{"id":2390,"date":"2020-07-20T12:28:04","date_gmt":"2020-07-20T16:28:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/?p=2390"},"modified":"2020-07-20T12:28:04","modified_gmt":"2020-07-20T16:28:04","slug":"and-the-winner-isalicia-d-williams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/blog\/2020\/07\/20\/and-the-winner-isalicia-d-williams\/","title":{"rendered":"And the Winner Is\u2026Alicia D. Williams"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Charlotte is home to many successful children\u2019s authors, but only a few have won the big awards in children\u2019s literature, such as the Caldecott Medal, the Newbery Medal, and the Coretta Scott King Award.\u00a0 Fifty years ago, Gail Haley became the first children\u2019s author from Charlotte to win one of these awards when her picture book A Story, A Story<\/em> won the Caldecott Medal.\u00a0 The latest Charlotte children\u2019s author to enter this winners\u2019 circle is Alicia D. Williams.\u00a0 Her 2019 debut novel, Genesis Begins Again<\/em>, is making a big splash in the world of children\u2019s literature.\u00a0 She recently received both a Newbery Honor and the Coretta Scott King-John Steptoe Author Award for New Talent for this novel.\u00a0 For more information about Williams, please click on the following link:\u00a0 https:\/\/www.aliciadwilliams.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Genesis Begins Again<\/em>, which is intended for middle school readers, focuses on a thirteen-year-old girl named Genesis Anderson.  Genesis lacks confidence and has a low sense of self-esteem.  She keeps a list of 96 reasons she hates herself, and one of these reasons is that she thinks her skin is too dark.  Her grandmother often makes hurtful comments about Genesis\u2019s dark skin complexion, and these comments have a negative impact on Genesis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Genesis has internalized a form of racism known as \u201ccolorism.\u201d  In a recent interview, Williams discussed this aspect of her novel.  The story, she said, \u201cevolved to be about colorism–discrimination within the same ethnic group based on skin tone and facial features. \u2026 I continued to see children of color–every colonized country has a colorism issue–struggle with self-acceptance and self-love based on skin color and hair texture. The need to speak to them was the driving force of completing this story.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fortunately, for Genesis, her life gradually changes when she moves to a new school and has a chance to begin again.  She makes new friends, and she comes to the attention of a music teacher who recognizes her musical talent.  Her teacher introduces her to Billie Holiday and other great jazz singers, and Genesis begins to look to these jazz greats as positive role models.  In many ways, the second half of this book celebrates the life-affirming power of music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I read that Alicia Williams received the Coretta Scott King-John Steptoe New Talent Award for 2020, I flashed back to the day I spent with John Steptoe toward the end of his life.  I was interviewing him for my book Trust Your Children:  Voices Against Censorship in Children\u2019s Literature,<\/em> but we ended up talking about much more than censorship.  One of the points he made during our conversation was that the children\u2019s book world needs more books by African American authors.  To this end, this award was established after his death to promote \u201cnew talent and to offer visibility to excellence in writing and\/or illustration\u201d by African American children\u2019s authors\/illustrators.  Given my personal association with John Steptoe, I am especially pleased that Williams received this \u201cnew talent\u201d award.  Our community is a richer place because of the talent that Alicia Williams brings to Storied Charlotte.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Charlotte is home to many successful children\u2019s authors, but only a few have won the big awards in children\u2019s literature, such as the Caldecott Medal, the Newbery Medal, and the Coretta Scott King Award.\u00a0 Fifty years ago, Gail Haley became the first children\u2019s author from Charlotte to win one of these awards when her picture […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":202,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[98,96,97,95],"class_list":["post-2390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-storied-charlotte","tag-colorism","tag-coretta-scott-king-john-steptoe-author-award","tag-middle-school-readers","tag-newbery-honor"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/202"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2390"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2392,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2390\/revisions\/2392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}