By Kate Johnson-McGregor, CSL Journal Editorial Board
Jael Richardson is the author of The Stone Thrower: A Daughter’s Lesson, a Father’s Life, a memoir based on her relationship with her father, CFL quarterback Chuck Ealey. The book received a CBC Bookie Award and earned Richardson an Acclaim Award and a My People Award as an Emerging Artist. In a review in the National Post, Lawrence Hill called the book, “a valuable addition to the body of memoirs about family and identity”. The recently adapted children’s book – also called The Stone Thrower — was shortlisted for the Elizabeth Mrazik-Cleaver Canadian Picture Book Award and was one of 12 titles chosen for the OneWorld Schoolhouse Rainforest of Reading program in St. Lucia in 2017. Richardson is a book columnist for CBC’s q and holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph. She lives in Brampton, Ontario where she founded and serves as the Artistic Director for the Festival of Literary Diversity (FOLD) – Canada’s first festival for diverse authors and storytellers.
Ontario School Library Association (OSLA) past-president Kate Johnson-McGregor sat down with Ms. Richardson earlier this spring. With this article Kate recounts this far-reaching conversation, and makes her own connections to the potential of the school library learning commons.
The role of the library learning commons in any school is multi-faceted. As staff, we are called to be many things to many people, and schools across this country, serving students from JK to Grade 12, are answering that call every day. We support and develop curriculum, we collaborate with teachers and students, we foster a love of learning and literature and provide a safe space for making – or simply just being – for everyone in our community. It is therefore imperative that as we continue to expand the definition of “school library” to include ebooks, robotics, coding, lego and crafts that we ensure the space is truly representative and equitable in serving the needs of our students. For a library learning commons to be a meaningful and responsive place, students need to see themselves reflected, both in the space itself, and in the literature available to them.
This year’s OSLA Spotlight speaker at Ontario Library Association (OLA) Super Conference, author Jael Richardson, is a champion for diversity in literature through her writing and her social activism, most notably as the founder and artistic director of the FOLD, the Festival of Literary Diversity, which just celebrated its 2nd anniversary on the weekend of May 4th-6th this year.
Richardson’s first book, The Stone Thrower: A Daughter’s Lessons, a Father’s Life, was published in 2012. It is a memoir, inspired by a trip she made with her dad to his high school reunion, back to the town in Ohio where he grew up. Richardson’s father, Chuck Ealey, made history as the first African-American quarterback to win a CFL championship when he led the Hamilton Tiger Cats to victory in the Grey Cup, against the Saskatchewan Roughriders in his rookie year, 1972. While Richardson was aware of her father’s storied career and his accomplishments, her perception of him and most significantly, of herself, changed as she began investigating his past. She went on to write The Stone Thrower, a picture book which addresses issues of racism and the importance of perseverance in a context accessible to children. I caught up with Ms. Richardson on a busy Wednesday this spring and we chatted about literature, diversity, writing, education, and the power of school libraries.
On how her father’s story impacted her sense of self
Richardson explained that the process of writing her memoir allowed her to make sense of things that didn’t previously make sense, and helped her to understand her own personality and experiences in a new way. She explained it as a way of assembling the many pieces of her life and her identity. “I underestimated the significance of that, even when I was writing the first draft – dad’s life was always remarkable because of what he accomplished. It’s like working on a puzzle, and it’s mostly done but there is a spot that is difficult – it didn’t need to be filled in, in order to see the image and get the big idea, but filling in that tough spot gave me a better understanding of the whole picture, of every part of my black life.” Richardson explained that her dad left the United States because he wanted to play quarterback, and during the late 1960’s that wasn’t a possibility for a black man in the NFL. When they settled in Canada, Ealey and his family built friendships in a virtually homogenous white community. “My parents wouldn’t know what to do in a black community.” Richardson describes growing up in a Christian home, reading Christian romantic fiction. As is the case with so many people, university exposed her to more diverse literature than she had previously read. She describes Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible as “a book that shook me. It allowed me to take a critical look at my faith – a look at colonization – and think critically about what I actually believe in.”
On the importance of diversity in School Library Learning Commons
“Schools are critical. School boards have a huge impact on the economics of literature. Authors are directly impacted when schools and school boards buy – or choose not to buy – their books. Look at the display tables at Chapters – those are not usually loaded with diverse authors. Diverse authors are constantly competing against more ‘mainstream’ voices. And kids need to hear voices that sound like their own. Last year, the Peel District School Board recommended that schools re-evaluate their classroom reading lists and remove some ‘classics’ in favour of books that more accurately reflect the cultural diversity of their modern classrooms. This sort of culturally responsive approach speaks to students. It tells them, ‘You matter. Your voice matters.’”
Richardson went on to talk about the idea that literature works as either a window or a mirror to the reader. “Window” books allow us to see into lives that are different from our own, while “mirrors” reflect our experience. Both are extremely important when it comes to shaping our identity. On the subject of school librarians, Richardson says, “School librarians are the key to students gaining access to diverse materials. They are the people who build diverse collections and have a personal connection with the students. When you recommend a book to a student, you don’t know if you’re giving them a mirror or a window when you give it over. The important thing is that you are there to provide it.” On a personal note, Richardson credits a teacher-librarian friend with encouraging her to turn her memoir into a children’s book. The TL was looking for Canadian stories to use in her elementary school library for Black History Month and recognized the paucity of available material at an age-appropriate level. And The Stone Thrower was born.
On establishing the FOLD
The philosophy of The FOLD (Festival of Literary Diversity) is inclusivity. According to Richardson, “Nobody is excluded – women and men of colour, disabled writers, trans writers… who else? We are constantly looking to include everyone. And hosting the event in Brampton is a choice. It isn’t common to have a writing festival in suburban neighbourhood. We want to provide access to people on the outskirts of Toronto, where parking is free. I wanted to create something in my community that is making a difference in my community.”
Richardson credits her experiences after publishing The Stone Thrower as her motivation for founding The FOLD. “After the book came out , initially the publishers were excited and books were selling, and there was the honeymoon, but after awhile, nothing much happened. My experience didn’t really change. I kept going to festivals and art events, but there were no new invitations. I really felt outside the literary community. More often than not, I was the only black woman in the room.” Around the same time, BookCon 2014, a writer’s event in New York sparked the #weneeddiversebooks movement when only one author of colour appeared in their lineup. Canada is not immune to this predominately white representation among authors. When visiting an independent bookstore in Ontario and offering to do a reading of The Stone Thrower for Black History month, the store owner declined, saying, “This town is very white.”
This is an opportunity for the school library to step up and be the mirror and the window for our students. The less diverse the student population in your school, the more important it is to provide diversity in the resources available to your community. As adult readers, we know the potential for empathy and understanding in connecting with a character in a book. Richardson doesn’t hold back on her feelings about being a reader, “I love to read books that allow me to meet people and ideas that I wouldn’t otherwise meet. Books uncover things in myself that need more reflection. I believe we learn more through fiction; we see the creativity of a spirit and a heart, alongside the characters.” These human connections are the intangible learning that students experience as a result of the materials we provide. It is imperative that students are able to see themselves and their peers in their school library.
On reading diversely
Richardson has some ideas about how the landscape of Canada could change for diverse authors. “I’d like to make sure that diversity becomes the norm. I’m tired of being at a writing retreat where writers are all white, except me. We need to be conscious of tokenizing vs diversifying. Tokenizing happens when you only have one person representing – we need a range of voices.”
Opportunities for diverse writers will continue to expand so long as readers (and parents, and teachers and teacher-librarians and techs) demand diverse books from publishers for our school library collections. Demand will drive the supply. We need to be critical of the books in our collection: Are they truly representative of the diversity of human experience? We all have favourite books, authors, and preferences. Now is the time to question ourselves: Are we limiting ourselves and our collections because of these preferences? How can we ensure diverse options for our schools?
As a first step, Richardson challenges us to be reflective and move outside our personal comfort zones as readers. “Look at what you’ve read in the past – how has it shaped you? How has reading those texts impacted what you read now? What kinds of books make you nervous? What books are you afraid to read. Force yourself to read through that.” Modelling a diverse approach to reading and living will enhance the lives and experiences of our students. School libraries in Canada are up for the challenge, and we will all be better for taking it on.
Useful Links
The Fold
The Fold Reading Challenge
Kate Johnson-McGregor is teacher-librarian at Brantford Collegiate Institute in Brantford, Ontario. She was the 2016 president of the Ontario School Library Association and currently serves as the association’s past president. Kate is a frequent presenter at library and education conferences and in school districts.