{"id":27658,"date":"2018-11-09T08:00:05","date_gmt":"2018-11-09T13:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=27658"},"modified":"2018-11-09T08:00:05","modified_gmt":"2018-11-09T13:00:05","slug":"looking-beyond-sherman-alexie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=27658","title":{"rendered":"Looking Beyond Sherman Alexie"},"content":{"rendered":"

As booksellers, our primary job is to curate book selections and displays that welcome readers from all backgrounds and create moments of recognition, discovery, and delight for anyone who enters. Fostering that environment is both a big responsibility and a big job. We wrestle with whose voices to include and lift up, and the truth is that the good isn\u2019t as easy to separate from the bad as we would all like for it to be. Not for nothing, the blog post that my ShelfTalker colleague, Cynthia Compton, wrote during Banned Books Week<\/a> was the most eloquent, authentic expression of that particular bookseller conundrum that I\u2019ve seen. And ShelfTalker’s Kenny Brechner and a group of college students\u00a0thoughtfully explored <\/a>the question of how to handle books by authors facing real world accusations very recently as well.
\nBut the more important challenge is less about dealing with the repercussions of bestselling authors\u2019 behavior and more about making sure no community feels that all their stories have been entrusted or restricted to a few lone stewards. As much as the Kid Lit community has truly dug into overdue and heartfelt conversations about inclusion and representation over the last few years, we can all agree we\u2019re still working to fully live up to our goals, especially, perhaps, when it comes to Indigenous and Native voices.
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\nWe are lucky enough to have bestselling Muscogee (Creek) author Cynthia Leitich Smith in Austin. Author of the Tantalize series and the Feral\u00a0trilogy as well as a number of books with Native themes, Cynthia came out with Hearts Unbroken\u00a0<\/em>last\u00a0month. Inspired to some degree by her own high school relationship, this latest book is a very personal one. What I like most about\u00a0Hearts Unbroken<\/em>\u00a0(aside from the fact that Lou\u2019s family builds Tolkien\u2019s Shire into their front yard) is that her experience feels quintessentially teen to me as she figures out how to reconcile her identity as a proud Muscogee (Creek) citizen as well as a writer, a girlfriend, a friend, and an empowered young woman\u2014even when all those things feel incompatible. What teen, or adult for that matter, hasn\u2019t experienced the\u00a0painful angst of staying true to who you know you are in the first flush of love or in the face of what others are predisposed to think? But while Lou\u2019s story is universal, it\u2019s also specific to her own experience as a minority so under-represented in her school\u2019s population that there\u2019s no demographic box for her to check except \u201cother.\u201d I personally think the book offers a brave and layered look at the complexities of identity and the missteps\u00a0that are so easy to make in\u00a0navigating your own and that of others along the way. I hope you get a chance to read it!
\nI recently asked Cynthia if she had thoughts on what bookstores could do better to help champion Native voices. One of the first things she said was that bookstores need to look beyond Sherman Alexie to other voices telling stories from Indigenous points of view, which is a point that I think is well taken. Cynthia also called out one of the challenges that stores always face when curating a balanced selection that speaks to all our customers. Cynthia points out that “For many Native families, walking into a store\u00a0that prominently displays, say, The Little House series or Indian in the\u00a0Cupboard series may feel overwhelming and\/or insulting. Why not feature\u00a0displays of Native-authored books instead? Like Louise Erdrich’s Birchbark series. Or at least there has to be some grounded, authentic,\u00a0pushback content for Native folks to feel good about bringing their kids\u00a0to the store.\u201d
\nShe offered some really practical suggestions about how we could better build Native content into what we do, and I thought they were great, so I asked if I could share! Cynthia has offered\u00a0wonderful suggestion lists in interviews<\/a> and on her blog<\/a>, in addition to her ideas outlined below, and I encourage you to take advantage of them. But as her main point, she encourages booksellers “to use recommendation lists, yes, but\u00a0also get in the habit of asking for every theme: where are the\u00a0intersections with Native-created titles? So, my suggestions model that\u00a0approach.”
\nHere are some of Cynthia\u2019s great display intersection ideas that I hope people can take advantage of:
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