Category Archives: Poor and Rich

Maddi’s Fridge, Live!

Posted on by
Reply

Wow!

I have Google and Twitter alerts set to tell me when webpages or internet users are discussing Maddi’s Fridge. Sometimes I get great surprises, like when the Seattle School District teachers were striking and, to pass the time, read Maddi’s Fridge out loud on the picket line. I ended up visiting some of those teachers at Queen Anne Elementary, an inspiring Seattle school.

I also got an alert when a dad complained on twitter that his daughter asked him to read Maddi’s Fridge every night and it was “so depressing.” I tweeted to the dad that Maddi’s Fridge was like that. Parents get all teary-eyed and kids get empowered. The dad never responded. Whoops! (Yes, the internet is a little scary. Authors are listening.)

Last week an alert notified me that Childsplay in Tempe, Arizona, was going to put on a production of Maddi’s Fridge during their 2017 – 2018 season. Look at the company Maddi’s Fridge is keeping!

GO, DOG. GO! NATIONAL TOUR: August 28th, 2017 – April 25th, 2018
THE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH: August 21st – October 15th, 2017
TOMAS AND THE LIBRARY LADY: August 28th – December 26th, 2017
THE SNOWY DAY AND OTHER STORIES BY EZRA JACK KEATS: December 26th, 2017 – March 11th, 2018
MADDI’S FRIDGE: January 15th, 2018 – May 20th, 2018
FLORA AND ULYSSES: March 26th, 2018 – May 20th, 2018

When I checked in with Flashlight Press, they told me that they had just finalized the rights agreement. Double wow!

I am so grateful to Childsplay for discovering Maddi’s Fridge and turning it into a play.

Years ago when I opened my best friend, Liz’s, refrigerator I felt that the entire world had failed me. What kind of world do we live in where my best friend and her little brother didn’t have enough to eat?

But now, the artists at Childsplay are going to perform the story that my eleven-year-old self wanted to SHOUT OUT TO THE WORLD: Here, in one of the richest countries in the world, our friends and our neighbors are struggling to feed their children.

A big THANK YOU to everyone at Childsplay. I am so excited that you are sharing the story of Maddi’s Fridge.

Advertisement

Shootings, Riots, and Stolen Scoops of Corn

Posted on by
1

I was eating lunch with relatives and the drift of the conversation was that charges of racism in this country are overblown.

Our own family history says otherwise.

Earlier in the week I had been reading some of my dad’s recollections about visiting his grandpa in Ozan, Arkansas in the 1930’s. Dad was a teenager at the time.

Great-grandma asked Dad to take two bags of corn to the miller. One sack would be ground fine as cornmeal and the other would be ground as cracked corn for the chickens.

I’ll let Dad tell what happened next: “I got in line with my sacks. The miller had a huge barrel next to his grinders, and he would dip his scoop into each customer’s sacks, dumping his share in the barrel. Some white farmers came up and he just took a little corn, but if the customer was black, it was amazing how much that scoop could hold.”

Of course, I’d heard and read stories of racism before. But Dad’s memory of African Americans being cheated at the miller’s was a fresh slap. It was the pettiness that really got to me. Dad’s story showed me that, in every way possible, white Americans had a systemic pattern of stealing from African Americans.

The true purpose of racism is to advance economically at the expense of someone else.

What worries me is the children who went hungry because of “how much that scoop could hold.” Imagine dinnertime in Ozan all those years ago. Parents always eat less so their kids won’t go hungry. But there would always be the day, or days, when that missing corn meant that children would go hungry. (If you don’t know the devastating effect hunger has on children’s educational, physical, and moral well-being, check out this article by Feeding America.)

Generation after generation of “scoops” have been stolen off the tables of African American families. And any time African Americans try to get a fair deal, there is a backlash.

In 1920, Tulsa, Oklahoma, had one of the most wealthy and successful African American communities in the country. My Dad, growing up in Muskogee, Oklahoma, in the 1930’s never heard about 1921 Tulsa’s ‘race riot.’ (For some reason, Tulsans thought that if you didn’t put it in a book, no one would ever find out.) Let’s call the 1921 ‘race riot’ for what it was, the indiscriminate murder of 300 African Americans and the burning of 35 blocks of businesses and homes. Whites taking their ‘scoop.’

Backlash isn’t ancient history. You can see it clearly today. Everything from questioning Barrack Obama’s citizenship, to black men and women pulled over for ‘driving while black,’ to black men and boys being shot by vigilantes and police officers.

Racism is an insidious part of our American belief system. Not only for white Americans like my family who have slave-holding ancestors, but people who come to this country and adopt its customs without taking a closer look at our ingrained prejudices.

It would be nice if my great-grandparents, God-fearing Christians, had tried to stop the large and small thefts against African Americans being committed in their community.

They didn’t.

Like most people who go along with graft, they fell into the trap of believing that they were entitled to special treatment. To more cornmeal, to the best parts of a slaughtered pig, to the better acres for farming. That somehow it was okay that the cornbread on their dinner table was subsidized by hard-working African Americans.

The protests we have seen on the street and yes, even in the football stadium, are showing us the justified anger of African Americans.

And those protests are not enough. The next step should come from the rest of us. It’s time to pay back all of those families robbed in so many ways during the 200+ year history of this country. Scoop by scoop we need to make this right.

Two Americans

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve been on the road doing a lot of school visits. Here are two Americans that I met:

American #1

I met a young girl who comes to school every day for breakfast. She doesn’t have access to a shower at home and washes in the school bathroom. Her clothes are dirty, her long hair uncombed.

I was in this girl’s classroom to lead a writing workshop. I gave the kids a choice of writing  either a story that was sticking in their heads or a story from a prompt I provided. This girl chose to do a spin-off picture book, playing with the beginning, ending, and the characters. Her story was first grade brilliance at its best.

Okay, I’ll be honest, I know picture book authors who can’t come up with a first draft that solid (myself included).

One problem that many children face is that they are so focused on basic survival that schoolwork and learning can’t be priorities. We are hardwired that survival always comes first.

But at least until school is out for the summer, this girl has a place to eat breakfast and wash her hair. Her school. This girl has a principal who is actively aware of each challenged child. This girl has a teacher who supports her learning and helps to gather resources as needed.

At least for one year, this girl has the freedom to learn.

I don’t know what’s going to happen next year. The family may move, change schools. This girl may get a different teacher who cares less. I don’t know.

What I do know is that if this brilliant little girl falls through the cracks, that’s a loss for our country. We will have thrown away the life of a loving and motivated child. No Kickstarter campaign is going to save her. Your tears won’t help her. As a country we need to change the way we do business. We need to pull families out of poverty. But to do that, first we have to admit that there is a problem. Which leads me to…

American #2

I met American #2 while speaking to adults. When book clubs, service organizations, and nonprofits invite me to speak, I’m sure they have no idea how weepy I get when I talk about the difficult conditions our children grow up in.

I don’t cry on school visits, even when children tell me very sad stories.

But there is something about talking to fellow Americans about childhood hunger that I find overwhelming. How did we get to this situation where 51% of American children are raised in poverty? How did our country produce this huge learning gap, where my children are practically guaranteed a road to college and other children will not even graduate from high school.

My ‘adult’ speech is about self-deception, how an entire country can tell itself the wrong story. We tell ourselves we’re the greatest country in the world, but how can this be true if we are failing our children?

One group was wonderfully open to my message. But a member of the audience did come up to me afterwards and say, “Well, what about obesity? How could so many American children be poor if there’s an obesity epidemic among children?”

Sigh. I don’t always think on my feet. What I should have done was ask this person why they were asking the question.

Instead, I answered the question at face value. Good food is expensive, and parents make hard choices between soda ($1) and milk ($4), between expensive vegetables or a cheap starch that will make the hunger pains stay away a little bit longer.

As I was driving home I thought about what had prompted the question. We’ve gotten to the point in the United States where it is acceptable to challenge any fact, no matter how solid the study or reputable the source. Climate change, the birthplace of our first African American president, even the moon landing, have all been targeted as fiction.

I’m not quite sure how we got to this point where nothing is real. Where no statement is fact and any fool can question basic math. Let me repeat. 51% of American children are living below the poverty level. Even if I didn’t know the numbers, I see the truth of this when visiting schools and food banks.

In town after town I come across young children who just need a little help to have a decent life.

For us to change the life of American #1, we are going to somehow have to open the eyes of American #2.

Any ideas on how to do that?

Does Having a Bigger House Make You a Better Person?

Posted on by
Reply

I have in the past blogged about our attitude towards the poor. This post is about our attitude towards the rich.

Several months ago I met a couple for the first time. Their son had asked my daughter to the prom and I immediately checked out their family through mutual friends. The entire family got rave reviews. When I met the parents I was not disappointed. This was a funny, educated, and socially active couple who volunteered extensively in the community. Exactly the type whose son you might reluctantly agree wouldn’t necessary be a bad person for your daughter to know (still getting used to the whole dating thing here).

The couple asked us over to their house to see the prom “afterparty” setup. At a joint driveway I was confused as to which house had which number. To the right was a small log cabin, in front of me was what we call in our area a “McMansion.” I began walking toward the McMansion when the couple called to me from the back door of the log cabin.

It was about twenty minutes later, as we were in the house talking, that I realized I was disappointed with their house. As soon as I was aware of this feeling I was mortified by my unreasonable reaction. These were two people who had given more back to the community than my husband or I could ever hope to. I won’t even get into the list of their son’s accomplishments. Yet somewhere in the back of my head parasitical thoughts were judging this excellent family based on the size of their home.

Meeting this family made me face my unhealthy attitude towards the rich. Somewhere along the line I have begun to equate wealth with accomplishment and character.

A certain narrow type of accomplishment does create wealth. Most great accomplishments have nothing to do with money. I’m thinking of pastors and teachers here, and also volunteer coaches and food bank workers.

What’s more, character and wealth have no direct causal relationship. There is plenty of historical proof and religious cautions that the opposite may be true.

I was shocked that I had to remind myself of this basic fact of life: your value as a person is determined by how many people you help and influence in a positive way. Period.

Where was I getting this insane idea that I could equate someone’s character to the size of their house?

Societies, just like books, have themes. If you look at almost any TV show or listen to the radio you see an orchestrated worship of wealth and the rich in this country. I thought I had avoided it, but we humans are pack animals. We pay attention to the attitudes and actions of others and then, even subconsciously, try to fit in.

I am very nervous about discussing this ugly pro-wealth bias that has nested in my head. It is embarrassing and reveals a shallowness that I’d rather not publically disclose.

But I have to discuss this because, unfortunately, I’m not alone.

Our failure to feed children in this country is intrinsically linked to our acceptance of the growing gap between rich and poor.

We are confusing what really matters — character and accomplishment — with wealth. This has allowed unscrupulous individuals to hijack our country. They siphon money from schools, eliminate living-wage jobs, and bankrupt social programs, all to feed the insatiable appetite of the rich.

Twice in the past two years we have cut food stamps, a lifeline not only for children but also for the elderly.

How could we be so stupid?

I can only hope that my daughter’s prom date and his family don’t think less of my daughter because her mother is a ditz.