What if we don’t talk about it? - Censorship, Silences and Tensions in Children’s Literature

One of the most meaningful moments of Bologna Children’s Book Fair’s presence at FIL Guadalajara 2025 was the meeting with Jacqueline Woodson, the acclaimed American author and recipient of the 2020 Hans Christian Andersen Award for Writing and the 2018 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award. The event was organized by FIL together with ALMA.

In conversation with Elena Pasoli during the Professional Forum “What if we don’t talk about it? Censorship, Silences and Tensions in Children’s Literature,” organized together with ALMA, Woodson reflected on the tensions, silences, and challenges that run through contemporary children’s and young adult literature. The discussion focused on the role of authors and books in giving voice to what often remains unspoken, and on what happens - both in society and in storytelling - when certain topics are left unaddressed.

EP: “Even the silence has a story to tell you. Just listen. Listen”: your memoir Brown Girl Dreaming maps your childhood, growing up between the South and Brooklyn, finding your voice as a writer. If we start from the word “silence” in our title today, what were some of the silences of your childhood and how did writing become a way to speak into them? 

JW: I would say one of the biggest silences of my childhood was the hole that existed in the literature that I had access to.

It was literature with people who look like me in it and who represented the experiences that I had had or that the people I love had had. Most of the literature of my childhood was written from a white perspective and I was growing up in a community that was Black and Latino. I grew up as a child of both the South and the North.

You know, so many of those experiences were not in the literature, there was a small body of work by writers of color. I feel like by the fifth grade I had gone through all of those books. Writing became a way to speak into them because, of course, those characters I created were characters that I had not met in that literature and that I wanted to see. By extension, I was filling that hole of my childhood with the literature I wanted and I guess it became the literature that other people wanted too. So here I am.

 

EP: So many of your books - including Brown Girl Dreaming and The Day You Begin - use poetic language and, sometimes, verse structure. What does poetry allow you to do with painful or controversial subjects that prose alone might not? 

JW: I think there is something about the shape of poetry that allows for the reader to pause, to really take in the language and the story on a deeper level because you have this white space. You have these moments that are saying, through the white space, through the emptiness, all that's here is what you just read. So just take a moment and think about that. Let it sink in. Enjoy the quiet of it and really let it go deeper because you're not racing to the next word on the next line.

Even with line breaks, when you look at the way poets do line breaks, they're very intentional. And as a reader, you're asking yourself “Why did that sentence stop there?”, you realize that part of a sentence is actually a whole idea. So, let's sit with it before we go to the next whole idea, that's a part of that sentence. I don't know if that sounds confusing but poetry allows for that. It allows for a deeper engagement with a narrative because sometimes you have fewer words and also space in the construction of the poem that really allows you to think.

 

EP: You’ve said in interviews that as a writer for young people you have questions, not answers. In a time when children's literature is under pressure to carry clear messages, how do you balance asking tough questions rather than handing down answers? 

JW: I was just talking with my friend Alana about this today. She has a new baby, well he's two years old, and I had sent him a bunch of books, including Bee-bim Bop! by Linda Sue Park. She was saying how much he loved it and I told her that a lot of times, especially for kids of color, you're getting these books and they're talking about how we love our hair, we love our skin, we love who we are. And yes, we do… and where's the story? I mean, I think that it's so important that we do talk about things like race and gender and class and that we do it in a way that tells a story that is so engaging. And there are books out there.

There are many books that talk about skin and hair and loving oneself that are truly engaging and beautiful and brilliant. There are also books that really try to hammer it into a young person's head and that's kind of what you learn is the first rule of writing, that we don't write to teach. We write because we as writers are trying to learn and by extension, our readers gather something from the narrative.

I think Bee-bim Bop! is such a great example. It's about a Korean family making a meal, the child helping the parents make the meal ‘bibimbap’, which is a traditional Korean dish. So it's not saying this is what we eat because we're Korean and this is important for you to know about my Korean heritage. You're saying here's our family, here's what we eat, here's how fun it is to make it and and you can have fun, too, by reading the story.

I think that's how we handle the stuff that others might see as controversial or painful… we don't see it that way. I'm always surprised when someone says: “oh, you wrote about this really painful thing, about being the only person of color in an all white environment or whatever it is”. And I'm like, not so much on the pain, but on the introspection.

So the first thing I think about is: what is the story I want to tell? Who are the characters and how am I going to tell it? What do they want and how are they going to get it? Then I start layering the story and it becomes about all, all the things, all the many things.

 

EP: The American writer Alison Lurie, in her essay “Don’t Tell the Grown-Ups”, wrote that the most powerful children’s books are always a little subversive: they tell young readers the truths that adults often try to soften or hide.That was written in 1990. Today, thirty-five/six years later, one  question emerges with striking clarity:  'What if we don’t talk about it?' In your view, what is lost when issues such as race, sexuality, family trauma, or incarceration are omitted or silenced in children’s literature? 

JW: I think the first thing we lose in not talking about the complexities of our human existence is the complexity of our human existence. We lose the stories that touch so many people and, in losing those stories, those people become isolated because they think they're the only one with that story.

They think that they're the only one walking through the world in this very particular way, whether it’s, someone who's been impacted by the prison industrial complex, someone in their life who is queer or themselves being queer, a traumatic loss in the family, whatever it is, we are not alone in the experience of it. I always think of what James Baldwin said, and I'm going to paraphrase him, it's something like: you think your pain is like no one else's in the universe… and then you read.

Reading allows us to see reflections of our experiences in the world and by extension, be able to know that we're not alone in those experiences.

So when we don't talk or write about it, for so many people, that loneliness, that isolation, that sense of being lesser than continues, and that's a tragedy.

 

EP: You’ve been outspoken about the wave of book bans and challenges to children’s literature. You often talk about respecting young readers’ intelligence and emotional lives. When adults try to protect children by removing certain books, what do they misunderstand about children as readers? What do you see as the central conflict when a children’s book is challenged or removed?  

JW: I think this is such a great and hard question. I think the first thing they misunderstand is that just because they've taken the book out of the children's hands, that the children are not going to get the information. What they may get is misinformation, but they're going to get some information. Books allows for that information to not misinform the young people. I think writers have such a deep respect for young people that we do write the truth and we do it in a way that's safe for them. So the other misinterpretation that adults have is that we are trying to change their children or trying to, I don't know, bring them into some kind of cult or something.

But the truth is we're speaking oftentimes from our own experiences and what we've learned. I think that when we talk about what's subversive about it is, well, the first thing is that we are writing as children and we are adults, right? So we are writing from an older perspective, a more nuanced perspective because of our experiences. But the young person reading it believes that a young person is talking to them, right? But it is in some way because we are talking from our childhood selves and bringing that adult experience to our childhood selves and through that, sharing it with other young people.

So I think the other thing they misunderstand, aside from thinking that we're trying to make their children into something that they're not going to be, my prayer is that children find their way and that they find it somehow, if not through literature, they find how to navigate the world. I mean, all of us who survive into adulthood have done that. So the big conflict is that someone's trying to hurt their children through literature. That is, I think, one of the biggest lies ever told. I think children's literature is one of the safest places to be, and I wish more people understood that

 

EP: In a recent interview you spoke about staying resilient in the face of book bans and political pressure. What sustains you - creatively and personally - when you are writing into this atmosphere of tension and fear? 

JW: I think my family really - and I'm talking about my extended family, I'm talking about my chosen and my biological family in the community I've very intentionally created - keeps me safe. Not necessarily physically safe because it's very hard to be physically safe in the United States right now, as so many people know, but mentally stable and strong so that we can walk out. I mean, we do it for each other, right? We can walk out into these streets and know that what we're fighting against in battling something like ICE or book bans or the silencing of talking about the various issues that we talk about, that we have people at our back that remind us that we're doing the right thing. That is really helpful and sustaining. I also love to read, even though I read really slowly, I find my truths and my strength in the books of other writers.

I walk a lot to clear my mind. I really try to do the work of taking the time to sit with myself and know that I'm doing the right thing, that really matters to me.

That's not to say that I'm not fearful, you know, I am afraid. I’m afraid for the people I love. I'm afraid for the people I don't know. I'm afraid for the children. I'm afraid for my country.

But I always think about what Audre Lorde said, that we can sit in our corners, mute as bottles, and we will still be no less afraid. And I believe that. I think, we either sit silently and watch it and feel remorse for not acting, or we do something about it and feel like at least we did what we couldd.

 

EP: You often talk about the role of librarians and teachers as frontline defenders of literature. In one conversation, you mentioned that when books are banned, the adults who try to share them with young people can lose their jobs. How does that reality affect the way you think about your own work and the responsibility you feel as an author? What practical steps do you believe publishers, educators, fairs, and festivals like this one can take to defend space for difficult conversations in children's literature?

JW: I love that question. I think publishers can keep publishing the books and amplifying them and fighting against the book bans and lawyering up, getting lawyers to fight against the book bans because they have the money to do that.

You know, I want educators to stay safe. And I think educators have many times found workarounds, we're at a really critical time, and I don't want them to lose their jobs.

I don't want librarians to lose their jobs because we're at a critical economic time and people need to feed their families. So, I think my responsibility as an author with a platform is to speak out and to write. And I write: I'm a writer who tells stories, and I want to continue to do that. But I also am an activist, and I'm going to speak out against what I think is wrong.

Same with fairs and festivals.I think it is important to hold platforms to conversations like the one you and I did, to talk to people about what's going on and amplifying that. I wish our talk had been filmed because I think it was a really important talk, and you asked such great questions, and we had such a great conversation. And even I think there were questions afterwards.

I just think all of the being in dialogue is really important. But, again, the first step is talking about it and letting people know it exists. I remember when I first started talking about the book bans, people didn't know books like Brown Girl Dreaming were banned or books like This is the Rope or even Each Kindness.

They're like, what are you talking about? I thought it was only books where writers were talking about pedophilia or something like it was like crazy because the narrative had been skewed into such a lie about what was happening with book bans. Then people came to find out that just about everybody was being banned if your book wasn't about a person who was white. So there's a lot of information that a lot of people still don't have that I think it's important to get out there.

 

EP: In their presentation of your work, the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award judges wrote, few authors can write about dark and different subject matter with such hope as Jacqueline Woodson. In an era of rising bans and cultural polarization, what gives you hope? What advice would you give to young writers and readers who feel their stories are at risk of being silenced? 

JW: I would say just because your story's at risk of being silenced, do not not write the story. Someone is going to get access to it. I mean, the first people we write for are ourselves and write that story for yourself because it's going to give you strength to do the work to get that story in the world. But the first thing is you have to write it and you have to have faith in the story that you're telling.

I think I said this when we were talking, but I think it's so important to write from a place of love, not a place of trying to teach someone something, not a place of being enraged at the world, but from a place of love.

I think that helps with the polarization. I think that helps with us understanding how other people feel. I really believe there ain't no good guys, there ain't no bad guys, there's only you and me and we just disagree… I'm quoting a song but I can't remember the song, so I would love to cite it! But I do believe that we have to figure out how to talk to each other and we have to figure out how to continue to write from a place of love.

That gives me hope. That gives me hope that I know at the end of the day, there is love in the world. I have love. You have love. I know this sounds corny, but but that love matters so much.

 

EP: “There will be times when the words don't come. There will be times when the world feels like a place you're standing all the way outside of. There will be times when you walk into a room and no one there is quite like you until the day you begin to share your stories.” These words from your picture book, The Day You Begin, bring me to this last question. Many of your works offer readers the chance to both see themselves and step into someone else's shoes. In times of tension, how do you see the role of representation and empathy in children's literature? And what responsibility does that place on authors and adults?"

JW: I think I've talked about this a little bit. I think we continue to tell our story, continue to have empathy, continue to represent the people who can't represent themselves or who we didn't see as young people.

I think it brings us back to your first question to me. We fill the holes that are there, that were there in our childhood. Madeline Lingle said when we write, we should write remembering the child we were because the essence of childhood does not change and I believe that. I believe that we go back to who we were as young people and write those stories. We get those stories in the world as best we can because the role of children's literature is to, as Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop said, hold up a mirror so that young people can see themselves and create a window so that young people can experience the worlds they might not have ever known.

And I do believe that's the role of children's literature and that's how children learn empathy and that's what the danger of this moment is.

Who will young people grow up to become if they don't have a sense of other people in the world? If they don't get to know other people's stories? I think it's so important that we see each other and I think that's what children's literature allows us to do, is see each other. Thank you, Elena.