For Come Fall. The artist is Tim Jessell. Publication date is July 27, 2010.

Squeee!!!!!

Elizabeth Bluemle wrote an insightful piece for Shelftalker: A Children’s Bookseller’s Blog (for Publisher’s Weekly) asking us Where’s Ramona Quimby, Black and Pretty? She took issue with the publishing canard that white readers aren’t interested in characters of color. She also called on writers, editors, publishers and booksellers to send her titles of modern books with main characters of color where the book isn’t primarily about race. The result was an outpouring of information, which she detailed here. She decided to pull together the suggested books on a Library Thing list.

There are many lists and sources of information on the web, like Cynthia Leitich Smith’s website; The Brown Bookshelf; American Indians in Children’s Literature; Oyate; Celebrating Cultural Diversity Through Children’s Literature. But the more shout-outs for books with characters of all colors, the better.

Bravo Elizabeth!

[And thank you to Nicole Tadgell for the links.]