Book lists: Multicultural SF/F for MG and YA

July 21, 2009October 25, 2013 - Stacy 41 Comments

ETA: If you’re just googling into this list now, please see my booklists over on Pinterest, which I keep much more up-to-date than this page from several years ago. I break them down by age group and genre. I also publish diverse science fiction and fantasy for young readers at Tu Books now. See the sidebar or the Tu Books page for more information.

Over at Color Online, they do a meme challenge every week “designed to encourage readers to broaden their reading habits.” This week (well, actually, it was last week; I’ve been working on this list for a few days in spare moments), they’re challenging people to discuss science fiction and fantasy where people of color are the leads.

This is something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately, as we’ve already discussed, but let’s talk about books I’ve already read in which the main character (not a supporting character) is a person of color. Obviously, a lot of the manga I’ve been reading lately features people of color — at least, the ones set in Japan can reasonably be assumed to be people of color. (There’s an ongoing discussion among people who know more about manga than I do that addresses this, because many people unfamiliar with manga assume that the characters are white because of the range of hair colors and because eye shape isn’t characterized with the fold that is so common to Asian people, but from what I understand, it’s just an artistic choice, not a statement on the race of the characters. It certainly makes it easier to distinguish different characters when you’ve got a range of hair colors, especially in black-and-white manga. But that’s not what this post is really about.)

So what science fiction and fantasy — specifically, for young readers — have you read lately that feature a main character of color? Here’s my list (note that even though this is a “multicultural” list, I’m deliberately leaving out fantasy inspired by Celtic culture unless it features a character of color, because such fantasy is usually the most predominant in the market. I love it, but it’s not what this list is for):

SFF books for young readers that feature multicultural characters that I’ve read

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, 2009, by Grace Lin. I’m still working on reading this fairy-tale retelling-like tale, but so far it’s beautiful.
Wildwood Dancing, 2007, by Juliet Marillier. This one’s a little bit of a stretch, but it is set in Romania, which is a culture we don’t see too often in non-vampire stories.
Book of a Thousand Days, 2008, by Shannon Hale. Mongolia-inspired. Lovely, lovely fairy tale retelling. My favorite of Shannon’s books (and that’s saying something, because she writes some good books!).
The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm, 1994, by Nancy Farmer. Set in Zimbabwe in the year 2194.
The House of the Scorpion, 2002, by Nancy Farmer. Set in the zone between the U.S. and Mexico, main character is Latino.
Flora Segunda, 2007, by Isabeau S. Wilce, and its sequel Flora’s Dare. Set in a fantasy world inspired by a fun mix of medieval, fashion-forward, and Spanish-inspired cultures (Spain-Spanish, given how the language is used, I’m thinking, but I could be wrong).
Little Sister,1996, by Kara Dalkey, and a sequel for which I’ve forgotten the name. Japanese folklore. This is actually one of the first multicultural fantasies I discovered way back in college, and I loved it so much, but at the time couldn’t find many more books like it.
Magic or Madness, 2005, and its sequels by Justine Larbalestier. Reason Cansino, the main character, is an Australian of mixed race.
A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Leguin. This one has had a lot of misunderstanding over the years due to publishers in the 60s and 70s putting a white Ged on the cover, when in fact Ged and many of the other characters are dark-skinned.
Eternal, 2009, by Cynthia Leitich Smith. Miranda is Chinese-American.
Tantalize, 2007, by Cynthia Leitich Smith. Main character Quincie is English-Italian-Texan, and non-POV character (but featured in a graphic novel sequel) Kieren is Mexican-American. (This one’s kind of a stretch, because Quincie isn’t technically a person of color–unless that Texan part is Latino?)

ETA: How could I forget Lawrence Yep? I have one of his books, but I’m not sure where it is. The ones I’ve read of his feature Asian characters in Asian settings (Chinese? I can’t remember off the top of my head). His books are great reads.

SFF books written by authors of color (where I’ve been able to identify them) in which characters may be of ambiguous ethnicity, or ethnicity simply not mentioned

Sucks to Be Me

, 2008, by Kimberly Pauley

Multicultural science fiction and fantasy on my TBR pile

Silver Phoenix, 2009, by Cindy Pon. Set in ancient China.
Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit, 2008, by Nahoko Uehashi, and its sequel, Moribito II. Written by a Japanese author (originally published in Japan and translated to English) and set in a culture inspired by medieval Japan.
The Shadow Speaker, 2007, by Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu. Set in Niger, 2070. I’ve had the ARC of this since 2007, and have been wanting to read it for forever, and keep misplacing it when I actually think of it! It’s an oversight I need to correct.
Zahrah the Windseeker, Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu.
Extras, 2007, by Scott Westerfeld. Main character, Aya, is Japanese, I believe. I LOVED the first three in the series (and somehow have misplaced my signed copies of the first two books 🙁 ) but haven’t had a chance to catch up with this one.
How to Ditch Your Fairy, 2008, Justine Larbalestier
Tantalize: Kieren’s Story, by Cynthia Leitich Smith–the above-mentioned sequel to her Tantalize.
The Animorphs series
Chronus Chronicles by Anne Ursu
Doret says that she’s been told the Pendragon series apparently has a black girl protagonist, despite the white boy on the cover? I’ll have to investigate that–perhaps it’s alternating viewpoints, or perhaps she’s introduced at a later point in the series? I know there is a follow-up series once the main boy protag grows up, so perhaps she’s in that?
Devil’s Kiss, by Sarwat Chadda
Libyrinth, by Pearl North
The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex
Sword and Wandering Warrior by Da Chen

Multicultural fantasy that never came to be, and I lament it

Books 7 and 8 of the Hallowmere series by Tiffany Trent, which was canceled at book 6. I was so looking forward to editing Mara’s story (former slave, probably the most interesting of the Hallowmere girls because of her backstory) in book 7 and Chumana’s story (Hopi girl who Mara was going to meet in her travels through the raths) in book 8.

And books to add to my TBR pile thanks to shweta-narayan

Across the Nightingale Floor and its sequels, by Lian Hearn. Japanese historical fantasy. I had a copy of this in Seattle, and I’m not sure where I put it. I think I must have lost it in the move to Utah.
Annals of the Western Shore series by Ursula K. LeGuin. I remember the controversy over this cover, too–originally when Gifts came out, they’d put a white kid on the cover, too, and given LeGuin’s long history of having the cover of Earthsea whitewashed, that was a pretty big fight, and the final book ended up with I believe an Indian or Pakistani boy on the cover instead.
Un Lun Dun by China Mieville. I keep forgetting to read this one, though people keep recommending it to me. I even have a free copy from ALA a few years back.
The Two Pearls of Wisdom (or Dragoneye Reborn as it’s known in the US) by Alison Goodman. I’ve been meaning to pick this one up. The whole mythology is inspired by Asian culture (Japanese? I can’t remember which one).
Lavender-Green Magic, by Andre Norton.
A Posse of Princesses by Sherwood Smith. (Is this YA?)
Stormwitch, by Susan Vaught
The Dragon Keeper, by Carole Wilkinson
A Girl Named Disaster, by Nancy Farmer
The Wizard series by Diane Duane
The Green Boy, by Susan Cooper
Jin Shei trilogy by Alma Alexander
The Magical Adventures of Pretty Pearl, by Virginia Hamilton
Willie Bea and the Time the Martians Landed, by Virginia Hamilton
47, by Walter Mosley
Pemba’s Song, by Marilyn Nelson and Tonya C. Hegamin
The Icarus Girl, by Helen Oyeyemi
Haroun and the Sea of Stories, by Salman Rushdie
The Night Wanderer, by Drew Hayden Taylor

There are also books in which the ethnicity of the character is neutral/unclaimed, as in The Hunger Games, in which most of those who work in the Seam are dark-skinned, but of an unspecified ethnic origin (Mitali Perkins discussed this on her blog a while back), so I’m not counting it on this list but it’s still a great book.

As you can see, there are some really great books out there already, but the list is still pretty short. Can you guys help me add to it? Especially the TBR pile, though I know I’m also forgetting books that I’ve read that I just don’t have copies of. What am I missing?

For scholars and published children’s writers: ICFA

June 30, 2009October 8, 2010 - Stacy

One of my authors (Amie Rose Rotruck, who wrote Bronze Dragon Codex) is also the head of the ICFA children’s literature division. She’s looking for published YA and middle grade authors of speculative fiction who are interested in attending the conference next March. (whoops, originally that said June–not sure what I was thinking. It’s every March!)

More information about ICFA, from Amie’s blog:

In one sentence: IAFA is a scholarly organization dedicated to the study of the fantastic in the arts. Let’s break down those terms:

“Scholarly” refers to academic papers, most grad school level or above, although every once in a while there’s some good undergrad papers.

“Fantastic” refers to anything outside the realm of reality. This includes high fantasy, urban fantasy, horror, science fiction, science fantasy, and basically anything that doesn’t fall under realistic.

“Arts” refers to literature, film, graphic novels, picture books, fanfic, visual art.

Now for some some FAQs:

What do you do?
Currently I am head of the Children’s and Young Adult division. This means I receive and evaluate scholarly papers and determine which belong in the conference (and some other boring behind the scenes stuff). Deadline for papers is October 31; official CFP will be posted here later. I am NOT in charge of deciding which writers get compensation for attending and how much; I’m just looking for names to pass along at this point.

I don’t write papers, I write fiction. What can I contribute?
There are also author readings at the conference (usually one block of readings per session; there’s about 4-6 sessions per day). I’d love to get some new children’s and YA writer blood into those readings. In addition to readings, you can also do signings and book sales. A great chance to interact with people who have an academic interest in your genre (who knows, you may even get to meet someone who wrote a paper about your work; there’s a lot on recent books!).

What do I get for attending?
Compensation varies and is, I must warn you, competitive. Later this summer the person in charge of arranging visiting writers will be emailing out conference info and what you need to send to get compensation. If you’re interested, give me your name and contact info so I can pass it on to her.

Who else will be there?
This year the Guest of Honors are Lawrence Yep and Nalo Hopkinson. For an idea of other writers who’ve attended in the past, this past year’s program is available at www.iafa.org (to find names quickly, just to a search on “Reading”)

Why should I come?

Hear papers on current issues in children’s literature such as “Twilight” or ancient issues relating to fairy tales, or anything in-between.

Talk with some amazing writers and scholars in a very friendly environment (I call this a “conference with training wheels” when encouraging grad students to attend).

It’s in Orlando in March, so if you live in a cold climate it’s a chance to warm up and maybe swing by Disneyworld.

It’s a networking opportunity; I met slwhitman there and she ended up being the editor for my first book.

Because this is one of the most amazing, fun conferences in existence.

If you’re interested, contact her directly with the information she’s asking for.

A little more info, but not much

June 5, 2009October 8, 2010 - Stacy 4 Comments

If you’re my friend on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter, you will know that I’ve revealed the big secret I’ve been keeping: That I’m starting a small press with a friend. I don’t feel ready to give many details about it yet because I’m still working on the website and a variety of details related to the business side of things, but I did want to give you a little more information, so as not to be all teasing about it. I just don’t want to count any chickens, etc. — so I can only give you the bare bones until I have something I can point people to.

I’ve been considering this possibility for years — it’s actually been a dream of mine since perhaps college or a few years after I graduated. When I was laid off from Mirrorstone, I looked for a job in New York City publishing, but I was laid off right before all the layoffs were starting there, which meant that what few job openings were still around were hard to come by, and most other places were either in a hiring freeze or preparing for possible layoffs. I moved to Utah to freelance while I figured out what my next step was. I considered becoming an agent, which is a common path for editors in my position, but that didn’t feel right either.

In the mean time, as you know if you read this blog, I’ve been critiquing manuscripts directly for authors, teaching the occasional community writing seminar (remember: worldbuilding seminar at the end of this month!), and providing freelance editorial services to a variety of publishers — mostly copyediting and proofreading. But even the freelancing is drying up these days — as publishers cut back, they pull all their freelance services in-house, piling more work on the editors they still have left. I enjoy helping new writers, but I like seeing the whole process, having the end result of a printed book to share with readers. I love being an in-house editor.

I’m still sending submissions to Tor — and am still looking for agented submissions for that, and for books by authors with whom I’ve worked in the past (including requesting a full manuscript or revisions) — but that isn’t a full-time thing.

One of the issues in fantasy publishing in the last six months or so have been about how fantasy is typically white, and it’s gotten me thinking (and plotting) about doing something more specific within that particular segment of the market. Racefail, especially, got me thinking about how children’s and YA fantasy and science fiction, while we’re working on becoming more representative of the readers, still don’t always reach the kids from various multicultural backgrounds. (Don’t even get me started on the all-white casting of the Avatar: The Last Airbender movie.) Most of the kids I know who love fantasy are white/of a European Caucasian descent, and no wonder, because they are the kids most likely to identify with the characters in children’s and YA fantasy. But how can we reach Latino kids? Do Asian-American kids identify with most of the fantasy that’s out there? Don’t kids of all kinds of backgrounds read many non-Western stories, and can’t those stories be told in a way that reaches a wide range of modern American kids? There are some great books out there that do this–and I want to contribute to making more of them possible.

I love all sorts of fantasy, including fantasy with white characters, whether or not it’s inclusive of multiculturalism. But there’s so much already out there, and I got to wondering how we might be able to bring what is currently a niche market (most multicultural books are nonfiction or realism) and combine it with the adventure, romance, magic, forward-thinking, and all the other awesome things that fantasy and science fiction provide to readers, bringing out more stories with characters of all sorts of cultural backgrounds.

So that’s the thinking behind the small press — publishing multicultural fantasy and science fiction. I’ve been working on a business plan, with all the intricacies involved in that, with a business partner (who is also a good friend) who cares about these things as well. We’ve got a site reserved and are working on submission guidelines, and we’re working on a number of processes necessary to starting the business. In addition to the publishing part of the business, we’ve also got a lot of ideas about how to get involved in the community, locally and throughout the country. We want to be a force for good not only in awareness of the issues, but in just bringing good books out to all sorts of readers no matter what their cultural inspiration. Once we have those things in place, I’ll be able to tell you more details like what kinds of stories we’re looking for and how to submit, and where to submit to, and all those things that you’ll want to know. I will continue to critique individual authors’ work and freelancing until we make an official announcement about what we’re looking for.

It takes a lot of money to start a publishing company, even a small press, no matter how important the cause. With that in mind, I’ve added a button on the sidebar for anyone who believes in what we’re doing and would like to donate to the effort. It’s not by any means something I’ll push–this will be my last mention of it in the blog — I just thought that if anyone was interested and wanted to, I’d make the option available. If you also believe in expanding fantasy and science fiction to be more inclusive, please consider helping out. All donations will go into the capital fund for the small press.

Hope that answers at least a few questions about what we’re hoping to do, at least until we have an official company presence on the web to direct you to.

Seminar report

March 23, 2009October 8, 2010 - Stacy

I had a really great time meeting somewhere in the neighborhood of 23 local writers on Saturday at the Provo Library. We talked about writing science fiction and fantasy for children and young adults, and in that context we talked about hooking agents and editors and young readers themselves with killer first chapters and beyond. I think my favorite part of the afternoon was getting volunteers to read their first hook and then the collegial atmosphere when we applied what we’d been talking about as we discussed how to improve those samples.

Thanks to everyone who came! I think a writing group grew from it, as well. Good luck with your writing.

I think I’ll try to do a seminar like this every quarter or so, and perhaps a few other classes, perhaps getting more in-depth on other aspects of writing science fiction and fantasy for young readers. Suggestions for class topics welcome, and if anyone from the class has further questions I’m happy to answer them.

Completely non-scientific thoughts on EMP-type doomsday stories

March 10, 2009October 8, 2010 - Stacy

Well, nonscientific in that I am not going to even Google anything about the science on this (yet). Jericho was on TV yesterday in reruns–a big block of four episodes that I DVRed but ended up deleting when I realized that it was much later in the season, and that there are several episodes between when I stopped watching and the episodes I had. But it got me thinking about shows in which electromagnetic pulses (EMPs) are used as a doomsday device, and win.

My first example isn’t exactly the best one, but I use it for a reason. In Ocean’s Eleven (*spoilers*), the guys use an EMP to knock out Las Vegas’s electric grid for a time. With a complete acknowledgement that they’re probably playing fast and loose with the science of it, if an EMP knocks out delicate instruments, how in the world was Las Vegas able to come back up so quickly? Did they knock out all the computers on that grid, too? How many millions or billions of dollars of damage would such a pulse have done to the electronics of the part of Las Vegas that the EMP affected?

Then there’s Dark Angel–which we only see 20 years after the pulse, so there’s admittedly little dealt with in the series itself about the immediate effects of the EMP, but we do see a lot of interesting social extrapolation, where only the rich have the newest technologies and the U.S. is plunged into a new kind of depression that they might not recover from for years. (After all, when the banks’ systems crash, all those little ones and zeroes turn into just plain zeros, according to Dark Angel’s voiceover narrative in one of the earlier episodes.)

How does it happen? Well, we’ve got a service-based society, I can see how it might happen in the big cities at least. Small towns, though, tend to be a lot more self-sufficient. What Midwestern farm town doesn’t have at least two or three farmers with their own machine shops (not electromechanical–actual machine shops with tools probably inherited from their grandpa), wood shops, or even a guy or two who’s into hunting and trapping that might have a smoke shed for preserving meat? It wouldn’t serve the needs of the entire area, but that town would have resources beyond its electronics, and the food would be right out there in the fields (barring a subsequent natural disaster–it might be only corn and beans and whatever animals they might raise, plus every country garden, but they’d have food and people who knew how to cultivate it).

Limitations on even a small town, of course, would be distribution of fossil fuels and electricity. No power tools, etc. But from my experience, small towns are populated by resourceful people. As in Dark Angel, it’s the cities that would suffer most, because they generally don’t grow their own food and rely more upon electricity and fossil fuels for basic necessities like heat in the winter.

And that brings me to Jericho. The reason I stopped watching the show? All the frozen meat was thawing when the local grocery store’s backup generator died. What did they do? THEY HAD A PARTY and ATE ALL THE MEAT. No, they didn’t find the guy with the smoke shed who might be able to teach them how to preserve the meat for the winter, even though they knew they’d probably run out of food before the electricity was fixed (if it was ever going to be). No, they didn’t find the local crazy environmentalist survivalist (my town had at least one, didn’t yours?) who would be able to help them know how to cut wood in the spring and summer so that it would be dry enough to use in fireplaces and wood-burning stoves by the winter. And forget coal, which most midwestern small towns I’m familiar with would still have someone hanging on to.

Or perhaps that’s just me. My dad didn’t get an electric furnace for our house, which is 3 miles out from our small Illinois town of 2,700, until the coal hopper for our wood-burning furnace (as in, the only furnace our house had, central heat from the basement powered by wood) finally quit, which was about 3 or 4 years ago I believe. He still cuts wood, but not as much anymore because he doesn’t have four kids at home to help him cut, haul, and stack every weekend.

We froze our meat (which we raised–pig, cow, rabbit, chicken), but my dad had plenty of friends who knew how to preserve meat, and several friends who had harness-trained horses (we raised horses for pleasure/trail riding; our family vacations were spent camping on the Jubilee College State Park horse trails near Peoria, IL) and if necessary we knew several people who could haul out their old horse or oxen-drawn plows because nobody who grew up in the Depression ever seems to have thrown anything out. (When my grandpa died in 2000, we–mostly meaning my dad and several aunts and uncles–cleaned out his barns on his farm and my grandma’s house. It took months. We found enough antiques to sell to the local antique man that we were able to establish a house maintenance fund for my grandma. We also found peaches that had been canned by my great-grandmother before she died in 1972. Sploosh!)

Okay, point being that most small towns I know have resourceful people, and the people of Jericho? They didn’t seem smart or resourceful enough to have actually populated a small town at any time in the history of the last fifty years. It was as if they’d all just moved in from L.A. last year. Oh! They did!

This is why Life As We Knew It fascinated me so much, actually. It’s not an EMP story, but it does take into account all the various ways that people can be resourceful in a doomsday scenario. And it makes me wonder how the main character of LaWKI would cope with a mere EMP blast (as opposed to the moon taking out half the earth’s ability to grow food and catastrophic climate change). I think she’d do pretty well, actually.

More on the SF list

January 12, 2009February 15, 2009 - Stacy

In answer to my question regarding middle grade science fiction on the Child_Lit listserv, Farah Mendlesohn replied with the address of her blog and her book list, dedicated to mostly children’s science fiction. Hooray! This will be a great resource, as will the book she wrote, which is coming out sometime this year.

Now, the book list says "YA SF," but I’m seeing everything from Captain Underpants (how could I forget him?) to Scott Westerfeld, so it encompasses more than just YA. I’ll skim and see what I can glean for the particular list we’re making here, and if you all happen to see any on there that would count as middle grade, let me know.

On to science fiction!

January 10, 2009February 15, 2009 - Stacy

Okay, now that we’ve got the middle grade fantasy list, what about science fiction specifically for middle graders? I’m going to be really lenient in our definitions of science fiction, so we can include dystopian books for kids like City of Ember which are more based on science, but in which the science is kind of iffy. That takes second seat to how much fun the book is for the reader.

Remember, we’re talking specifically about books published for middle grade readers, kids age 8-12. The lines can be blurry, but I want to keep books published for young adults and adults off the list even if kids those age are reading them, simply for clarity’s sake.

Also, let’s leave off anything published prior to . . . oh, let’s give it a wide swath but say 1990. Science fiction published before those years was definitely science fiction, and there are kids who still find that interesting, but like I’ve said before, it’s a forward-looking genre, and really, books published before the kids were born will probably not be regarded as forward anything. But I gave i
t a little bigger swath than what should be probably 1997-2001, because there are a lot of good books like The Giver which are still popular in schools and aren’t set at any time that the reader couldn’t imagine to be their future.

Let’s also do a subgenre breakdown in the list, so we know why we’re calling it science fiction rather than fantasy (especially time travel novels: for the sake of clarity, few of the time travel novels have plausible science in them. I mean, do *you* know anyone who has traveled in time? but for ease of listing, I’m just plunking it in science fiction). If you have a subgenre classification I haven’t used here that applies to your book, let me know.

Dystopic

* City of Ember, Jeanne DuPrau
* The Giver, Lois Lowry
* Among the Hidden, Margaret Peterson Haddix
Running Out of Time, Margaret Peterson Haddix

Cyberpunk

Are there any cyberpunk books for middle graders? Would we even WANT there to be any? (Most of the cyberpunk I’ve read is pretty mature.)

Steampunk

Steampunk is one of those genres that crosses the line between SF and fantasy, too. The one that stands out most is Larklight by Philip Reeve. Others?

Space/spaceships/space travel

* A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L’Engle (this makes *both* fantasy and science fiction lists because it has elements of both. Please be careful when suggesting books like this, but if it it fits, it goes on the list)

Time travel

* Many Waters, Madeleine L’Engle (also a double, fuzzy, slippage kind of book)

Other planets

* Dragonsong, Anne McCaffrey (this goes on this list as much as or more than it does on fantasy, given that the dragons are actually just native to the new planet) new info says this book is definitely YA–sex in later books in the series
* Dragon and Thief (Dragonback), Timothy Zahn

So far the length of this list sucks. I *know* there are more books out there, but my fantasy collection here at home is far more vast than my science fiction collection. Every SF book I think of tends to be more YA than MG. I know that Rebecca Moesta and Kevin J. Anderson have spoken out about how little SF there is for kids, but I don’t know that I’d classify Crystal Doors as more SF than fantasy, and most places I’ve seen it sold in the YA section anyway.

So, what’s out there, people?

Stacy Whitman's Grimoire

Thoughts on writing, editing, and publishing books for children and young adults

Tag: science fiction