In the mid ‘80s, when I was in law school, I participated in a seminar about how American law has treated African-American women over history. One lively discussion that stuck with me concerned whether a white person could ever fully understand, let alone properly describe, the life of a black woman. A classmate, an African-American woman, categorically stated that it couldn’t be done. Sullenly, I maintained that it should be possible.

This conversation came back to me, years later, when I wrote No Castles Here. About half the important characters are African-American. The primary setting is the inner-city in an imaginary neighborhood of Camden, NJ, a city where the majority of residents are African-American. Could I, as a white person write about the African-American experience?

Many, like my colleague back in the 1980s, strongly believe it wasn’t possible for me to do it — as illustrated in this blog discussion about the blurb for the book. But that wasn’t what I had set out to do.

I wanted to portray a poor bullied loser who encounters a bit of magic in his life. Because the references were easier for me, I made him white. I based his character, his family’s character, the neighbors, and the neighborhood on the hundreds of people I met and on the neighborhoods I wandered over the years, in the New Haven area, Brooklyn, and during my short time in Camden and Philadelphia.

Whether I was successful in what I set out to do, others will have to decide. But regardless of the success, the effort taught me humility. It made me realize how much I didn’t know. Before spending time with my characters, I was often guilty of white default, which is choosing the color of my character’s skin the same way I might chose his or her eye color, and not paying attention to the details of the person’s life. Being faithful to those details required a lot of effort, and made me far more sensitive to how they can be gotten wrong. I wrote about this recently in an essay published in Anna Tambour’s wonderful website: It’s not like choosing the color of her hair. It’s a very personal essay, but it helped work out for me the wrongs of white default.

The Minnesota Parent magazine came out with its “100+ great books to read this summer” issue. Much to my pleasure, No Castles Here was mentioned as recommended for “tween idealists and deep thinkers.”

Thank you Minnesota Parent!

Great news! An audio version of No Castles Here will be released at the same time as the paperback edition. That’s March 10, 2009, to be more specific.

I can’t wait to hear the production!

I’m visiting beautiful Minneapolis and St. Paul in the next few days. If you’d like to say hello, I’ll be doing a book signing at Auntie Em’s Bookstore on Saturday April 19 from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

Hope to see you there!

Just a reminder that on Monday April 14, at 2:00 p.m., I’ll be appearing with fellow author Karen L. Day at the Edith Wheeler Memorial Library. Hope to see you there!

Fellow Class of 2k7 member Eric Luper emailed me the other day. He had read a blurb about No Castles Here in the recent on-line Rutgers Alumni newsletter in their “Off the Shelf” column. I liked the blurb, but what tickled me was finding out that we are both alumni of Rutgers College. And, as it turns out, so is 2k7er Sarah Aronson!

Go Rutgers!

Colleen Mondor, in her March “Bookslut in Training” column for Bookslut, wrote some very nice things about No Castles Here. In particular she picked up that the book has something to say about surviving in a poor community.

[T]his is a book about class, something that is rarely ever present in children’s literature unless tied to a race storyline. Augie and his neighborhood are poor; his school is poor and because of that they are easy to dismiss or even worse, generalize. Bauer shows just how important a school can be to the children who attend it and how that school in many ways is the foundation for the neighborhood that surrounds it.

You can read the entire review here. I’m quite proud of it.

Children librarian and blogger of A Patchwork of Books has given No Castles Here a fabulous review. She starts off:

What a gem this book is! It isn’t often that I come across a book that I truly love from the first page, but this was, indeed, one of them. First time author A.C.E. Bauer has written a novel that will capture the attention of both boys and girls (and obviously adults).

Stating that it is “easily one of [her] favorites that [she’s] read this year,” she bemoans that she’s too late for the Cybil Awards. But, she adds:

As long as some of you read it now, I won’t be disappointed!

Thank you Amanda!!

You can read the full review here.

In writing No Castles Here, I tried to portray how a target of bullies might respond to the daily assault and intimidation bullies inflict. There’s nothing glamorous about it — being a target is painful and destructive. Finding the respect of one’s peers can be one of the hardest things for a child, and sometimes it’s impossible. I gave Augie, my main character, strong anchors in the story. These were both people and situations that helped him find his way out of the bullying he was suffering. Not every child is so fortunate.

C.J. Bott, a retired teacher and now consultant, created a website called Bulliesinbooks.com. Her goal is to use children’s and YA literature to start a discussion about bullying, and she has compiled a list of books for that starting point. I am proud that NCH was added to her list.

The paperback edition of No Castles Here is scheduled to come out March 10, 2009 — yup, in a little more than a year. But they’ve already decided on a cover:

I like that they tried to make the cover look like a book cover — with pages and a spine. And that Augie is trying to escape from one reality into another — very cool.

I’m excited!