About this episode
In this episode, Dhonielle Clayton traces the magic in her books back to its roots in African folklore, details the challenge of stepping out from the long shadow of Harry Potter, and outlines her mission to hire her own collective of diverse writers. She is a one-woman powerhouse!
"I'm not a person that's like, let's throw out the classics. It's, let's move forward. Let's disrupt the canon. Some of these universal themes, some of these ingredients that we love, how do I remix them into a new stew?” - Dhonielle Clayton
What is life without a little magic? Fantasy gives us the space to break free from the confines that reality often brings and the freedom to dream the typically unimaginable. But with all its magic and wonder, the fantasy genre doesn’t always reflect the diversity of its real-life readers. Dhonielle Clayton, a literary mover and shaker, is dedicated to changing that narrative, filling in the gaps to ensure that all kids see a reflection of themselves in these wondrous worlds.
Dhonielle is an acclaimed author known for her works, including "The Belles" series, "The Conjurverse" series, and "Shattered Midnight." She is also the co-author of several novels, such as "Blackout" and "Tiny Pretty Things." Equal parts creative and determined, Dhonielle is the co-founder and incoming CEO of the influential organization We Need Diverse Books and founder of the entertainment company Cake Creative.
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Dhonielle expands on her stories about magic and fantasy on the podcast with her reading challenge, Retelling Heroes and Magic. Dhonielle takes inspiration from her goal to disrupt the world of fantasy storytelling with a wonderful suggested reading list. Check out the list below!
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This episode's Beanstack Featured Librarian is Erin Baker, media specialist at Durham Middle School in Georgia. She tells us her secret sauce for getting the whole school on board with reading initiatives and why it involves some unlikely allies.
Contents
- Chapter 1 - Hot Summers in the Deep South
- Chapter 2 - The People Could Fly
- Chapter 3 - Let’s Talk About Harry Potter
- Chapter 4 - Reality in Fantasy
- Chapter 5 - Let Them Eat Cake! (Creative)
- Chapter 6 - Purpose
- Chapter 7 - Reading Challenge
- Chapter 8 - Beanstack Featured Librarian
Author Reading Challenge
Download the free reading challenge worksheet, or view the challenge materials on our helpdesk.
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Links:
- The Reading Culture
- The Reading Culture Newsletter Signup
- Dhonielle Clayton Website
- Follow Dhonielle on Instagram
- The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales by Virginia Hamilton
- Durham Middle School
- The Reading Culture on Instagram (for giveaways and bonus content)
- Beanstack resources to build your community’s reading culture
- Jordan Lloyd Bookey
View Transcript
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Dhonielle Clayton:
I am not a person that's like, let's throw out the classics. It's, let's move forward. Let's disrupt the canon. Some of these universal themes, some of these ingredients that we love, how do I remix them into a new stew?
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Dhonielle Clayton is a lover of the fantastical, whimsical, and wonderful world of magic. She always has been. But growing up, the harrowing tales of dragons and witches and wizards were missing one key character, her.
Dhonielle Clayton:
So, I was trying to read all of the fantastical magical stories, but looking for my family, looking for magic that felt like it came out of my community, and I couldn't find it. And I think it just made me hunt for it. And then, it made me want to create it, because I couldn't find exactly what I was looking for.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Dhonielle is an acclaimed author known for her works, including The Belles series, The Conjureverse series, and Shattered Midnight. She's also the co-author of several novels such as Blackout and Tiny Pretty Things. She's also the co-founder and incoming CEO of the influential organization, We Need Diverse Books.
In this episode, Dhonielle traces the magic in her books back to its roots in African folklore and details the challenges of stepping out from the long shadow of Harry Potter. She also outlines her mission to literally hire her own squadron of diverse writers. Yeah, she's a busy woman.
My name is Jordan Lloyd Bookey, and this is The Reading Culture, a show where we speak with authors and illustrators about ways to build a stronger culture of reading in our communities. We dive into their personal experiences, their inspirations, and why their stories and ideas motivate kids to read more. Make sure to check us out on Instagram for giveaways @thereadingculturepod, and you can also subscribe to our newsletter at thereadingculturepod.com/newsletter. All right, onto the show.
Let's start in the beginning. Can you tell us a little bit about what it was like to grow up in Olney, Maryland?
Dhonielle Clayton:
It was small town. It was quaint. There were horses and cows and farms and farmer's markets and a cute little library, and it was super peaceful. I was lucky, my grandparents moved out there from Washington D.C. and then that, I guess, is how the whole family got out there. They were the anchors. And it was really quiet. It was a quiet, gentle childhood full of books, so there wasn't much else to do. So, reading was such a huge part of my life.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
When you were in those later years in fifth, sixth, seven, when you're middle school to high school, what was your experience? Were there other Black kids in Olney? Did you feel like you were alone in that regard? Or was it like-
Dhonielle Clayton:
There were three of us, or four.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Okay. In your class, in your grade?
Dhonielle Clayton:
In my grade. Yes, in my grade.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Okay.
Dhonielle Clayton:
So, there were about three to four per grade, and I know their full names still to this day.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yes. Yes, you do.
Dhonielle Clayton:
And yeah, I was a fish out of water, but because it felt like a bubble, I didn't understand what that meant. I knew that I was different, but my parents were very, very good at anchoring me in community. So, from going down South every summer or going to North Carolina, anywhere that we went, it was family and rooted in community and culture, that I knew exactly who I was, I wasn't confused, but I definitely stuck out and knew, "Oh, I'm different, and I'm different in a particular way, but also, I have all of these things that I do have in common."
So, I grew up around a lot of other people that were fish out of water for other reasons. So, we were all this little motley crew of weirdos who loved books and were ethnic and weird and had ... You know what I mean?
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah. Yeah.
Dhonielle Clayton:
Ate different kinds of food and had different things we were doing on the weekends, right? Because that's where it shows up.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
That's where it shows up. Right?
Dhonielle Clayton:
It's on the weekends, right? It's like what you're doing.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
So, it was just your grandparents, your parents, you. Were there other family members, or that was sort of your core that was out there?
Dhonielle Clayton:
Yes. I have aunts and uncles. They're all within 10 to 15 miles of each other. So, it was sort of like the whole pocket of both my mom's side and my dad's side converged out there.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Are they from that area as well, or where is your family?
Dhonielle Clayton:
My mom is from North Carolina and my dad is from Mississippi.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Oh, Mississippi. That's more unusual out here.
Dhonielle Clayton:
I know. It's that deep South. And we would go every summer down to my great-grandparents' farm. My grandmother would drive down in a Cadillac. It would be hot. I'd have all my books in the back seat as my legs were stuck to the leather, and we would drive down and I would spend my summers on that farm. No air conditioning. Animals. Reading books.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
That's cool. That's such a different type of grounding or something in your childhood, I think.
Dhonielle Clayton:
Absolutely. I think it's what created my imagination. Just seeing those kinds of things, even driving through the deep South, whether it's Georgia, Tennessee, Louisiana, New Orleans, Mississippi, Alabama, just spending a lot of time down there while reading and reading about fantasy electrified my imagination.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah. Do you want to go into that a little bit more, what that means?
Dhonielle Clayton:
Sure. It's the kids of the early ... The '80s and '90s, where TV was important, but for my household, my dad was a huge reader, so reading was what we did, whether it was books on tape, I remember the sound of a tape turning, when it would turn over from A side to B side, as you got to the next part of the story. And I went to the library every day, and I also got to go to the bookstore every Saturday morning with my dad, Crown Bookstore, which RIP, makes me really sad, and the comic book store.
So, reading was what I was doing. I would go under my grandmother's table, wherever there was a table, and there was those ... What is it? It's got the lacy sort of table-
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah. Like a sheath sort of over that. Yeah.
Dhonielle Clayton:
Sheath. Exactly. And I would hide under there with pillows and a blanket, snacks, and have my books. And the sun would come through that little doily tablecloth and I would just hide under there and read. And so, I would just do that all summer. And they used to have those Pizza Hut challenges.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Oh, yeah. BOOK IT!
Dhonielle Clayton:
BOOK IT! I would win them.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
You crushed those?
Dhonielle Clayton:
Crushed them.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Get those personal pan pizzas.
Dhonielle Clayton:
Loved it. I mean, they were full of grease, but it was delicious.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yes.
Dhonielle Clayton:
And I feel like books were just what built my imagination. I would read anything and everything I could get my hands on. I just love the act of reading. I loved all different kinds of books, whether it was scary books and fantasy or historical fiction. I just liked the transportive nature of reading.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah. Gregory Maguire, he called reading, travel of the mind. I love that phrase. And his point he was making was that you begin in that way as a kid, when you can't really get out as much or whatever, you're bound to wherever you've been taken. You can travel with your mind. And then, he was on the other side of that now, and older, and talking about how it's similarly if you don't feel like or can't move around as much, it's like you get that same experience.
Dhonielle Clayton:
It's beautiful. And I also remember my heart beating and racing while reading, and that kind of experience is something I constantly hunt. It's that little girl experience of feeling so enraptured by a book that I'm sweating or my heart is racing, or I'm afraid, and I'm having an emotional experience while reading. And that, to me, is so powerful. It just means that you're locked in and you're loving it.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Oh, yeah. I feel like my entire reading life is searching for that feeling. And what about New Orleans? Can you talk a little bit about that? Your Belles series is set in a world named Orleans. You've got Shattered Midnight. It's like 1920s New Orleans. We've got the Conjurers from The Marvellers. So, was wondering what importance the real city has to you.
Dhonielle Clayton:
I do love it there, and I have some cousins that live there now, but I think that when I was a young person and my grandparents, we would be shipped off. I don't know what my parents are doing during the summer, but we were off with-
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Oh, they were living a great life.
Dhonielle Clayton:
Yes. And I will repeat this if I have a child, I'm like, "Here's your grandchild. I'm out of here for six weeks." And when we would drive down to the country, that's what my grandparents would say. Sometimes they would take day trips into New Orleans to gamble, you know, old people like to gamble.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Oh, yeah.
Dhonielle Clayton:
And I just remember sitting in the back of that Cadillac and looking out the window at this swampy, weird, loud, musical, electric city when I'm like 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12. And I think that it really just stuck in my imagination. It started to haunt me that this place feels so strange. Why are the dead people buried above ground? Why does my grandmother tell me to hold my breath and put a penny in my shoe when we go past a graveyard? It was little things like that that when we would go down South and go into New Orleans for the day or two, that started to ... I don't know, I think I'm just re-toiling soil that was planted when I was the age of my characters. Those are the things that stick with me now as I've gotten older. It's what I remember. And I remember going into New Orleans and it felt magical. It felt like I had left the United States. And I think that is why I keep finding myself coming back. And I think New Orleans and the Southern United States, that's my anchor.
They say the people could fly. Say that long ago in Africa, some of the people knew magic. And they would walk up on the air like climbing up on a gate. And they flew like blackbirds over the fields. Black, shiny wings flapping against the blue up there. Then, many of the people were captured for slavery. The ones that could fly shed their wings. They couldn't take their wings across the water on the slave ships. Too crowded, don't you know? The folks were full of misery, then. Got sick with the up and down of the sea. So, they forgot about flying when they could no longer breathe the sweet scent of Africa. Say the people who could fly kept their power, although they shed their wings. They kept their secret magic in the land of slavery. They looked the same as the other people from Africa who had been coming over, who had dark skin. Say you couldn't tell anymore one who could fly from one who couldn't.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
The People Could Fly is a remarkable collection by Victoria Hamilton featuring 24 re-tellings of Black American folk tales. The passage in question is from its titular story, The People Could Fly. The story narrates the plight of enslaved African Americans who, once captured, lose their magical ability to fly. It is only when an old man reminds them of their forgotten magic that they regain this extraordinary power and soar to freedom. The theme of reclaiming lost magic is the direct inspiration for Dhonielle's magic-filled Conjureverse series.
Dhonielle Clayton:
I remember this juxtaposition of flying and being stuck, and I remember this idea of magic being taken from you. And it was like a beautiful metaphor, as I was grappling as a young person with, how did our family get here? They do all those projects in school, especially in elementary school and family history, "Oh, where did your family come from?" And all of the Black American children who are related to American chattel slavery have to grapple with, "Uh-oh. What happened? And how do I talk about it?"
And this, it's a beautiful picture book, beautiful folklore. This contextualized it in a very beautiful way, and it is probably the anchor and the heart of my Marvellers universe, of the Conjureverse. It is where I started when thinking about how do you make magic from this? It's the heart of it. It's the first seed.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Oh. Can you go into that a little more?
Dhonielle Clayton:
Without spoilers for the Conjureverse and these novels, there's this idea of there are these Conjurers that were left behind when the Marvellers decided to leave the non-magical world behind and live in the skies and build their magic school in their three cities that travel all over the world. And there is a precarious relationship between the Conjure folk and the Marvellers. And it does relate a lot to this idea of movement and flying and moving out of your current situation.
I kept thinking about magic and what happens to magic when you have to move? How does it change? And the conjurer magic is a crossing magic, right? Crossing across lots of different ways through into the essence of plants and animals, crossing between life and death, because they cross the oceans. And as you get deeper into the series and you learn about why the Marvellers can move all around the world, you're going to unearth some secrets that are related to the Conjurers and what they can do and what their magic and how it's rooted in this idea of flying and movement.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah. That's fascinating. And really, yeah, everybody needs to read your books. And now, I need to go back and read Virginia Hamilton. It's such a gift that your family gave you that book, and thank God for that book and the handful that were there.
Dhonielle Clayton:
Absolutely. And because I was looking for magic, specifically, Virginia Hamilton had a few books and she collected folk tales and magical stories that were rooted in the Black American diaspora. And that was the first time I thought, "Oh, we can be magical too. This isn't just..." I'm reading The Chronicles of Narnia, about four white British children who go into a wardrobe-
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Still getting into it, but it's like-
Dhonielle Clayton:
Right. And I love it, but I'm like, well, where are the other people? Where are the people that look like me? At the time, in the late '80s, early '90s, I couldn't find magical stories that were transportive. I could find folklore, and that was great, and that was a stepping stone, but I was really filling my well with magical stories that didn't have anything to do with my community or my culture.
So, I was trying to read all of the fantastical magical stories, but looking for my family, looking for magic that felt like it came out of my community, and I couldn't find it. And I think it just made me hunt for it, and then, it made me want to create it, because I couldn't find exactly what I was looking for.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
And create her own, she did. Furthermore, Dhonielle didn't hesitate to call out the most iconic titles in the genre for their lack of inclusion. In her 2023 essay, We Don't Talk About Harry Potter, Dhonielle wrote, quote, "I wanted to rectify a pattern, one where magic school invitations to BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, neurodivergent, and disabled kids, seemed to get lost in the mail. Those children were left perpetually waiting in the margins, ready for adventure, but sidelined." Unquote. The full essay is a must read, and I'm going to link to it in the show notes for you.
Even in the face of controversy and transphobic remarks from the author herself, Harry Potter remains the most popular children's fantasy series of all time. And nearly 30 years later, the series' lack of diversity is still leaving marginalized groups feeling excluded from the immersive and magical world of fantasy stories. Dhonielle is changing that. I asked her about how she's currently working to fill in the diverse character gaps from this beloved genre, despite the large shadows cast by stories like Harry Potter and Percy Jackson.
Dhonielle Clayton:
They're titans. And unfortunately, because our community and culture globally loves nostalgia, they don't want to move forward. But the young people like one foot in the old and one foot in the new, one foot in the thing that they loved. And it's like, "Oh, it's like that, but we've got these new things." And so, I intimately use my librarian training when I'm sitting down to create ideas, thinking about what are the ingredients of this big titan property like Percy Jackson? Okay, it's the reluctant hero kid that's down on his luck, finding out that he's got this huge inheritance. I took those ingredients and I thought, what do these ingredients look like when filtered through the lens of culture and community? These things look different when filtered through a Black American context and worldview. And then I built Tristan out of that.
And so, I embrace what has come before. So, I'm not a person that's like, let's throw out the classics. It's, let's move forward. Let's disrupt the canon. Which I love the Disrupt Texts movement. They are wonderful, wonderful teachers and educators. And just borrowing that and thinking about, well, how do I move some of these universal themes, some these ingredients that we love, how do I remix them into a new stew that young people could get really excited about? Because frankly, these young kids, sometimes, they don't want to read those books. They don't want to read some of the older classics that I love or that I grew up on, or that I was obsessed with. They're ready for something that speaks to their lived experience now.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
While Dhonielle has devoted a substantial part of her career to bringing diversity into the fantasy genre, she does note that not all of her peers are as enthusiastic as she is about this particular goal.
Dhonielle Clayton:
And I have this conversation with my good friend Jason Reynolds, a lot, about why he moves away from fantasy, why fantasy isn't a thing that he enjoys.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah. Y'all are-
Dhonielle Clayton:
Diametrically opposed.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah.
Dhonielle Clayton:
Okay? And we fight about it all the time. And he said something very painful that haunts me, and it's one of the anchors of my work, is he said that he feels like Black children, especially, Black boys, especially, their imaginations are taken from them at a very young age. And so, those building blocks don't get to grow in the same way. And so, fantasy fiction, there is no escape, and there is something that is missing, because at a very young age, reality shows up on their doorsteps. So, the fantasy, it can't even penetrate the reality for many.
So, I just wanted to inspire and create as many fantasy books and worlds that feature and center and set a table for Black children, but invite all children, so that those imaginations can be built in spite of the reality.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
I am like, okay, this idea is really taking me right now, because I have a little brown boy and a little brown girl, and they're older now, I guess, 12, 14. But it is very interesting, I just figured as their taste, but yeah, for Cassius, at a very young age, he was very interested in reading real stories.
Dhonielle Clayton:
Real.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
I remember him reading The Hate U Give, and he just kept ... Right. Real. When he was young, he kept asking me, "Can I read The Hate U Give?" And I'm like, "No. I mean, no. That seems traumatic and I don't want you to read that." But he was persistent, whereas my daughter, when everything happened with George Floyd, I remember she didn't want to see it. She didn't want to look at the news. She was shielding herself in every which way. And she has lived in her little world of magic forever. She'll stay there right now. So, it is interesting.
Dhonielle Clayton:
It's an interesting thing. And he and I have talked about it quite a bit, thinking about we grew up in the same area. He grew up in Maryland, I grew up in Maryland, but our childhoods and our experience of imagination is completely different. He makes magic out of the ordinary, out of his neighborhood, and I like to make magic with the extraordinary. Right? So, we just create from two different places that are both valuable but different. And I think children need both and all. It's that and space that they should live in, so they know that they don't have to choose.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah. Not having to choose is the thing. Right? Okay. So, do you have a guiding principle for how you balance the realities of our society with your fantasy world building? And I mean by way of comparison it would be the Bridgerton approach, which is kind of like toss history out the window. Let's escape to this alternate timeline, and racism mostly just blew over. But you don't do that and you also don't really drown your characters in the worst of our current reality. Right?
And you have two master's degrees, so you're obviously bringing a scholarly perspective to the writing. And I know that you go deep into the history books for background and everything. So yeah, what is your approach to the right balance?
Dhonielle Clayton:
I think what I don't want to do is invite readers into my fantasy worlds and traumatize them with the same things that are happening in their real world. For me, I think it's about leaving little breadcrumbs where if you put it together, you've put it together. This is for the Marvellers and the Conjureverse series, this is an analog to the 1960s school integration in America, historical parallel, but it also is just about two magical communities that have a little bit of an issue with each other. Right? And about a little girl who goes to magic school, and she's the first of her group to go. So, you can put the pieces together.
And I think that the power of children's literature, the way that I like it is when it can be read on two levels, maybe even three. One for the teacher, right? One for the parent, and one for the listener, or for the reader, the young reader. Where each person is getting something different. Those were the books that I loved growing up. And this is the bee in my bonnet is, I find that when I started writing, that writers of color and marginalized writers, especially, whatever your marginalization is, are tasked with teaching. And also, they become teachable lessons. And I wanted to be in the epic category. Why can't my work be read just like Philip Pullman's work, just like Diana Wynne Jones, Jane Yolen? Right? We are talking about real things, but we also have magic and mischief, and it's just a kid who has to face a dragon or a demon.
And so, I find that I felt like my stories had to be local and ripped from the headlines and very newsy. And I wanted to write something that felt like it could be read in 50 years and still have value, where we don't have to go to the newspapers and be like, "Oh, this is why this book came about." That it still had some sort of epic resonance. But I wanted to balance making sure that it's just a magic story about magic school and a magic school for all, and the promises that we make when we say something is for everyone, and how do those values actually show up when everyone comes? Right? So, these sort of universal themes, but set in a context where you could make an analog to bring it to life, so that people can read it on many levels.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Oh yeah, that completely makes sense. Okay. I want to switch gears a little bit here, because you spent a lot of time as a teacher and a librarian, which is amazing. So, outside, I guess, of the fantasy genre, I wonder if you can speak to your experience as a librarian or as a teacher, getting kids to want to read in general. I understand that when you first arrived at your school, the reading culture wasn't on solid ground yet. So, if you want to speak to that bit, that would be great.
Dhonielle Clayton:
Absolutely. I mean, that was devastating. I think that was my wide-eyed, "I'm going to move to the big city and I'm going to change people's lives and kids are going to love to read like I did." And then, I got to my school and kids hated to read. And it broke me for a while.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
How old were the kids you were teaching at first?
Dhonielle Clayton:
They were K through 8. So, I ran my library and I had to work with different groups, and the teachers would bring them to the library and we would do read-alouds, and we would do book selection and book tastings and all kinds of fun things. But a lot of my students hated books. Reading was a struggle because of literacy rates, but also because they saw books as something that didn't involve them. They didn't see themselves, so, "That's not for me because I don't see anyone who is from my neighborhood or from my background or my family that are in these books." And they were encountering when they did see themselves, it was all about things that pressed down on the bruises of their collective background, which we need those books, but we also need joy because if we only see the bruises, then I don't want any part of that. I wouldn't want to read either if it was always going to be something that made me feel like ouch.
And so, I had the large task of building a reading culture at my school and making reading fun. And that was such a great and wonderful challenge because I'm ambitious and I like it when someone says they don't like something. I'm like, "Oh, let me prove you're wrong."
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Challenge accepted.
Dhonielle Clayton:
Accepted. Exactly. So, I was like, we're going to do reading pajama parties. We're going to bring back our version of BOOK IT! We're going to do a March madness of books, and then we're going to have pizza parties, and we're going to have read-a-thons, and we're going to do all this fun stuff, that created an obsession with reading and helped change the literacy rates of my young people in my school.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Okay. Dhonielle, you're amazing. You are epic. Okay. Author, teacher, librarian. But we basically still haven't covered all the facets of your professional career, and I just want to talk about so many things, but definitely want to talk about Cake Creative. So, can you describe what it is? Because I think most people who are not into books, might not really understand what it is or what you do, and they could just go read The New York Times article about Dhonielle. You can go do that now, but maybe you can give us the short version.
Dhonielle Clayton:
When I was a librarian, I noticed that a lot of children's literature, when you open and you look at the copyright page, the copyright is owned by a company. And I thought, Hmm, Baby-Sitters Club, Pretty Little Liars, Vampire Diaries. I said, "What is this?" And I found out that many children's books are what are called packaged. That means that a team has come up with an idea, and writers, many writers at times, when it's series, have gotten a work for hire contract to be able to write in that series. So, if you see stuff like Star Wars, all of those books, people writing in the universe of Star Wars, that is the same thing as a packaged book. It means that someone has come up with the idea and given that outline to you and paid you to write this book.
And I thought to myself in my little library, when I was trying to get these kids to read, and I had my little readers that were obsessed, were asking for books that didn't exist on the shelves at the time. And this was around 2008, '09, and '10, and it was really frustrating to me. And I had a little girl who came into my library, and her mom was from the Dominican Republic, and her dad was from Mexico, and she asked for a book about witches. And this was in 2010. And I got all the books about witches. And then she said, "No, but brujas. Where are the brujas?" And there wasn't a single book that was for kids that had a little bruja in it. And I got really angry. And I was getting my second master's at the time, and I thought, "I need to do something about this. How can I move faster?" And I learned about packaging.
And so, basically, Cake Creative, and then also my other company, Electric Postcard Entertainment, I come up with ideas for books, and I hire writers to write them and help introduce them to publishing, and give them a crash course and sort of a launch pad into the business, because it took me so long to break in, that I thought we're never going to get out of this problem and deficit of representation if I can't shorten the runway for people.
So, I went through all of this stuff and these eight full novels and all these rejections, and I finally learned how to write a book and how to commercially pitch a book, and how to navigate the business. How many people can I pass that knowledge onto? And if I can give you a piece of my own intellectual property and teach you what I know and help get you that foot in the door, we can make this table bigger. We can send that elevator back down. And so, that's what I did. And so, basically, I come up with all of these ideas and outlines and characters and worlds, and then I hire writers to write them and teach them how I created the story, coach them, edit them, and then go sell them to publishers. And so, I'm almost at 100 books now.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
How does that feel to watch? I feel like it has to just feel amazing to know that one kid is reading a book that you wrote and taking something from it. But then to know that now it's like this whole other meta level to not just reach kids, but then you're reaching all these writers that you're bringing in, and then that exponential impact. I mean, wow.
Dhonielle Clayton:
It's weird. I kind of want to be a little secret. So, getting The New York Times profile, my agents were like, "Yeah, this is great." And now I'm like, oh no, everybody knows now. I have to go hide. I'm actually quite shy. Because really, this isn't about me. This is literally about sending the elevator back down. That's how I was raised. My mother told me the vision of success is not you getting in the room. It's how many people did you bring in with you, and hold that door open.
So, seeing that, Kwame Mbalia, who wrote the Tristan Strong series and the Last Gate of the Emperor series for me, now has his own imprint at Disney called Freedom Fire. That's the goal. That's the impact. It's the sort of spreading it. And I taught him things, and now, he's now paying it back by launching other creators. That's the only way we can do this, is building this boat together, we all get to the destination, but we can't leave people behind.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah, I really, I love that. And that leads us to, we can talk a little about, We Need Diverse Books, which I'm like, how does this woman have time for anything? But you recently did the transfer from Ellen Oh, are going to be taking over, but have already been so involved as a co-founder. So, what's the conversation you want to push now?
Dhonielle Clayton:
For the next decade of We Need Diverse Books?
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Dhonielle Clayton:
I mean, I have several bees in my bonnet. I always have a bee in my bonnet. My mom said I was born with a bee in the bonnet. I just was born a little ornery, a little fussy and particular. And I think what we are facing and the thing that I really want to drill down on in this next decade, we've got a book banning problem. We knew that would happen. We knew that the work that we were all doing in all of our various communities, with all of the movements that came before We Need Diverse Books, and beyond, that someone was going to respond. And so, this backlash is the response.
And so, we have to work together to make sure that our children get to read the things that they want to read, and that one group of people doesn't get to tell everybody and everyone's child what they can and cannot read. And so, we have that to face. But we also have to make sure that publishers continue to not allow the fear of banning to change their acquisition patterns, because this is tied to commerce and the book world, and writers sit at the intersections of art and commerce. We've got to make sure these things sell. And we have to get more creative because also social media is changing, algorithms of changing how people access content, how they find books are changing, and teenagers and young people, we're competing for their time. And so, we have to really talk to creators about how can we make sure that these books really speak to this next generation? And get creative.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yes, this is so good and important, and I'm so glad you're doing it. It just strikes me that in so many avenues, you've really gone headfirst into creating these possibilities for young readers, possibilities you didn't have as a kid. And outside looking in, everything seems to be coming together, like falling into the right places for you. And I know you said you're not religious, but I wonder, I'm curious about your thoughts on purpose and if you believe in that or believe in destiny, that kind of thing?
Dhonielle Clayton:
I think that I am supposed to be doing this work. I believe and love and adore the imaginations of young people and children, and I wanted to be a part of leaving a legacy behind that helps them become the best versions of themselves, whether it is sparking other artists and making other writers and readers. So, that is something that I think that I was supposed to do, because all of the roadblocks in my life have landed me here.
So, I do think my purpose here, if I want to leave something behind, make this place better than I found it, is to change the shelves, to make sure that every kid can walk into that bookstore or library or classroom library and see themselves reflected on the page, but also, get excited about that and allow that to shape and change their imaginations and grow it.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah, absolutely. And do you have any specific memories of an interaction with a student or a kid that you know you had an impact on?
Dhonielle Clayton:
Yes. I had a little girl who had created an entire diorama of the Magic School, because she was so obsessed. And her mom said that she couldn't get her to go to sleep, she was creating every animal that was mentioned, every character, and I couldn't take them with me because I had flown in, but it was just seeing a kid's imagination become electrified by something that I made, to where they were making things. I was like, oh, job done, job done.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Dhonielle Clayton is a doer and a disrupter. She also just happens to be a doer and disrupter who loves magic. For her reading challenge, retelling heroes and magic, she takes inspiration from her goal to disrupt the world of fantasy storytelling.
Dhonielle Clayton:
I think it's going to be sort of disrupting your classic sense of what a hero or what magic looks like, and heroes born out of culture and community. So, I'm going to include Marti Dumas, Wildseed Witch, which is a fun middle grade that is set in Louisiana as well. And it's about these naughty girls at this magical boarding finishing school sort of thing. I think I'm going to do Keynan Masters and the Peerless Academy, too. It's got a environmental sort of magic school feel. So, I think it'll be sort of, it's time for new worlds, there are new worlds, there are new heroes amongst us type of vibes.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
This episode's Beanstack Featured Librarian is once again, Erin Baker, a media specialist at Durham Middle School in Georgia. This time, Erin tells us her secret sauce for getting the whole school on board with reading initiatives and why it involves some unlikely allies.
Erin Baker:
My secret sauce is aligning with classroom teachers. And as a media specialist, my priority has always been collaborative instruction, but it really goes beyond that, because you need those teachers advocating and representing your program when they're in the classroom. A library or media specialist could not do all of that work by themselves.
So, I think you start with just one teacher or one group of teachers. I've been fortunate to be in my school for 13 years, so I have really secured a foundation and have roots in the program, and I have my go-tos, who I know are my people who will try anything, and every school has those. But I've also had such great success working with science teachers because they have that same mindset. And sometimes because teachers carry so much, sometimes when things flop, that can be very overwhelming, but I found with science teachers, science teachers didn't care. They were like, "Everything's an experiment. Every day is an experiment. If something doesn't work, it's okay." That's what we're teaching our kids. So, it's okay if that happens with us too.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
This has been The Reading Culture, and you've been listening to my conversation with Dhonielle Clayton. Again, I'm your host, Jordan Lloyd Bookey. And currently, I'm reading skin & bones by a former guest of our show, Renee Watson. It's her first adult book, and it's so good. And also, The One and Only Family by Katherine Applegate, which is the last in that series. Sad ears.
If you've enjoyed today's episode, please show some love and give us a five-star review. It just takes a second and really helps. This episode was produced by Jackie Lamport and Lower Street Media, and script edited by Josiah Lamberto-Egan. To learn more about how you can help grow your community's reading culture, you can check out all of our resources at beanstack.com. And remember to sign up for our newsletter at thereadingculturepod.com/newsletter, for special offers and bonus content. Thanks for listening, and keep reading.
I am not a person that's like, let's throw out the classics. It's, let's move forward. Let's disrupt the canon. Some of these universal themes, some of these ingredients that we love, how do I remix them into a new stew?
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Dhonielle Clayton is a lover of the fantastical, whimsical, and wonderful world of magic. She always has been. But growing up, the harrowing tales of dragons and witches and wizards were missing one key character, her.
Dhonielle Clayton:
So, I was trying to read all of the fantastical magical stories, but looking for my family, looking for magic that felt like it came out of my community, and I couldn't find it. And I think it just made me hunt for it. And then, it made me want to create it, because I couldn't find exactly what I was looking for.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Dhonielle is an acclaimed author known for her works, including The Belles series, The Conjureverse series, and Shattered Midnight. She's also the co-author of several novels such as Blackout and Tiny Pretty Things. She's also the co-founder and incoming CEO of the influential organization, We Need Diverse Books.
In this episode, Dhonielle traces the magic in her books back to its roots in African folklore and details the challenges of stepping out from the long shadow of Harry Potter. She also outlines her mission to literally hire her own squadron of diverse writers. Yeah, she's a busy woman.
My name is Jordan Lloyd Bookey, and this is The Reading Culture, a show where we speak with authors and illustrators about ways to build a stronger culture of reading in our communities. We dive into their personal experiences, their inspirations, and why their stories and ideas motivate kids to read more. Make sure to check us out on Instagram for giveaways @thereadingculturepod, and you can also subscribe to our newsletter at thereadingculturepod.com/newsletter. All right, onto the show.
Let's start in the beginning. Can you tell us a little bit about what it was like to grow up in Olney, Maryland?
Dhonielle Clayton:
It was small town. It was quaint. There were horses and cows and farms and farmer's markets and a cute little library, and it was super peaceful. I was lucky, my grandparents moved out there from Washington D.C. and then that, I guess, is how the whole family got out there. They were the anchors. And it was really quiet. It was a quiet, gentle childhood full of books, so there wasn't much else to do. So, reading was such a huge part of my life.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
When you were in those later years in fifth, sixth, seven, when you're middle school to high school, what was your experience? Were there other Black kids in Olney? Did you feel like you were alone in that regard? Or was it like-
Dhonielle Clayton:
There were three of us, or four.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Okay. In your class, in your grade?
Dhonielle Clayton:
In my grade. Yes, in my grade.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Okay.
Dhonielle Clayton:
So, there were about three to four per grade, and I know their full names still to this day.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yes. Yes, you do.
Dhonielle Clayton:
And yeah, I was a fish out of water, but because it felt like a bubble, I didn't understand what that meant. I knew that I was different, but my parents were very, very good at anchoring me in community. So, from going down South every summer or going to North Carolina, anywhere that we went, it was family and rooted in community and culture, that I knew exactly who I was, I wasn't confused, but I definitely stuck out and knew, "Oh, I'm different, and I'm different in a particular way, but also, I have all of these things that I do have in common."
So, I grew up around a lot of other people that were fish out of water for other reasons. So, we were all this little motley crew of weirdos who loved books and were ethnic and weird and had ... You know what I mean?
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah. Yeah.
Dhonielle Clayton:
Ate different kinds of food and had different things we were doing on the weekends, right? Because that's where it shows up.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
That's where it shows up. Right?
Dhonielle Clayton:
It's on the weekends, right? It's like what you're doing.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
So, it was just your grandparents, your parents, you. Were there other family members, or that was sort of your core that was out there?
Dhonielle Clayton:
Yes. I have aunts and uncles. They're all within 10 to 15 miles of each other. So, it was sort of like the whole pocket of both my mom's side and my dad's side converged out there.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Are they from that area as well, or where is your family?
Dhonielle Clayton:
My mom is from North Carolina and my dad is from Mississippi.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Oh, Mississippi. That's more unusual out here.
Dhonielle Clayton:
I know. It's that deep South. And we would go every summer down to my great-grandparents' farm. My grandmother would drive down in a Cadillac. It would be hot. I'd have all my books in the back seat as my legs were stuck to the leather, and we would drive down and I would spend my summers on that farm. No air conditioning. Animals. Reading books.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
That's cool. That's such a different type of grounding or something in your childhood, I think.
Dhonielle Clayton:
Absolutely. I think it's what created my imagination. Just seeing those kinds of things, even driving through the deep South, whether it's Georgia, Tennessee, Louisiana, New Orleans, Mississippi, Alabama, just spending a lot of time down there while reading and reading about fantasy electrified my imagination.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah. Do you want to go into that a little bit more, what that means?
Dhonielle Clayton:
Sure. It's the kids of the early ... The '80s and '90s, where TV was important, but for my household, my dad was a huge reader, so reading was what we did, whether it was books on tape, I remember the sound of a tape turning, when it would turn over from A side to B side, as you got to the next part of the story. And I went to the library every day, and I also got to go to the bookstore every Saturday morning with my dad, Crown Bookstore, which RIP, makes me really sad, and the comic book store.
So, reading was what I was doing. I would go under my grandmother's table, wherever there was a table, and there was those ... What is it? It's got the lacy sort of table-
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah. Like a sheath sort of over that. Yeah.
Dhonielle Clayton:
Sheath. Exactly. And I would hide under there with pillows and a blanket, snacks, and have my books. And the sun would come through that little doily tablecloth and I would just hide under there and read. And so, I would just do that all summer. And they used to have those Pizza Hut challenges.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Oh, yeah. BOOK IT!
Dhonielle Clayton:
BOOK IT! I would win them.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
You crushed those?
Dhonielle Clayton:
Crushed them.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Get those personal pan pizzas.
Dhonielle Clayton:
Loved it. I mean, they were full of grease, but it was delicious.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yes.
Dhonielle Clayton:
And I feel like books were just what built my imagination. I would read anything and everything I could get my hands on. I just love the act of reading. I loved all different kinds of books, whether it was scary books and fantasy or historical fiction. I just liked the transportive nature of reading.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah. Gregory Maguire, he called reading, travel of the mind. I love that phrase. And his point he was making was that you begin in that way as a kid, when you can't really get out as much or whatever, you're bound to wherever you've been taken. You can travel with your mind. And then, he was on the other side of that now, and older, and talking about how it's similarly if you don't feel like or can't move around as much, it's like you get that same experience.
Dhonielle Clayton:
It's beautiful. And I also remember my heart beating and racing while reading, and that kind of experience is something I constantly hunt. It's that little girl experience of feeling so enraptured by a book that I'm sweating or my heart is racing, or I'm afraid, and I'm having an emotional experience while reading. And that, to me, is so powerful. It just means that you're locked in and you're loving it.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Oh, yeah. I feel like my entire reading life is searching for that feeling. And what about New Orleans? Can you talk a little bit about that? Your Belles series is set in a world named Orleans. You've got Shattered Midnight. It's like 1920s New Orleans. We've got the Conjurers from The Marvellers. So, was wondering what importance the real city has to you.
Dhonielle Clayton:
I do love it there, and I have some cousins that live there now, but I think that when I was a young person and my grandparents, we would be shipped off. I don't know what my parents are doing during the summer, but we were off with-
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Oh, they were living a great life.
Dhonielle Clayton:
Yes. And I will repeat this if I have a child, I'm like, "Here's your grandchild. I'm out of here for six weeks." And when we would drive down to the country, that's what my grandparents would say. Sometimes they would take day trips into New Orleans to gamble, you know, old people like to gamble.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Oh, yeah.
Dhonielle Clayton:
And I just remember sitting in the back of that Cadillac and looking out the window at this swampy, weird, loud, musical, electric city when I'm like 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12. And I think that it really just stuck in my imagination. It started to haunt me that this place feels so strange. Why are the dead people buried above ground? Why does my grandmother tell me to hold my breath and put a penny in my shoe when we go past a graveyard? It was little things like that that when we would go down South and go into New Orleans for the day or two, that started to ... I don't know, I think I'm just re-toiling soil that was planted when I was the age of my characters. Those are the things that stick with me now as I've gotten older. It's what I remember. And I remember going into New Orleans and it felt magical. It felt like I had left the United States. And I think that is why I keep finding myself coming back. And I think New Orleans and the Southern United States, that's my anchor.
They say the people could fly. Say that long ago in Africa, some of the people knew magic. And they would walk up on the air like climbing up on a gate. And they flew like blackbirds over the fields. Black, shiny wings flapping against the blue up there. Then, many of the people were captured for slavery. The ones that could fly shed their wings. They couldn't take their wings across the water on the slave ships. Too crowded, don't you know? The folks were full of misery, then. Got sick with the up and down of the sea. So, they forgot about flying when they could no longer breathe the sweet scent of Africa. Say the people who could fly kept their power, although they shed their wings. They kept their secret magic in the land of slavery. They looked the same as the other people from Africa who had been coming over, who had dark skin. Say you couldn't tell anymore one who could fly from one who couldn't.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
The People Could Fly is a remarkable collection by Victoria Hamilton featuring 24 re-tellings of Black American folk tales. The passage in question is from its titular story, The People Could Fly. The story narrates the plight of enslaved African Americans who, once captured, lose their magical ability to fly. It is only when an old man reminds them of their forgotten magic that they regain this extraordinary power and soar to freedom. The theme of reclaiming lost magic is the direct inspiration for Dhonielle's magic-filled Conjureverse series.
Dhonielle Clayton:
I remember this juxtaposition of flying and being stuck, and I remember this idea of magic being taken from you. And it was like a beautiful metaphor, as I was grappling as a young person with, how did our family get here? They do all those projects in school, especially in elementary school and family history, "Oh, where did your family come from?" And all of the Black American children who are related to American chattel slavery have to grapple with, "Uh-oh. What happened? And how do I talk about it?"
And this, it's a beautiful picture book, beautiful folklore. This contextualized it in a very beautiful way, and it is probably the anchor and the heart of my Marvellers universe, of the Conjureverse. It is where I started when thinking about how do you make magic from this? It's the heart of it. It's the first seed.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Oh. Can you go into that a little more?
Dhonielle Clayton:
Without spoilers for the Conjureverse and these novels, there's this idea of there are these Conjurers that were left behind when the Marvellers decided to leave the non-magical world behind and live in the skies and build their magic school in their three cities that travel all over the world. And there is a precarious relationship between the Conjure folk and the Marvellers. And it does relate a lot to this idea of movement and flying and moving out of your current situation.
I kept thinking about magic and what happens to magic when you have to move? How does it change? And the conjurer magic is a crossing magic, right? Crossing across lots of different ways through into the essence of plants and animals, crossing between life and death, because they cross the oceans. And as you get deeper into the series and you learn about why the Marvellers can move all around the world, you're going to unearth some secrets that are related to the Conjurers and what they can do and what their magic and how it's rooted in this idea of flying and movement.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah. That's fascinating. And really, yeah, everybody needs to read your books. And now, I need to go back and read Virginia Hamilton. It's such a gift that your family gave you that book, and thank God for that book and the handful that were there.
Dhonielle Clayton:
Absolutely. And because I was looking for magic, specifically, Virginia Hamilton had a few books and she collected folk tales and magical stories that were rooted in the Black American diaspora. And that was the first time I thought, "Oh, we can be magical too. This isn't just..." I'm reading The Chronicles of Narnia, about four white British children who go into a wardrobe-
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Still getting into it, but it's like-
Dhonielle Clayton:
Right. And I love it, but I'm like, well, where are the other people? Where are the people that look like me? At the time, in the late '80s, early '90s, I couldn't find magical stories that were transportive. I could find folklore, and that was great, and that was a stepping stone, but I was really filling my well with magical stories that didn't have anything to do with my community or my culture.
So, I was trying to read all of the fantastical magical stories, but looking for my family, looking for magic that felt like it came out of my community, and I couldn't find it. And I think it just made me hunt for it, and then, it made me want to create it, because I couldn't find exactly what I was looking for.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
And create her own, she did. Furthermore, Dhonielle didn't hesitate to call out the most iconic titles in the genre for their lack of inclusion. In her 2023 essay, We Don't Talk About Harry Potter, Dhonielle wrote, quote, "I wanted to rectify a pattern, one where magic school invitations to BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, neurodivergent, and disabled kids, seemed to get lost in the mail. Those children were left perpetually waiting in the margins, ready for adventure, but sidelined." Unquote. The full essay is a must read, and I'm going to link to it in the show notes for you.
Even in the face of controversy and transphobic remarks from the author herself, Harry Potter remains the most popular children's fantasy series of all time. And nearly 30 years later, the series' lack of diversity is still leaving marginalized groups feeling excluded from the immersive and magical world of fantasy stories. Dhonielle is changing that. I asked her about how she's currently working to fill in the diverse character gaps from this beloved genre, despite the large shadows cast by stories like Harry Potter and Percy Jackson.
Dhonielle Clayton:
They're titans. And unfortunately, because our community and culture globally loves nostalgia, they don't want to move forward. But the young people like one foot in the old and one foot in the new, one foot in the thing that they loved. And it's like, "Oh, it's like that, but we've got these new things." And so, I intimately use my librarian training when I'm sitting down to create ideas, thinking about what are the ingredients of this big titan property like Percy Jackson? Okay, it's the reluctant hero kid that's down on his luck, finding out that he's got this huge inheritance. I took those ingredients and I thought, what do these ingredients look like when filtered through the lens of culture and community? These things look different when filtered through a Black American context and worldview. And then I built Tristan out of that.
And so, I embrace what has come before. So, I'm not a person that's like, let's throw out the classics. It's, let's move forward. Let's disrupt the canon. Which I love the Disrupt Texts movement. They are wonderful, wonderful teachers and educators. And just borrowing that and thinking about, well, how do I move some of these universal themes, some these ingredients that we love, how do I remix them into a new stew that young people could get really excited about? Because frankly, these young kids, sometimes, they don't want to read those books. They don't want to read some of the older classics that I love or that I grew up on, or that I was obsessed with. They're ready for something that speaks to their lived experience now.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
While Dhonielle has devoted a substantial part of her career to bringing diversity into the fantasy genre, she does note that not all of her peers are as enthusiastic as she is about this particular goal.
Dhonielle Clayton:
And I have this conversation with my good friend Jason Reynolds, a lot, about why he moves away from fantasy, why fantasy isn't a thing that he enjoys.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah. Y'all are-
Dhonielle Clayton:
Diametrically opposed.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah.
Dhonielle Clayton:
Okay? And we fight about it all the time. And he said something very painful that haunts me, and it's one of the anchors of my work, is he said that he feels like Black children, especially, Black boys, especially, their imaginations are taken from them at a very young age. And so, those building blocks don't get to grow in the same way. And so, fantasy fiction, there is no escape, and there is something that is missing, because at a very young age, reality shows up on their doorsteps. So, the fantasy, it can't even penetrate the reality for many.
So, I just wanted to inspire and create as many fantasy books and worlds that feature and center and set a table for Black children, but invite all children, so that those imaginations can be built in spite of the reality.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
I am like, okay, this idea is really taking me right now, because I have a little brown boy and a little brown girl, and they're older now, I guess, 12, 14. But it is very interesting, I just figured as their taste, but yeah, for Cassius, at a very young age, he was very interested in reading real stories.
Dhonielle Clayton:
Real.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
I remember him reading The Hate U Give, and he just kept ... Right. Real. When he was young, he kept asking me, "Can I read The Hate U Give?" And I'm like, "No. I mean, no. That seems traumatic and I don't want you to read that." But he was persistent, whereas my daughter, when everything happened with George Floyd, I remember she didn't want to see it. She didn't want to look at the news. She was shielding herself in every which way. And she has lived in her little world of magic forever. She'll stay there right now. So, it is interesting.
Dhonielle Clayton:
It's an interesting thing. And he and I have talked about it quite a bit, thinking about we grew up in the same area. He grew up in Maryland, I grew up in Maryland, but our childhoods and our experience of imagination is completely different. He makes magic out of the ordinary, out of his neighborhood, and I like to make magic with the extraordinary. Right? So, we just create from two different places that are both valuable but different. And I think children need both and all. It's that and space that they should live in, so they know that they don't have to choose.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah. Not having to choose is the thing. Right? Okay. So, do you have a guiding principle for how you balance the realities of our society with your fantasy world building? And I mean by way of comparison it would be the Bridgerton approach, which is kind of like toss history out the window. Let's escape to this alternate timeline, and racism mostly just blew over. But you don't do that and you also don't really drown your characters in the worst of our current reality. Right?
And you have two master's degrees, so you're obviously bringing a scholarly perspective to the writing. And I know that you go deep into the history books for background and everything. So yeah, what is your approach to the right balance?
Dhonielle Clayton:
I think what I don't want to do is invite readers into my fantasy worlds and traumatize them with the same things that are happening in their real world. For me, I think it's about leaving little breadcrumbs where if you put it together, you've put it together. This is for the Marvellers and the Conjureverse series, this is an analog to the 1960s school integration in America, historical parallel, but it also is just about two magical communities that have a little bit of an issue with each other. Right? And about a little girl who goes to magic school, and she's the first of her group to go. So, you can put the pieces together.
And I think that the power of children's literature, the way that I like it is when it can be read on two levels, maybe even three. One for the teacher, right? One for the parent, and one for the listener, or for the reader, the young reader. Where each person is getting something different. Those were the books that I loved growing up. And this is the bee in my bonnet is, I find that when I started writing, that writers of color and marginalized writers, especially, whatever your marginalization is, are tasked with teaching. And also, they become teachable lessons. And I wanted to be in the epic category. Why can't my work be read just like Philip Pullman's work, just like Diana Wynne Jones, Jane Yolen? Right? We are talking about real things, but we also have magic and mischief, and it's just a kid who has to face a dragon or a demon.
And so, I find that I felt like my stories had to be local and ripped from the headlines and very newsy. And I wanted to write something that felt like it could be read in 50 years and still have value, where we don't have to go to the newspapers and be like, "Oh, this is why this book came about." That it still had some sort of epic resonance. But I wanted to balance making sure that it's just a magic story about magic school and a magic school for all, and the promises that we make when we say something is for everyone, and how do those values actually show up when everyone comes? Right? So, these sort of universal themes, but set in a context where you could make an analog to bring it to life, so that people can read it on many levels.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Oh yeah, that completely makes sense. Okay. I want to switch gears a little bit here, because you spent a lot of time as a teacher and a librarian, which is amazing. So, outside, I guess, of the fantasy genre, I wonder if you can speak to your experience as a librarian or as a teacher, getting kids to want to read in general. I understand that when you first arrived at your school, the reading culture wasn't on solid ground yet. So, if you want to speak to that bit, that would be great.
Dhonielle Clayton:
Absolutely. I mean, that was devastating. I think that was my wide-eyed, "I'm going to move to the big city and I'm going to change people's lives and kids are going to love to read like I did." And then, I got to my school and kids hated to read. And it broke me for a while.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
How old were the kids you were teaching at first?
Dhonielle Clayton:
They were K through 8. So, I ran my library and I had to work with different groups, and the teachers would bring them to the library and we would do read-alouds, and we would do book selection and book tastings and all kinds of fun things. But a lot of my students hated books. Reading was a struggle because of literacy rates, but also because they saw books as something that didn't involve them. They didn't see themselves, so, "That's not for me because I don't see anyone who is from my neighborhood or from my background or my family that are in these books." And they were encountering when they did see themselves, it was all about things that pressed down on the bruises of their collective background, which we need those books, but we also need joy because if we only see the bruises, then I don't want any part of that. I wouldn't want to read either if it was always going to be something that made me feel like ouch.
And so, I had the large task of building a reading culture at my school and making reading fun. And that was such a great and wonderful challenge because I'm ambitious and I like it when someone says they don't like something. I'm like, "Oh, let me prove you're wrong."
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Challenge accepted.
Dhonielle Clayton:
Accepted. Exactly. So, I was like, we're going to do reading pajama parties. We're going to bring back our version of BOOK IT! We're going to do a March madness of books, and then we're going to have pizza parties, and we're going to have read-a-thons, and we're going to do all this fun stuff, that created an obsession with reading and helped change the literacy rates of my young people in my school.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Okay. Dhonielle, you're amazing. You are epic. Okay. Author, teacher, librarian. But we basically still haven't covered all the facets of your professional career, and I just want to talk about so many things, but definitely want to talk about Cake Creative. So, can you describe what it is? Because I think most people who are not into books, might not really understand what it is or what you do, and they could just go read The New York Times article about Dhonielle. You can go do that now, but maybe you can give us the short version.
Dhonielle Clayton:
When I was a librarian, I noticed that a lot of children's literature, when you open and you look at the copyright page, the copyright is owned by a company. And I thought, Hmm, Baby-Sitters Club, Pretty Little Liars, Vampire Diaries. I said, "What is this?" And I found out that many children's books are what are called packaged. That means that a team has come up with an idea, and writers, many writers at times, when it's series, have gotten a work for hire contract to be able to write in that series. So, if you see stuff like Star Wars, all of those books, people writing in the universe of Star Wars, that is the same thing as a packaged book. It means that someone has come up with the idea and given that outline to you and paid you to write this book.
And I thought to myself in my little library, when I was trying to get these kids to read, and I had my little readers that were obsessed, were asking for books that didn't exist on the shelves at the time. And this was around 2008, '09, and '10, and it was really frustrating to me. And I had a little girl who came into my library, and her mom was from the Dominican Republic, and her dad was from Mexico, and she asked for a book about witches. And this was in 2010. And I got all the books about witches. And then she said, "No, but brujas. Where are the brujas?" And there wasn't a single book that was for kids that had a little bruja in it. And I got really angry. And I was getting my second master's at the time, and I thought, "I need to do something about this. How can I move faster?" And I learned about packaging.
And so, basically, Cake Creative, and then also my other company, Electric Postcard Entertainment, I come up with ideas for books, and I hire writers to write them and help introduce them to publishing, and give them a crash course and sort of a launch pad into the business, because it took me so long to break in, that I thought we're never going to get out of this problem and deficit of representation if I can't shorten the runway for people.
So, I went through all of this stuff and these eight full novels and all these rejections, and I finally learned how to write a book and how to commercially pitch a book, and how to navigate the business. How many people can I pass that knowledge onto? And if I can give you a piece of my own intellectual property and teach you what I know and help get you that foot in the door, we can make this table bigger. We can send that elevator back down. And so, that's what I did. And so, basically, I come up with all of these ideas and outlines and characters and worlds, and then I hire writers to write them and teach them how I created the story, coach them, edit them, and then go sell them to publishers. And so, I'm almost at 100 books now.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
How does that feel to watch? I feel like it has to just feel amazing to know that one kid is reading a book that you wrote and taking something from it. But then to know that now it's like this whole other meta level to not just reach kids, but then you're reaching all these writers that you're bringing in, and then that exponential impact. I mean, wow.
Dhonielle Clayton:
It's weird. I kind of want to be a little secret. So, getting The New York Times profile, my agents were like, "Yeah, this is great." And now I'm like, oh no, everybody knows now. I have to go hide. I'm actually quite shy. Because really, this isn't about me. This is literally about sending the elevator back down. That's how I was raised. My mother told me the vision of success is not you getting in the room. It's how many people did you bring in with you, and hold that door open.
So, seeing that, Kwame Mbalia, who wrote the Tristan Strong series and the Last Gate of the Emperor series for me, now has his own imprint at Disney called Freedom Fire. That's the goal. That's the impact. It's the sort of spreading it. And I taught him things, and now, he's now paying it back by launching other creators. That's the only way we can do this, is building this boat together, we all get to the destination, but we can't leave people behind.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah, I really, I love that. And that leads us to, we can talk a little about, We Need Diverse Books, which I'm like, how does this woman have time for anything? But you recently did the transfer from Ellen Oh, are going to be taking over, but have already been so involved as a co-founder. So, what's the conversation you want to push now?
Dhonielle Clayton:
For the next decade of We Need Diverse Books?
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Dhonielle Clayton:
I mean, I have several bees in my bonnet. I always have a bee in my bonnet. My mom said I was born with a bee in the bonnet. I just was born a little ornery, a little fussy and particular. And I think what we are facing and the thing that I really want to drill down on in this next decade, we've got a book banning problem. We knew that would happen. We knew that the work that we were all doing in all of our various communities, with all of the movements that came before We Need Diverse Books, and beyond, that someone was going to respond. And so, this backlash is the response.
And so, we have to work together to make sure that our children get to read the things that they want to read, and that one group of people doesn't get to tell everybody and everyone's child what they can and cannot read. And so, we have that to face. But we also have to make sure that publishers continue to not allow the fear of banning to change their acquisition patterns, because this is tied to commerce and the book world, and writers sit at the intersections of art and commerce. We've got to make sure these things sell. And we have to get more creative because also social media is changing, algorithms of changing how people access content, how they find books are changing, and teenagers and young people, we're competing for their time. And so, we have to really talk to creators about how can we make sure that these books really speak to this next generation? And get creative.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yes, this is so good and important, and I'm so glad you're doing it. It just strikes me that in so many avenues, you've really gone headfirst into creating these possibilities for young readers, possibilities you didn't have as a kid. And outside looking in, everything seems to be coming together, like falling into the right places for you. And I know you said you're not religious, but I wonder, I'm curious about your thoughts on purpose and if you believe in that or believe in destiny, that kind of thing?
Dhonielle Clayton:
I think that I am supposed to be doing this work. I believe and love and adore the imaginations of young people and children, and I wanted to be a part of leaving a legacy behind that helps them become the best versions of themselves, whether it is sparking other artists and making other writers and readers. So, that is something that I think that I was supposed to do, because all of the roadblocks in my life have landed me here.
So, I do think my purpose here, if I want to leave something behind, make this place better than I found it, is to change the shelves, to make sure that every kid can walk into that bookstore or library or classroom library and see themselves reflected on the page, but also, get excited about that and allow that to shape and change their imaginations and grow it.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah, absolutely. And do you have any specific memories of an interaction with a student or a kid that you know you had an impact on?
Dhonielle Clayton:
Yes. I had a little girl who had created an entire diorama of the Magic School, because she was so obsessed. And her mom said that she couldn't get her to go to sleep, she was creating every animal that was mentioned, every character, and I couldn't take them with me because I had flown in, but it was just seeing a kid's imagination become electrified by something that I made, to where they were making things. I was like, oh, job done, job done.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Dhonielle Clayton is a doer and a disrupter. She also just happens to be a doer and disrupter who loves magic. For her reading challenge, retelling heroes and magic, she takes inspiration from her goal to disrupt the world of fantasy storytelling.
Dhonielle Clayton:
I think it's going to be sort of disrupting your classic sense of what a hero or what magic looks like, and heroes born out of culture and community. So, I'm going to include Marti Dumas, Wildseed Witch, which is a fun middle grade that is set in Louisiana as well. And it's about these naughty girls at this magical boarding finishing school sort of thing. I think I'm going to do Keynan Masters and the Peerless Academy, too. It's got a environmental sort of magic school feel. So, I think it'll be sort of, it's time for new worlds, there are new worlds, there are new heroes amongst us type of vibes.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
This episode's Beanstack Featured Librarian is once again, Erin Baker, a media specialist at Durham Middle School in Georgia. This time, Erin tells us her secret sauce for getting the whole school on board with reading initiatives and why it involves some unlikely allies.
Erin Baker:
My secret sauce is aligning with classroom teachers. And as a media specialist, my priority has always been collaborative instruction, but it really goes beyond that, because you need those teachers advocating and representing your program when they're in the classroom. A library or media specialist could not do all of that work by themselves.
So, I think you start with just one teacher or one group of teachers. I've been fortunate to be in my school for 13 years, so I have really secured a foundation and have roots in the program, and I have my go-tos, who I know are my people who will try anything, and every school has those. But I've also had such great success working with science teachers because they have that same mindset. And sometimes because teachers carry so much, sometimes when things flop, that can be very overwhelming, but I found with science teachers, science teachers didn't care. They were like, "Everything's an experiment. Every day is an experiment. If something doesn't work, it's okay." That's what we're teaching our kids. So, it's okay if that happens with us too.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
This has been The Reading Culture, and you've been listening to my conversation with Dhonielle Clayton. Again, I'm your host, Jordan Lloyd Bookey. And currently, I'm reading skin & bones by a former guest of our show, Renee Watson. It's her first adult book, and it's so good. And also, The One and Only Family by Katherine Applegate, which is the last in that series. Sad ears.
If you've enjoyed today's episode, please show some love and give us a five-star review. It just takes a second and really helps. This episode was produced by Jackie Lamport and Lower Street Media, and script edited by Josiah Lamberto-Egan. To learn more about how you can help grow your community's reading culture, you can check out all of our resources at beanstack.com. And remember to sign up for our newsletter at thereadingculturepod.com/newsletter, for special offers and bonus content. Thanks for listening, and keep reading.