There Are No Promised Lands | Echo Brown | TEDxSoMa

School Library Journal has proudly partnered with We Are Kid Lit Collective to share and promote the group’s 10th annual summer reading recommendations. In the next couple of weeks, SLJ will publish individual posts featuring their recommendations for picture books, transitional books, middle grade, and young adult titles.

Amid all the challenges and disruptions that our youth face, we’re releasing our 10th We Are Kid Lit Summer Reading List as a message to young readers: We see you. We hear you. We are with you. You motivate us every day to keep moving the needle by elevating narratives that feature Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) voices while being inclusive of intersectional queer and disability representation and limiting the harms of biases and microaggressions.
 

From a TEDx Talk to a manga, these transmedia picks will entice young adults to keep their minds engaged this summer.

BADTIYA,Suraj. “Gujji.” tr. from ­Hindi by John Vater. (Words ­Without Borders: The Home for International Literature, 1 Oct 2018).
This short ­story about oppression and identity is set in ­India. Ramdas, a Dalit, faces bullying, taunting, and seemingly few possibilities for his future, so he decides to go to college overseas in hopes of a better future. Even though the discrimination he’s faced still follows him, Ramdas can build a successful career with a huge ­international company.

BROWN, Echo. “There Are No Promised Lands.” (TEDx Talks; ­TEDxSoMa, June 2017). 
Writer, storyteller, and performer Echo Brown, who passed away on September 16, 2023, here delivers a TEDx Talk on seeking a place of belonging as a Black woman. ­Despite the realities of systemic and global racism, Brown speaks about how we can move beyond white liberal inner peace to be agents of change, moving toward the possibility of radical inclusion.

DELLIQUANTI, Blue with Soleil Ho. Meal. Iron Circus Comics. 2018. ISBN 9781945820304.
Yarrow moves to the Twin Cities in hopes of cooking at a new restaurant that specializes in entomophagy, or the eating of bugs. But will Chanda, who is running the restaurant, give Yarrow a chance to prove herself?

YUZAKI, Sakaomi. She Loves to Cook, and She Loves to Eat, Vol. 1. illus. by author. tr. from Japanese by Caleb Cook. lettering by Phil Christie. Yen Pr. 2022. ISBN 9781975348823.
Nomoto enjoys cooking to de-stress but does not eat very much. After discovering that her neighbor ­Kasuga loves to eat, the two women strike up a friendship. They find comfort and peace in each others’ presence—and delicious food. Away from the outside world, with its patriarchal and familial pressures, their relationship slowly and quietly blossoms into romance.

Sam Bloom is a children’s collection development librarian at the The Lane Libraries in Butler County. Edith Campbell is a librarian at Indiana State University. Ariana Hussain is a teacher librarian at the Blake School, Hopkins, MN. Dr. Sujei Lugo is a children’s librarian at the Boston Public Library and an independent researcher. Lyn Miller-Lachmann is an award-winning author and translator of children’s books.