Slippery Slope or Solid Ground?

After reading Marc Aronson’s “Slippery Slopes and Proliferating Prizes” and Andrea Davis Pinkney’s “Awards That Stand on Solid Ground”, both published in The Horn Book Magazine, I felt compelled to response to these readings.

In his piece, Aronson questions what these “proliferating” awards will mean for the readers of these texts. He poses an important question, “If you have to be black to win the award, do you have to be black to appreciate the award winning book?” I would argue that the answer to this question is, absolutely not. We shouldn’t be confined to reading to reading about people “just like us”.

I was astonished at how few awards were presented to black authors, 3 Newberys in a 97 year period. When thinking about the “ratio of black to white winners” it is hard for me not to see merit in awards that recognize marginalized populations. Although I agree with Pinkney’s assertion that “these awards are a gateway to progress”, they are not an absolute solution that will help incorporate underrepresented populations into children’s literature.

In my opinion, as long as the work that is being honored is a quality piece of literature, there is no harm in branching out our recognition.

Jigsaw Assignment- Lambda Literacy Award

The Lambda Literacy Foundation Award’s website can be found at: http://www.lambdaliterary.org/index.html. The purpose of this award is to celebrate GLBTQ literature. This award does not take the orientation of the author into consideration; it is secondary to the quality of the writing and the LBGTQ content of the work. There are twenty one categories in which books can be nominated by their author or publisher. The books are judged by various members of the literary community, but judges are not announced until the winners are made public.

In 2004, there was a book (The Man Who Would Be Queen) which was nominated, announced as a finalist, and then removed from the list due to an outcry of the LGBTQ population. More information about this at http://www.tsroadmap.com/info/lambda-literary.html.

We found it quite interesting that we could not find a “seal” to acknowledge books which won this award. Our group questioned whether this is due to the political climate of our country and the connotations that this award might have toward these books. Does not having an award allow for this book to be read by children and young adults without being "flagged"?

In searching for books which have won this award, we could only find two of the books in the young adult/children’s lit categories: Luna (which was found at the library) and Boy Meets Boy (which is actually a book we’re reading in class).