My first picture book illustration assignment (after a set of four board books I wrote and illustrated) came to me in the spring of 1985. The manuscript for Jamaica’s Find, written by Juanita Havill, told the story of a young African-American girl named Jamaica who finds a stuffed animal in the park. In addition to my tremendous excitement about getting the illustration opportunity, I remember my early impression of the book’s marketing potential. I thought it was a sweet, quiet story which would find a certain audience but probably not be that impressive in sales. Seventeen years later, that book is not only still in print, but is available in thirteen different formats, including paperback and British editions, Spanish translation, a book-tape set, and a number of school reading program sets. It has been joined by five companion books telling more about Jamaica, and later, her friend Brianna.

What I missed in my estimation of the first book’s potential was the significance of a universal story which featured a Black child as the protagonist and showed her loving, intact family. Though they are often included on “multicultural” booklists, there is actually very little cultural material in the Jamaica books. Jamaica plays in the park, gets left out, goes to school, has conflicts with friends, practices dance. She experiences the kind of ordinary, everyday small dramas and ethical dillemmas that are common in the lives of six- or seven-year-olds. She is Everychild. And she is also a child of color.

My experiences with Jamaica have caused me to reflect on a category of picture books I label “universal”. Books which authentically portray particular cultural experiences are an essential part of the body of children’s literature. But the roles for characters of color should not be limited to such genres. It is essential that children of color get starring roles not just in books about difference, but also in books about similarities. These are roles which children of color have rarely been cast in, but there are exceptions. In Umbrella by Taro Yashima, published in 1958, Momo longs to use her new birthday gifts, red rubber boots and an umbrella (“They pleased her so much that she even woke up that midnight to take another look at them.”). Will it ever rain? Beyond the introductory sentence, “The word Momo means ‘the peach’ in Japan where her father and mother used to live’, there is nothing in the text which identifies Momo’s background. The significance of this book is not its cultural specificity but its familiarity. This gentle story of a child’s growing independence could happen to any child in any culture.

In universal books, it is the illustrations which reveal the child’s identity. The best ones seem to have staying power. Ten, Nine, Eight by Molly Bang, first published in 1983, is a now-classic bedtime countdown story. From “10 small toes all washed and warm”, with its wonderfully simple composition of pink-tipped brown toes against a red background, to “1 big girl all ready for bed”, the book is a brightly colored celebration of the closeness of an African-American father and daughter, as comforting as a lullaby. On Mother’s Lap by Ann Herbert Scott, first published in black and white in 1972 and reissued in color in 1992, brings similar warmth to the story of a mother, son, and baby. Only one phrase in the text - “reindeer blanket” - suggests the setting. Illustrator Glo Coalson brings an Inuit village to life in pastel with well-chosen, specific details: fur-lined parkas, the simple, spare interior of the one-room home with its wood stove and steaming teapot, snowy scenes glimpsed out of windows, and the lovely faces and glowing eyes of Mother, Michael, and Baby. Look, these books say, human connection - the tenderness of a father, the constancy of a mother - is a universal. (On Mother’s Lap is also one of the few books I’ve seen that features a family identifiably not middle class. The one non-universal of these “universal” stories is the assumption of a level of economic security.)

Recent examples of universal books include several by Brian Pinkney. In Jo-jo’s Flying Sidekick, the young female protagonist’s preparation for her first test in her Taekwondo class helps her to overcome fears. SparrowBoy breaks into comic book format to unfold the story of a boy who wishes he had superhero powers when the neighborhood kids get mean. These Black children ride bikes and attend lessons in a world of green lawns, single family homes, tennis-playing mothers and supportive families, an important alternative to one-sided media images of African-American life. More significant in their widespread appeal is that the characters rise to the challenge of frustrations (bullies) and fears (a scary tree) that are common to children everywhere. (For more great books featuring African-American characters, go to BlackBooksGalore.com, the web site of SCBWI member and new author Toni Trent Parker. You can also get a free sample of her newletter “Blackberry Express” through the web site.)

Like all great picture books, many of these universal books have a power and depth beyond the first impression. The main character in Emma’s Rug by Allen Say is a young artist who sees wondrous images in a rug she has had since infancy. The pictures she draws and paints amaze all the adults, who don’t understand Emma’s claim,“I just copy”. One disastrous day, her mother washes the rug. When Emma discovers the rug, “very, very clean”, Say’s text is a master of understatement: “She cried out.” But his illustration of Emma’s anguished howl shows layers of enormous rage and loss. It alludes to that universal childhood tragedy, the inevitable loss of the beloved blanket. But like much of Say’s more recent work, this book works on several levels, containing both the simplicity of a child’s picture book and the complexity of an adult fable. I find myself returning to it as an artist myself, in order to divine the ephemeral wisdom contained in its words and images.

Universal books offer us characters as archetypes, representing and exploring human experience. We are all enriched when these characters vary, in color, in culture, in circumstance, so that every child can imagine being the Star, the Superhero, the Artist, the Butterfly Queen.

Every child deserves a turn to be Everychild.

Published in newsletter of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators.
(Reproduced with permission.)