Vaunda Micheaux Nelson

Welcome to “How to Act.” Produced by the New Mexico Black Education Act Advisory Council in partnership with New Mexico Black Education Act Bureau at NM PED, this limited-run mini-podcast series is part of a year-long celebration of the 100th year anniversary of Black History Month. Here at H2A we treasure and showcase stories of those who have and continue to enrich the Black educational landscape in New Mexico and beyond. Because Black History isn’t my history or your history…Black History is New Mexico History … and no matter who or where you are, if you are under the sound of this Pod, this history is for you. I’m your host, Hakim Bellamy and this is “How to Act.”

American educator and philanthropist Mary McCleod Bethune once said, "The whole world opened to me when I learned to read." And who better to compare notes with when it comes to the love of reading, than award-winning children’s book author and retired librarian, Vaunda Micheaux Nelson. With dozens of titles for young readers to her credit, Nelson has been the recipient of the Coretta Scott King Author Award, the Simon Wiesenthal Once Upon a World Children’s Book Award, an Anne Izard Storyteller’s Choice Award, a Carter G. Woodson Honor, and a Washington Post Best Book of the Year recognition.

In the tradition of mystical storytelling (shout out to all my griots out there), we began with our protagonists’ paradox… her origin story, if you will. The prequel, as the kids call it today. Not simply how a young Black girl becomes a librarian…or becomes an award-winning author of books for young readers, but rather what is the make-up of people who can see the past, present, and future through the books they read … how that turns into a superpower of empathy and compassion, that ultimately allows them to start building worlds of their own. So, basically, I asked Vaunda Nelson how she became a Jedimaster at a library in Rio Rancho, New Mexico.

This podcast is a partnership between the New Mexico Black Education Act Advisory Council and the New Mexico Black Education Act Bureau. Find out more about the New Mexico Black Education Act here https://web.ped.nm.gov/bureaus/student-support-services/black-education-act/

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:03

Welcome to How to Act, produced by the New Mexico Black Education Act Advisory Council in partnership with the New Mexico Black Education Act Bureau at NMPED. This limited-run mini podcast series is part of a year-long celebration of the hundredth year anniversary of Black History Month. Here at H2A, we treasure and showcase stories of those who have and continue to enrich the Black Educational landscape in New Mexico and beyond. Because Black history isn't my history or your history. Black history is New Mexico history. And no matter who or where you are, if you are under the sound of this pod, this history's for you. I'm your host, Hakeem Bellamy, and this is how to act. American educator and philanthropist Mary McLeod Bethune once said, The whole world opened up to me when I learned to read. And who better to compare notes with when it comes to the love of reading than award-winning children's book author and retired librarian Vonda Michelle Nelson? With dozens of titles for young readers to her credit, Nelson has been the recipient of the Coretta Scott King Author Award, the Simon Wisenthal Once Upon a World Children's Book Award, an Anne Izzard Storyteller's Choice Award, a Carter G. Woodson honor, and the Washington Post's Best Book of the Year recognition. In a tradition of mystical storytelling, shout out to all my Grios out there, we began with our protagonist's Paradox, her origin story, if you will. The prequel, as the kids call it today. Not simply how a young black girl becomes a librarian or becomes an award-winning author of books for young readers, but rather, what is the makeup of people who can see the past, present, and future through the books they read, and how that turns into a superpower of empathy and compassion that ultimately allows them to start building worlds of their own. So basically, I asked Bonda Nelson how she became a Jedi master at a library in Rio Rancho, New Mexico.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

In thinking about my evolution, I would have to say that first I was a listener. My mom read to us every night at that time, and my dad wrote poetry and recited poems to us. Mostly not his, mostly poems, you know, like Langston Hughes and people like that. And they really were the first to teach me the to love stories, and music and music lyrics were also great influences in my development, sort of as someone who wanted to tell stories. I was the blessed, of course, with the gift of learning to read, as we all are at that age. And my parents didn't stop reading to us just because we could read ourselves. You know, they kept reading to us. You know, we were reading books, but um that special bonding time, um just loving stories and literature really um helped me want to write stories myself. Uh so I started writing poems and songs, and um when the Beatles came out, I started writing songs because I was a much, very much a Beatle maniac, um, and still am in many ways. Um But um when I went to college I majored in journalism, and so I I guess you'd say I was a writer first, um, if you're if you want to be strict about it. Um, as a listener and then um a writer. I worked for a newspaper for a while, and um I didn't you know stay at in newspaper writing. Um, I ended up teaching and um reading great literature, um, and um that led me to several writing jobs, and some of them I found um, like one was a uh public relations job in a hospital, and um it just was not a fit. And I ended up going from there because I was sort of desperate to leave to taking a part-time job with no benefits at a bookstore, a children's bookstore. And that's kind of where I um I I always loved children's books. I had a little collection of children's books, but I never really thought of children's books as a profession for me. Um and I never thought of being about being a librarian either. Um, but anyway, I I started, I took a job at the bookstore. I thought I'd be there for six months, uh, just trying to figure out what I wanted to do next, but I ended up being there for three years. And while I was there, I wrote my first children's book because I joined a little um writing group uh that met there. And um I met a lot of librarians while I was there too, and um saw that libraries that librarians I didn't really have a any role models in terms of uh when I was growing up, we didn't have a library in our elementary school at all. And um my parents took me to the bookmobile for for for my library books. And uh and then when I went to middle school to junior high and to high school, there were there were libraries, but librarian and and I used the library because I was a reader, but the librarians, I don't remember them being any kind of role model for me. They were sort of the um sort of typical stereotypic kind of librarians. Um, you know, the the shh and the you know um my high school librarian, it was like she she didn't really want us to take the books off the shelf because she didn't want, she wanted everything to be neat. Right.

SPEAKER_03 6:11

That would be more work to put them back.

SPEAKER_00 6:13

Exactly, exactly. And so, but I have to say, when I look back at my yearbook, I I was a member of the library club. So because I was a book lover, and I think, and so I was involved on some level, but I never really saw myself as a librarian. I didn't have role models. But when I started working at the bookstore, I met a lot of librarians because they come in um to um, you know, to find books for their classrooms, to plan book fairs, and we worked with libraries to to do book fairs in those days. And and um I found that they could be very dynamic people, very creative. Um, and I came to admire a lot of the librarians. And actually, one of my my one of my friend really close friends, Megan McDonald, was in library school in Pittsburgh at the time, and she kind of was a little bit of an influence for me. But there was a woman who worked at the University of Pittsburgh, Maggie Kimmel, and she knew the owner of the bookstore. So she used to come and have lunch with her. And one day she um she said to me, Have you ever thought about going to library school? And I just said, you know, not really. And of course I didn't have any money either, you know, I was working part-time at a bookstore. But um she said, Well, what if you got a scholarship? And I said, Oh, I don't know. You know, I was sort of taken by surprise. So that after talking to my husband to my husband about it, and um kind of thinking, well, actually, my friend Megan McDonald said, Bon, it really makes sense, you know, like your love of books, your writing. And so I ended up going to library school at the University of Pittsburgh. I didn't really start writing for children until I started working at Pinocchio bookstore. And that's where I wrote my first book for children. And it was the book was really kind of a um, in a way, a cathartic experience because I was writing about my grandmother who had Alzheimer's disease at the time. And it was a when they never even had um a a word, a name for it then. It was basically senility, but um it was sort of my way of coping, because writing had become a way of kind of just dealing with things I was dealing with, you know, like um it was my way of uh figuring out what I felt, what I knew. And often I would write something and then tear it up and throw it away because it was the only reason I wrote it was to vent, you know, in a way. And so um I needed to write um as sort of part of my to keep my sanity, you know, in the world. And um, but anyway, I I ended up going to library school, and that's when I after that I started working in libraries or worked at a public library at the at the actually Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh for a year, and then I went to a school library that was a private school for all boys in Pittsburgh elementary school, and I worked there for almost five years before coming to New Mexico, um, where I went into the public library and was there for 20 some years. So, all in all, I was librarian for 20, I think it was like 27 years. Um, but all this time I'm writing books. Um, it was challenging sometimes because um, you know, you're writing you're working full-time, and and a lot of my creative energy went to my work at the library. You know, it is the job where you use a lot of that kind of energy, uh, which I love. I mean, that was part of the reason I loved doing it, because you know, we would go to go to the schools and do we we wrote skits and and song parodies and things and went to schools to promote summer reading. And um, you know, when the kids would come to the library, you know, we had course story times and and outdoor programs and and um this time of year.

SPEAKER_03 10:40

This time of year, you'd be you'd be setting up the Black History Month to play uh display, getting ordering books, curating books for the display and things like that.

SPEAKER_00 10:49

Yeah, yeah. And I loved um see when I first started working in Rio Rancho, they had just opened their library. I mean, they had had a small space at City Hall before, but they had only been in that building for about a year and a half, and they were filling their shelves, and they had a huge grant from the state um to buy books. And it was like my my colleague and I were like a kid in a candy store because we had all this money because that they needed to build the collection, and we were saying, I want three of these and two of these, and I mean it was that's like my dream, like shopping spree of books.

SPEAKER_03 11:30

That's my dream.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

Yeah, it was pretty wonderful. So, in a way, um both of those professions for me are so fulfilling, were you know, were so fulfilling, I guess, since I'm not working anymore as a library. It it was really hard, it would have been really hard for me to sacrifice one for the other, because in a way, my library work fed my writing. And my writing, I was lucky enough to have my have my books published, many of my books published, and in that way I felt like I was able to serve children and get books into the hands of kids, both through my work as a librarian and through my work as um a writer. And it was like the best of both worlds. Um, but it but as the years went on, um it became and my work thankfully became more successful, I became more successful as a writer. My time, I I had to spend more time with my writing than I I had to when I first started working in the library. And it became more and more challenging for me to juggle both professions. And um when I got to be, you know, retirement age, um I felt really ready to try just being a writer. Um and so I I did decide to to put that part of my life behind me. But it's wonderful though that um I I hear from and have meet with a lot of kids, they're not kids anymore, that I had story time, you know, that were in my story times and in summer reading programs, and I see them around the city at the grocery store or whatever with their own kids. And they, you know, life film makes me feel a little bit old, but um, I'm just gratified at that they remember me and they say things like, I remember when you were a pirate and came to our school, you know, and um my kids are readers, you know, like that you feel like you made a difference. Yeah, you know, that's your love of books and reading. Um, you were able to maybe pass some of that on to the the big children, the children and families in general, uh sometimes the parents too, that you worked with. And it just makes it all worth the hard work and the sometimes frustration because you know, this didn't work out or that didn't work out, and that it was all worth it because um maybe it'll be passed on that love of literature, and maybe it helped create some lifelong readers who then will help create, you know, make their children lifelong readers. And that's exciting.

SPEAKER_03 14:46

I love that. I love hearing about your your path, but also your like, you know, your your origin story. Like, how does one become a librarian? Like, you know, like showing us like, and it's uh yeah, it's a myriad. It's obviously it's a myriad of of circumstantial uh uh influences until the the head of the library program runs into you and says, Hey, have you ever thought about and it's like actually, no, I've never thought about, but now that now that I think about it, a lot of my life has been going in this direction, so sure, why not? Right?

SPEAKER_00 15:16

Yeah, well, yeah, I wanted to be like dynamic and sensational and you know, all those things whenever I was young. And you know, at first, you know, my I didn't think librarians were that.

SPEAKER_02 15:32

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 15:33

And the more I learned about them and uh and and and met with them and observed them, I realized that they can be absolutely sensational and absolutely dynamic people. And um, some of some of the best people I know I've learned so much from. Um and so I'm really grateful for that. How you realize how sometimes you form opinions that aren't that are incorrect, you know, about situations, about professions, about people. Um so I learned a lesson there.

SPEAKER_03 16:13

And really an untapped resource. I uh I'll share with you, like I've always, as a poet now for many years, been like, you know, back in the olden days, which you know may not have generally been good for people who look like us in this country, but back in the olden days and other empires, you know, there was a role for the philosopher. There was a road for there was a there was a there was a profession for just the thinkers who literally would just circle around a watering hole and exchange thoughts on the problems plaguing humanity on any given day. And I was like, you know, those people, those those career paths, philosopher, don't necessarily exist anymore unless you're gonna teach philosophy at a university. But the closest thing we have are kind of like poets and librarians, where it's like, I'd love to get paid to read all day. No, obviously, librarians have other things they have to do. Absolutely. But if you would pay me to read all day and then wait for someone to come in and say, Hey, uh, I am looking for something on X, do you have any clues or hints? And I could go, you know what? Actually, I do, because you know, I've just been gathering all this knowledge and waiting for someone like you to walk in and ask me that exact question. Have you thought about looking over here? Like, I just feel like that's like a we those, yeah, it's like the perfect job.

SPEAKER_00 17:28

It is really satisfying to um to have people come in and and and have needs and and to have them walk out with those needs fulfilled.

SPEAKER_02 17:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:38

Um, it just really makes you feel good. And sometimes someone would leave but have a question, and they would, you know, I it was sort of like you can't find it, and they're walking out the door and you're saying, wait, there's one more thing, please I can look. You know, there's this sort of this desperation sets in because you really want to help this person. But I've had people, I've taken people's names and phone numbers and said, if I find something, I'll call you. And I and that has happened, you know. And also, you know, sometimes whenever teachers would uh schedule school visits with, you know, sometimes they were young kids, sometimes they were high school kids, they want to bring them in to show them how to use the library because maybe they're assigning them a term paper or whatever. And um whenever they would call and say, we're bringing, we want to bring our high school kids in our seniors or whatever to uh to um find out about the library, we said great, and we'd schedule it and we'd always say um we're gonna we're gonna do this with them, you know, show them how to use the catalogs and all of that, and give them a toy to the library, but then we're gonna take them in the program room and do some stories with them. Well, very often some of the teachers would say, Well, I don't know, you know, whether that will work for them, maybe for the for the little kids and everything. We'd say, you know, please, that this is what we do. Trust us. So, of course, we do the whole thing, show them the the the library and the catalog. And we always took them to the picture book section and would say, You're never too old for a picture book, you know. Um, first of all, the art in the in picture books now is just incredible. And so if you're an artist, that's where you want to be, you know. But many of the picture books are are not just written for little kids, you know, they're pretty deep, and that's often what makes them um make them work and and keeps them as classics for years. But anyway, then we take them in in the program room and we would start to do stories with them. They never wanted us to stop. It'd be the teachers would say, It's time for our we have to go, the devices are out there, and they say, Oh, just one more, you know, because they don't sometimes they forget that everybody loves a good story. I don't care if you're a little kid or an adult or a teenager. And I think sometimes I I always felt bad, and I think maybe I'm high, I always hoped that the teachers would get it, you know, that after that they then get some stories with their kids in the classroom because they love it.

SPEAKER_03 20:25

Yeah, I mean, and even, you know, not to uh cheapen the forum, right? Because we've been look we've been listening to other people and other humans tell stories since the beginning of time, right? Like this is what we do. Like we are captivated by the stories we tell about the world around us. But I get like I said, not to cheapen it, I think folks are more hungry than ever for stories. And some of that is like we're staring at our phones now for stories, and it's just it's like not quite the number of calories that we we are used to getting when we're hearing a story in real time, right? When there's another human being engaging us in story time, right? It's it's very different than just going through going through stories on our phone, right?

SPEAKER_00 21:12

Like, yeah, yeah, and and even just sitting on your porch telling stories of you know, like they used to do in back in the day. And you know, that's why I often encourage young people like um put those put those phones away on Thanksgiving and sit and talk to your grandparents or your or your or your uncles or your parents and to ask them questions about their lives and about their histories, because that's where the stories are.

SPEAKER_03 21:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:45

They're not in your phone, they are right in your living room or in your backyard on the porch, you know.

SPEAKER_03 21:53

On the porch, on the porch. Yeah. Uh you know, being from the East Coast, we're definitely porch culture out there. Um, well, that's a Great segue or segue to um, you know, just a bigger question, right? How what role do libraries serve in in our communities today, like in this moment, you know? And I said popular education because, you know, there's the privilege of being able to go to school at the university. Not everyone has that privilege or access, but libraries are, you know, right now, while we while we prioritize them and fund them, they are available to everyone, regardless of station of life, regardless of access. And so just that, you know, that piece of libraries as a community resource, why is that more important now than ever?

SPEAKER_00 22:37

Well, you know, they offer such a broad selection of resources, of course, information, you know, and people need that, you know, um, health information, um, information about, you know, um they're travel, they're taking a trip somewhere, um, just out of curiosity, a kid who likes animals, you know. I mean, that you know, nonfiction, I think is very, very strong. Um, and the library, of course, offers that. Uh, but also, of course, um, well, for for me as an author, I use it. Um, I I it's an invaluable resource for me as far as when I'm doing research, the uh interlibrary loan, archival materials. One of the things that's great about libraries is that you can, if the library doesn't have it, they can get it from you know, New York or California or whatever for you, which is great. But um I think it's important um just for a place to go uh to not just you know, for of course, for leisure reading, we all need that. Um I guess an escape um from the real world and um for just fun, you know, everybody needs that now because there's so much that brings people down, it's a place to go um for that, but um there's so many distractions now, and of course the library does have to offer technology and computers and stuff, so I'm not saying that technology is a bad thing, but if if if if people can find books as um see the value in books, um, as I said, it can be an escape from everything else. Um and and a way to solve problems uh for kids, like we all bring to the reading experience um a different different things, a different, different baggage, you know, whether we're reading fiction or nonfiction, and often it had this happens more in fiction. We read about and children read about characters and as they struggle through problems, you know, and how they solve problems. And the more we read and the more they read, these stories get stored down there in like I like to call it like an internal reservoir, you know, and that reservoir becomes kind of a source of strength, at least it does for me, and I think it probably does for other people too. So when then you're going through something difficult, it's a place to from which to draw a strength, you know, a place where you can you can remember how um these other people that you never knew, but who become sort of part of your being, these characters that you connect with through story. Um how did they do it? You know, and and and and the fact that they did it, so I could do it, I could get through this. Um, and so I think that's one of the most valuable things about kids and uh and and adults, um, the reading experience, what it can do for all of us. It can um help you gain a better understanding of yourself, a better understanding of other people, um uh and it helps you connect and see other perspectives.

SPEAKER_03 26:36

This podcast interview would go down as a missed opportunity if we didn't take advantage of having an author librarian as a guest and asking the question authors and librarians get asked most. Are there any books you'd recommend? More to the point. What's a book that changed your life?

SPEAKER_00 26:55

I remember the one book that affected me when I was growing up was um one book. I mean, a lot of them did, but there's a book called Bright April that is about a little black child who she had pigtails like I did, and um, and she was a brownie, and I was a girl scout, and her dad was a mailman, and my grandfather was a mailman. So I really connected with this child, and I just remember gaining strength from that and checking out that book from the Bookmobile numerous times, you know, because it was important to me because again, this was me in the pages of this, and so I think it can be a positive thing for uh black children, Hispanic children, Asian children, um, Caucasian children to see themselves and be able to connect, um, to see themselves as part of the bigger world, you know, some people that look like them, doing things that matter. But it also, I said, as I said, I think really to me, what's important is that all children, all families, not just children, adults, too, um, read these books that offer divert like a look at um people from all cultures because that's how we gain an understanding.

SPEAKER_03 28:29

Yeah. Um it's easier to understand uh, you know, I could name a story like um uh to kill a mockingbird, right? So it's easy to uh like, you know, like you know, that story was written before I was alive, but some of the societal problems we have still exist today, very, very clearly. Um, but you know, I am far less likely to be inquisitive uh with somebody in my community who espouses hatred um against people who look like me. Um I'm I'm like for reasons of personal safety, they're gonna stay over there and I'm gonna stay over here. The only way I'm ever gonna learn about that person is by reading about that person in To Kill a Mockingbird. And not necessarily that I they they deserve any of my compassion or understanding, but I deserve to be compassionate and I deserve to have understanding. And it's more likely that I'm gonna learn that through this book than the unlikelihood of me actually having a conversation with that guy down the street, right? And it's it's so it's it's not it's a way of to kind of be more exposed instead of less exposed without the inherent risks of doing that in real time.

SPEAKER_00 29:39

Yes, yes, there's a safety event, there's a safety event.

SPEAKER_03 29:44

In short, books change lives. Over the course of her career as a librarian, Miss Nelson was no stranger to story time, and we could find ourselves seated at the foot of this storyteller all day. However, the big yellow school buses are idling outside, and we gotta go. But you can get story time with Vonda Michelle Nelson on demand by visiting bondamish ownelson.com. We look forward to bringing you more stories from the front lines of black education in New Mexico on the next episode of How to Act. Thank you for listening.