Meg Rosoff finally resolved her title issues and announced the "winner" today. I have to say - it doesn't really ring my bell. I don't think I would pick up the book based solely on this title: What I Was. It's pretty bland; I much preferred her choice: No Man's Land. Of course that conjures up images either of WWI or man bashing and maybe that's why her editors passed on it. I think they could have done better than the final choice though.

This title business makes me think of Cherie Priest who should run a workshop or something on conjuring good titles. She has come up with Four and Twenty Blackbirds, Wings to the Kingdom, Not Flesh Nor Feathers and Dreadful Skin - plus all the fab story titles over the years. Just today she linked to my very blog entry calling for ARCs and reviews copies for kids in New Orleans and managed to include dragons in her call for books. She makes this title business look damn easy but for those of us who are challenged in that direction, it's really not. I still don't have a good title for the AK flying book and it's jumping around on editors' desks from Random House to Simon & Schuster to Harcourt, Houghton Mifflin and beyond. (I'm really not dwelling on the waiting part, I swear). But Flying Cold? Ugh. That is just not good.

After all this title obsessing, I was spending some time creating a wishlist at Powells for the aforementioned donation drive for kids in New Orleans. (Read all about it here and also see how to access the list and buy a very inexpensive book or two for some kids in trouble.) The folks down in NOLA asked for multi-cultural titles where possible and I was trying to put together a list of those. And. Well. Not so freaking easy.

Okay, this is not news to anybody who ever read a kid book, but it is so frustrating. I know all about Walter Dean Myers, hell I practically worship the guy and I know about Bud Not Buddy and the Watsons Go To Birmingham and several other mighty fine books but really - how many do we all know? And how about this - how many just regular old joe mysteries or fantasies or coming-of-age stories do we know where the protagonist or side kick happens to be a minority?

I'm waiting.

And yes, I already thought of An Abundance of Katherines.

So looking in vain for just books with African American kids in them, or Hispanic kids, or Asian kids - just minority kids being kids and nothing dramatic or racist or heavy with Civil Rights Movement overtones, made me think about my own writing. I purposely did not identify any personal characteristics for my guys in the AK flying book - they almost blend into one another and the only way to tell them apart is through their experiences or personality. (It's not that hard - there's only five main characters and one is dead from the beginning). But I wanted them to seem like each because that is very much how it is up there and who has blonde hair and blue eyes doesn't matter. In writing my YA book right now though I have described the three main characters already - two girls and a guy; one girl and the guy are cousins. All of them are white; I always pictured them as white, I always thought of them as white and there you go.

One book, three main characters, all three white.

Now there are several secondary characters just starting to make themselves known - one is kinda a hero guy and I haven't described him physically at all. Another is a Catholic priest - he's an old family friend, another good guy, no description. I was going to make him French Canadian though as the town is heavily that way and much of the history draws on that. So that tends to make him white, although it doesn't have to.

And then there's the bad guy who I have described but not by color - it honestly didn't occur to me to do that yet. I just made him fiftyish and described how he was dressed and his scary vibe.

What I'm wondering is if it matters - if any of this matters. Should I, as a half Irish, half French Canadian and clearly very pale skinned white writer, purposely insert an African American or Hispanic or Asian or Native American, etc etc character into my story so that I have some ethnic balance? Is this something that we all should be thinking about doing? And if I do this - if I insert a minority character for this reason am I being honest to the story? I mean the hero guy (his name right now is Finn) could easily be a minority. He's from parts unknown so he doesn't tie into the whole Fr Can deal. But if I decide, "okay, Finn needs to Afric Amer" and then just make him so, am I being dishonest somehow?

I guess what I'm asking, without really asking, is can a white author write a black character without screwing up?

Maybe I'm overthinking all of this too much; maybe no one else really thinks about it at all. But it shouldn't be so damn hard to come up with a bunch of interesting, fun, exciting books for teenagers that include characters who look like them. It shouldn't be, but it is. So what should I do about that?

Finally, the You Should Read This Awards are still buzzing along, there are a TON of nominations for great coming-of-age stories and series in the past and I'm totally jazzed about the whole thing. Interestingly enough though - I don't see a lot of stories with minority characters. So there you go. Think of some and then go nominate!