TFOB Part 2

Little Cuter sent me on a mission - find books for FlapJilly where the main character is not white.  The kid's life is more colorful than her literature, it seems, and that is a situation that required a remedy.

 So, Gramma to the rescue.  Or so I thought.

The Harper Collins kid lit tent was my first stop. 

The tent was big, the selection was huge, but of all the picture books in all the Harper Collins land, there were no human characters of color.

Sigh.  I was probably louder in my disappointment than I should have been, but I was terribly, sadly, horrifyingly sad.  I was smiling and quietly repeating "No, that's a bear/kitten/puppy" until I exhaled that much too loud yet much earned "SERIOUSLY?" as we reached the end of the books on sale without a single one for me to buy.

A local bookstore that I like, a lot, was similarly unsatisfying.

There was a brown policeman in a career-centric I-Can-Read book, but the inquisitive kids in the story were all whiter than white.  The bookseller assured me that the store carried the titles I sought, but I was at the fair, and they were not.

I had better luck in the used book department while supporting my local public library and spending very little money.  I left that tent with a big smile on my face.

And then there were the UNA ladies.

They didn't bat an eyelash when I inquired about their stash of colorful characters.  They merely smiled and waved their hand at the display.  There were world stories and earth stories and folk tales from every corner of our planet.  I settled on an over-sized collection, a series of chapters (a Big Sister type of book these days) and activities to complement them.  

Words and art projects - that sits right atop FlapJilly's happy place.

I left with some swag - a Fancy Nancy tiara, a Wilbur Wildcat face mask, several bookmarks, a few pins, several notepads of various sizes and quality, and a tote bag or two.  I bought some books for the authors I heard to sign, and to buy a little bit of time with them (yes, I'm shameless and I'll admit it).  I didn't wait in any lines longer than 3-in-front, and the conversation in those lines was stimulating.  The entire book purchasing experience was a treat.

If only I could have stopped worrying about being a mother whose child didn't look like the kids in nearly all the books I saw that day.  It's hard enough to parent without adding that burden to the pile.