I started this week’s review with another novel in mind, but a recent comment from a storytime attendee directed my attention elsewhere. On their way out the door, a small child stopped to look at a display book; as they did so, they told their caregiver, “Look, its me!” The child holding the book and the child on the front cover of the book both had brown skin and curly brown hair. This child saw themselves in this book; more importantly, this child saw themselves in a book in their library.

A good library has something for everyone, and I think the Joplin Public Library is no exception. We plan storytimes, as well as select, read, and display books, with all children in mind. Social media has made it especially easy to find books that reflect experiences different than my own.

When I request or select books to use in storytime, I often search the #WeNeedDiverseBooks and #ownvoices hashtags on Twitter and Google to find titles I might not see in mainstream review sources (I should mention that these aforementioned mainstream sources are taking steps to become more representative and inclusive).

In defense of my belief that the library does a great job representing various viewpoints, I would like to share a few recent picture books that depict underrepresented voices and perspectives.

THE DAY YOU BEGIN by Jacqueline Woodson, ill. By Rafael Lopez

Jacqueline Woodson’s newest picture book begins with a comforting statement that becomes a refrain of sorts: “There will be times when you walk into a room and no one there is quite like you.” This line is juxtaposed with Rafael Lopez’s soft illustration of a trepidatious young girl with caramel skin and curly black hair peering through what is presumed to be a classroom door.

Woodson’s tender, poetic voice lifts up the experiences of several children, including Rigoberto, a boy from Venezuela who speaks differently from his classmates; a presumably Korean girl whose kimchi garners strange glances from her friends; and a young white boy with a book in his hands who prefers reading over sports.

Woodson is an exceptional poet, and The Day You Begin is a testament to her skill. Woodson, who is currently the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, lives up to her title by representing the emotions of several underrepresented children, offering the reader a glimpse into both the joy and terror inherent in being different from your peers.

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BOWWOW POWWOW by Brenda Child, Ill. by Jonathan Thunder, trans. By Gordon Jourdain

Bowwow Powwow, which is written in both the Ojibwa language and English, follows a young Native girl named Windy Girl and her silly dog Itchy Boy as they learn about the history of their people and pow wow traditions. Jourdain’s translations embody the pre-pow wow excitement that permeates the grounds as Windy Girl watches the preparations unfold, and Thunder’s colorful digital illustrations add a playful element to the powwow grounds, regalia, and anthropomorphic animals that appear in the young girl’s dream sequence.

Native people have been notoriously misrepresented in children’s literature, so a book about a modern Ojibwe girl that is written and illustrated by Red Lake Ojibwe artists is noteworthy in itself. However, Bowwow Powwow is also noteworthy because it is an enjoyable and interesting read for both children and adults.

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HEY WALL: A STORY OF ART AND COMMUNITY by Susan Verde, ill. By John Parra

Hey Wall: A Story of Art and Community follows community members as they band together to turn an ugly old wall into a symbol of love, beauty, and unity. Children of various skin tones pass the wall on a regular basis, but it exists as nothing more than a sore thumb amidst the dancing, singing, and cooking that takes place around it. One day, Angel, a young boy with brown skin, takes the wall and his neighbors to task. Slowly, with the neighborhood’s help, the formerly ugly wall unfolds into a reflection of its community: creative, diverse, beautiful, and colorful. Parra’s colorful illustrations are evocative of chalk art or a mural, supporting the wall’s role as a literal reflection of the community.

In the endnotes, Parra, who is Latino, discusses the influence of muralists like Diego Rivera on his work. Hey, Wall: A Story of Art and Community turns the politicized idea of the wall on its head, championing it as a pillar of diversity and a testament to the beauty that exists when people of different backgrounds, circumstances, and races work together rather than against one another. Although the text is essential to the story, it is Parra’s illustrations that turn this book into a work of art.

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In “THERE, THERE” by TOMMY ORANGE, 12 strangers make plans to attend the Big Oakland Powwow in Oakland, California.

Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield, who has raised her sister’s three grandchildren, hopes to catch a glimpse of her oldest nephew in full regalia dancing for the first time. Her sister, Jacquie Red Feather, is newly sober and driving from New Mexico with the man who first got her pregnant as a teenager on Alcatraz Island. Tony, a young man with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, which he calls “the Drome,” gets mixed in with Calvin, Charles, Carlos and Octavio, a group of men planning to rob the powwow to make up a drug deal debt. One character, Dene Oxendene, plans to attend the powwow as a voyeur, hoping to document people’s stories and how their stories fit into the story of the urban Native American. These are just a small handful of the characters in Orange’s debut novel.

The degrees of separation could be difficult to follow if crafted by a less-skilled writer, but Orange deftly threads the stories together with the skill of a spider weaving a web. The reader may find him or herself flipping back and forth among stories and marveling at the seemingly inconsequential role one person plays in several other stories before making an appearance in their own, often heartbreaking, accounts.

What does it mean to be an urban Native American? What does it mean to be half-Native but raised by your white mom? This fleeting identity is at the center of Orange’s novel; it begins with a searing look at the United States’ treatment of Native Americans that serves as an entry point to these answers, as told through each character’s story.

In the prologue, Orange writes, “We (Urban Indians) know the sound of the freeway better than we do the rivers, the howl of distant trains better than wolf howls” and that “being Indian has never been about returning to the land. The land is everywhere or nowhere.” Few of the characters know who they are as individuals, much less who they are in the context of the history of their culture. But maybe that is what Orange is positing with “There There;” there is not one way to be a good or authentic Native American. Maybe Native heritage is more dependent on this country’s treatment of Native tribes and nations, and the bearing of centuries of abuse and torture on the psyche. Orange’s use of epigraphs is extraordinary, but the following by James Baldwin feels especially representative of the entire novel: “People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.”

Overall, “There, There” is an exceptional and well-developed novel. My chief complaint is that I wanted more of each character. The conclusion, however is spectacular. To avoid spoilers, I will only note that the conclusion is electrifying, spectacular and worthy of a Shakespearean tragedy.

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