Cynsations is celebrating its 20th anniversary by switching to a quarterly publishing schedule, featuring in-depth interviews and articles. Thank you for your ongoing support and enthusiasm!
Congratulations to Sally J. Pla on the publication of Invisible Isabel, illustrated by Tania de Regil (Quill Tree, 2024)! From the publisher’s website:
…an illustrated middle grade novel about introverted Isabel Beane, who learns to speak up to quiet her worries.
Isabel Beane is a shy girl who lives in a home full of havoc and hubbub and hullabaloo. With five siblings, there is always too much too much-ness.
At school, there’s a new girl who is immediately popular, but she’s also not very nice to one person—Isabel.
Isabel has never felt more invisible. She begins to get bombarded by fears, like being abandoned by her classmates and taking the upcoming Extremely Important standardized test. Her fears feel like worry-moths that flutter in her belly. With every passing day, they seem to get stronger and stronger. How can Invisible Isabel make people listen?
Take a look back at Sally’s Cynsations interview with Rebecca Kirshenbaum from 2021 discussing mental health and autism depictions in books for young readers.
Sally J. Pla Discusses the Importance of Honest Depictions of Autism & Mental Health
As the parent of children on the autism spectrum and who also struggle with anxiety, I am a big fan of Sally J. Pla‘s books and their representations of neurodiversity. Her most recent middle grade novel Stanley Will Probably Be Fine, illustrated by Steve Wolfhard (HarperCollins, 2018), and her debut The Someday Birds, illustrated by Julie McLaughlin (HarperCollins, 2017), offers respectful and honest depictions of mental health.
And I certainly recognized my children’s complicated dynamic in her picture book Benji, the Bad Day, and Me, illustrated by Ken Min (Lee & Low, 2018).
Welcome, Sally. What are you working on now? Can you tell us about it?
Thank you so much for reading, and for your kind words. It means so much! As for new projects, there are a few in the works. I recently finished drafting a middle grade novel, set in California 100 years from now, about a world coping with a changed climate. New technologies have brought climate hope and improvement, but other aspects of society, such as gene-enhancement, are problematic. Anyhow, it follows a girl, a genetic outsider among her classmates, who falls in love with a mysterious, contraband baby mammoth, hidden deep in the forest near her school.
The theme of what traits a society values, of examining why certain of our human attributes are favored and “selected for,” and certain others are not – this was a sci-fi way for me to examine disability, sort of in code. I loved writing this story and learned a lot while researching it. Fingers crossed it finds its way to print.
I also just finished drafting a verse memoir of my childhood and adolescence. And my two newest projects are a neurodiverse surf novel (set where I live, in a beach town near San Diego), and one about a middle child sandwiched between two autistic brothers. She’s also on the spectrum, but no one notices, so she struggles alone. (In reality, girls are notoriously underdiagnosed when it comes to autism spectrum disorders, because it manifests so differently. In general, girls have better social awareness – they can often fake it, they can pass. But doing so takes a big toll.)
As a member of an under-represented community in youth literature, how do you bring your perspective to your work? Why is it important for you to bring neurodivergent voices to the page?
I think all writers who write for children are really writing – at least in part – for the small people they once were. The small person I once was struggled with anxiety, social phobia, auditory processing, and sensory processing issues. My world was filled with Too-Muchness. It still is, although I’m much better at managing that, day to day.
Anyhow, I wasn’t tested and told it was autism spectrum disorder (what used to be called Aspergers) until my own autistic son was fully grown. Until after I’d started writing my first book, The Someday Birds, and had the odd feeling I was writing not just a fictional character, but a personal truth. Until after I sought therapy for that.
The truth is, one in 64 children in the US is autistic. And for every girl, there are four boys who are diagnosed. (Because the diagnostic criteria were created around males, females are lost/missed.) But autism is just one aspect of neurodiversity, a term that includes many other forms of diverse brain-wiring. ADHD rates, for another example, are at 9.6% (2.4 million) of children aged 6 to 11 in the US today, according to the CDC. Almost one in ten.
So I may be writing to my inner child, but there are a ton of kids out there who can relate today. Statistically at least one child in every classroom in the country is differently wired or dealing with mental-health challenges. (Heck, these days, aren’t we all?) And all children need a good wealth of stories that speaks to their reality.
I was moved by your recent blog post about anxiety during the pandemic and quarantine on A Novel Mind which you helped create! Tell us about the site and what prompted you to start it. What do you hope it will bring to readers, librarians, and educators?
Thank you for asking! A Novel Mind is a website resource for educators, librarians, parents, and fellow writers, dedicated to exploring representation of mental health and neurodiversity (ND) in today’s children’s literature. We have weekly guest writers and a searchable database (so you if you’re looking for picture books dealing with ADHD, or YA books dealing with eating disorders, for example, you can find a list).
I co-founded it with my friend Merriam Saunders, LMFT. We met years ago through an online critique-partner match-up site. We both write picture books and middle grade, both have neurodivergent families, and we became good friends. We observed that some wonderful new books, ones that represented mental health/ND in natural, positive ways, were not receiving much attention. Meanwhile, older, slightly dated books with more questionable representation were still being held up as the only go-to standards. People weren’t noticing the good new stuff coming out. So we wanted to change that.
We also observed how often disability and neurodiversity are left out of the ‘diverse-books’ conversation. Starting the site was our way to help shine a light where we thought it was needed.
Now we are four – Kate Piliero is our wonderful graphic designer/tech support. And Margaret Lennon, our intern, came to us through Able-Disabled, a non-profit that connects disabled workers with job and training opportunities. Margaret’s singlehandedly brought our Airtable database to over 1,000 books. So things are humming pretty well. Please check us out! www.anovelmind.com.
I’m curious as to whether your representation of differently thinking brains has changed since your first book, The Someday Birds (HarperCollins, 2017), was published. Can you talk a little about that? Is there one particular character you’ve created that you feel particularly close to? Dare I say, a favorite?
In The Someday Birds, I didn’t want to label Charlie as autistic. I thought more kids would relate to him if he wasn’t labeled. I wanted him to be just Charlie, and for the book to be not “about autism” or “pathologizing” in any way – but instead, just an engaging story about a kid who likes things immaculate, having to get his hands dirty in the real world, during a life-changing inner and outer journey.
But now I think maybe I kept Charlie a little bit too much in the closet. I mean, if one wants to shine a good light, one should make sure the switch is all the way on, right?
So, if I had to do that over again, I think I might have named his autism. Not to make a big deal. But just so it was out there, in the sunlight. And in Stanley Will Probably Be Fine, I did name his sensory and anxiety issues outright, for this reason.
I still believe the story should always come first – not the diagnosis. I’m not a fan of books that pathologize their characters by pinning a laundry-list of symptoms onto them so readers can “learn.” Or the technique of adding a sidekick or sibling if it’s just as a PC nod or plot device. We should dig deeper, be truer.
Writers like Elle McNicoll, Jen Wilde, Susan Vaught, Leslie Connor, Susin Nielsen, Jess Redman, Margaret Finnegan, Mike Jung, Elana K. Arnold, Sarah Kapit, Nicole Panteleakos, Alyson Gerber, Elly Swartz, Lyn Miller-Lachmann, Anne Ursu – to name just some of my favorites – are writing natural, honest stories that portray mental health/ND with true insight and compassion. That give kids the real chance to slip inside the skin and the life of someone new — to learn new ways to see and be.
As for my own favorite characters? I’ll always cherish Charlie from The Someday Birds, and Stanley from Stanley Will Probably Be Fine. I have three real-life sons, but in another sense I’ve got five.
Anything else you want to add? (can be about what you’ve learned about neurodiversity and/or #ownvoices representation in children’s lit along the way, advice might you pass on to others, etc?)
When my first book came out, I didn’t want my personal diagnosis to be public knowledge. But one day, someone on social media challenged me, inquiring what gave me the right to be writing about autism. They were polite about it. But it still felt like a slight to my credibility. I felt a bit insulted, actually!
And it got me thinking: maybe I should be honest and reveal my diagnosis. What was I hiding, really?
And so, with a pounding heart, I took a deep breath, and said I was on the spectrum. It felt scary and dangerous, when I’ve tried desperately to hide every difficult part of myself for my whole life.
No one should be forced to declare themselves an #ownvoices writer if they are not ready to. And we shouldn’t assume that just because a book isn’t labeled #ownvoices, that the author lacks authenticity or authority. Especially regarding mental health issues. They may just want to be private. We should respect that.
But for me, this actually turned out to be a positive push. At the time, I was upset. But now, I am quite glad. Because I have discovered that it’s wonderful to openly share myself with the kids I meet at school visits and online.
Autistic/ND kids really need to see examples of autistic/ND grownups who will have the courage to stand up and say: “I’m with you. I get it. I’ve sat in that same seat, and struggled. And I grew up and found something I love to do in life. So, someday, I think you can, too.”
For me, that’s become maybe the biggest part of writing for children – to enlarge the realm of the possible. For them. And for myself.
Cynsational Notes
Sally J. Pla is an award-winning children’s author and advocate. She is also late-diagnosed autistic, and knows what it is like to struggle. She is a neurodiversity advocate who believes in kindness, respect, and the beauty of different brains, because we are all stars shining with different lights.
Her novel The Fire, The Water, and Maudie McGinn (Quill Tree, 2023) won the 2024 ALA Schneider Award for its disability representation. It was called “a gorgeous, big-hearted, beautiful book” (Elana K. Arnold), “a vulnerable portrait of … personal traumas,” (starred review, PW), and “a beautiful book by a beautiful human” (M. Lewitin).
Sally’s first novel, The Someday Birds, won the 2018 Dolly Gray Children’s Literature Award for its authentic portrayal of disability, was a Goodreads Choice Nominee, an Amazon Teachers’ Choice, a NYPL Best Book, Bank Street Best Book, LA Library Best Book, and Junior Library Guild Selection, among many other accolades and starred reviews. Booklist called it “a delight from beginning to end.” Nerdy Book Club called it “an instant classic.”
Her novel, Stanley Will Probably Be Fine, was a 2018 Kirkus Best Children’s Book, a Bank Street Best Book, a NYPL Best Book, and a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection. “Add to the growing list of intelligent books about kids whose brains operate outside the norm,” said Kirkus in a starred review. Sally’s picture book, Benji, The Bad Day, & Me, won the 2019 San Diego Book Award, has a starred review from Booklist, and is a CCBC selection.
Sally is also editor and co-founder of A Novel Mind, a resource on mental health and neurodiversity representation in children’s literature. Librarians have called it “a gold mine” of helpful information.
Sally also writes adult short fiction that has won inclusion in The Lascaux Review Prize collection, and her poetry’s in No World Too Big (Charlesbridge 2023). Her essays and articles on family and on business have appeared over the years in The New York Times, The Miami Herald, The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel’s MetroParent Magazine, Management Review Magazine, and many business magazines and journals.
A writer’s residency at Hedgebrook started Sally on her later-in-life novel-writing journey. Previously, she was a business journalist, a special ed advocate, a school board president, a terrible backup singer, a clumsy waitress, a graveyard-shift front desk clerk— and best of all, a loving mom to three sons.
Rebecca Kirshenbaum has an MFA in WCYA from VCFA, an MA in children’s literature from Simmons University, and an MA in English literature from Columbia. She really, really likes being a student. She grew up in Cleveland and roots for all Cleveland sports teams even though she now lives in Boston.
She lives with her husband Mark, her teenage sons, Caleb and Eli, plus a lot of animals – guinea pigs Frisky and Sprinkles, a bunch of fish, and her family’s therapy dog (aka best dog in the world), Quimby. (All you kidlit people should get the Ramona reference!). When not reading and writing, she teaches fourth and fifth grade literacy and organizes her bookshelves in rainbow order.