Books / Children's Books
Bristol creatives featured in major new children’s literature resource
Several Bristol writers and illustrators are featured in Breaking New Ground, a major new resource which celebrates 100 British writers and illustrators of colour producing quality work for children and young people in the UK.
Launched by Speaking Volumes in partnership with leading children’s literature organisations BookTrust and Pop Up Projects, Breaking New Ground aims to increase the profile of British children’s writers and illustrators of colour by calling on the publishing industry to be more culturally inclusive regarding their children and young adult output.
30,000 free copies of the brochure are being produced in the first phase of the project, and will be distributed to every school in the UK. The brochure will also be made available to local libraries, event programmers, teachers, parents, literary agents, local authorities as well as publishers to use for a range of activities, from booking authors for readings to commissioning new work.
is needed now More than ever
Bristol writers and illustrators featured in Breaking New Ground include award-winning children’s novelist, Polly Ho-Yen; celebrated writer, editor and campaigner, Nikesh Shukla; and children’s picture book writer and illustrator, Yasmeen Ismail (main photo).
Yasmeen says: “Bristol is such a fantastically progressive city that I’m proud to be a part of. I feel honoured to be featured in the Breaking New Ground brochure and to represent Bristol a little bit. Resources like the Breaking New Ground are extremely important when it comes to children’s publishing. Everything I do and create when I am writing or illustrating my books is for children. It’s not ‘for’ anyone else.
“Children need to understand that they can do anything if they want to, and that who or what they are is not a marker for who they want to become. It’s about taking down that barrier that says: ‘this is not for me’. It’s about giving them permission to aspire, to dream, to pursue.”
Sharmilla Beezmohun, Director of Speaking Volumes, the organisation leading the project, adds: “Against a backdrop of growing intolerance, racism and xenophobia, Breaking New Ground is our contribution to the wider campaign being waged across many fronts to change the lack of cultural inclusion and diversity in children and young adult literature. We are pushing for a nationwide transformation for the authors and illustrators who get published to be as multicultural as the society we live in.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBAQDxwI8KU
According to BookTrust, headline statistics from its research with University College London on the representation of authors and illustrators of colour in children’s books, published in the UK over the last 11 years, shows that fewer than 2 per cent were British people of colour.
Pop Up Projects recently found that 50 per cent of the BAME authors it worked with had experienced prejudice or discrimination in their professional encounters with publishers. But it also discovered that 50 per cent felt that publishing was becoming increasingly receptive to, and encouraging of diversity in their characters and stories.
The impact of the Breaking New Ground initiative will be measured over two years, culminating in an international Pop Up Lab Conference in 2021.
For more information on Breaking New Ground, visit http://www.speaking-volumes.org.uk/
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