Publisher gives colourful advice

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Some of the books published by David Katz's company, Tradewind Books, which were on display at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, last Monday had black characters and Katz was asked if it was a good idea to put characters of different races in children's books.

He was giving a talk on Writing and Publishing Children's Literature.

Katz replied was that it depended on the settings of the stories. "If it's set in New York City there could be [characters of different races]. One of the rules is that you write about what you know. If you know New York, write about New York; if you know Jamaica, write about Jamaica."

He added "people should write about their own people [only] if they know them." He cited the example of a student in London (where Katz taught for 20 years before moving to Canada to go into publishing) who was of mixed parentage. The youngster told Katz "I don't know anything about black people. My father left and I'm growing up with my white mother and aunts."

Katz revealed that there is "a movement" to get more children's books written by black people. But while he believes that publishers of books set in cosmopolitan cities like New York, Toronto and London should be looking for books "by people of colour about people of colour," the books should not be only for people of colour.

"People of colour want to read about their own experiences, but other people do too," he said. "The story is what's important -- the engagement of the reader with the character and, of course, the writing style."

Towards the end of his presentation Katz issued a word of caution. "Please don't write books to inform readers about anything. If you're writing a book to inform people about the history of Jamaica, forget it. They're not interested. And if they get a whiff that you're trying to teach them something, they won't read the book."

At the same time, he added, "history is a good place to get a good story idea. So set the books in the past if there's some issue that will give a good story."

Katz said that while all novels need conflict, this is especially true of children's books. "You've got to drive the reader to turn the page," he said.

His final bit of advice was "kids need a character they can identify with, so you can't have a whiner in your book."