts for decades now, we don’t have access to as much.

I made a playlist on Spotify that includes all of the styles of music that inspired The Moon Within – bomba, indigenous Mexican music, Caribbean music, and lots of moon related songs in Spanish and in English. It can be found here: https://spoti.fi/2FSnZgM . I hope that you enjoy it!

This Author Spotlight appeared in the April 2019 issue of the CBC Diversity Newsletter. To sign up for our monthly Diversity newsletter click here. 

Aida Salazar is a writer, arts advocate, and home-schooling mother who grew up in South East LA. She received an MFA in Writing from the California Institute of the Arts, and her writings have appeared in publications such as the Huffington Post, Women and Performance: Journal of Feminist Theory, and Huizache Magazine. Her short story, By the Light of the Moon, was adapted into a ballet by the Sonoma Conservatory of Dance and is the first Xicana-themed ballet in history. Aida lives with her family of artists in a teal house in Oakland, CA.