When: Tuesday, February 10
Where: Instituto Cervantes: 211-215 East 49th Street (between 2nd and 3rd Aves.), NYC
What time: 7 p.m.

With: Helen Benedict, Sharon Dennis Wyeth, Fatima Shaik, Cheryl Willis Hudson

This event is free and open to the public.

A PEN Children’s Book/Young Adult Book Event

Multiculturalism has become a buzzword in children’s book publishing. And who would possibly argue against offering readers books that reflect the richness and variety of our world? But this shift in perspective also raises new questions for the writers, illustrators, and editors endeavoring to create new picture books, novels, and nonfiction. This panel will consider how they should approach this task honestly. What pleasures and pitfalls do they face—both from within, as they write or draw, and from without, as readers and reviewers react to their work?

Novelist, journalist, and Columbia professor Helen Benedict will discuss these issues with Sharon Dennis Wyeth, author of picture books, novels, and historical fiction; Fatima Shaik, educator and author; and Cheryl Willis Hudson, the publisher of the independent African-American publishing house Just Us Books.

Take the E/V to Lexington Avenue/53rd Street, or the 6 to 51st Street