0 Jacqueline Woodson's Response

Jacqueline Woodson, divinely wonderful writer and winner of the National Book Award for Young People's Literature for Brown Girl Dreaming, has responded to Daniel Handler's watermelon joke in the New York Times. Here's a link to her piece, called "The Pain of the Watermelon Joke." It's in the printed paper today, too. (Thanks, Sarah, for all these links!)

Detail: Jacqueline Woodson's Response

0 In the Wake of the National Book Award Ceremony...

I'm getting a lot out of the discussion in the comments of Roger Sutton's blog post in response to Daniel Handler's racist watermelon joke at the National Book Award ceremony last week.  I haven't read every comment yet, but there's a lot here, a lot of people making astute observations and criticisms and explaining muddy things with great clarity. For example, I like the way some commenters are eviscerating Roger's criticisms of poet Nikky Finney's response to Handler's comments. (That link is to only one of the comments on this topic -- keep reading.)

Also, this seems like a good segue to reminding people that the We Need Diverse Books campaign is still going strong. Help the organization reach its stretch goals!

Detail: In the Wake of the National Book Award Ceremony...