Undoing a Decision

Well, I've been overruled. After deciding to use the "n-word" in a newspaper quote for Theodore Roosevelt for Kids, several people put their heads together and suggested that I not use the full word. They preferred this: "n[*****]."

We went back and forth for awhile emailing. I kinda wanted to stay with what I had, which is the direct quote -- and, if truth be told -- about the mildest one I could find. They feel that the full word isn't appropriate in a book directed at middle graders.

So....I am back to something I went with in an earlier draft. All the colors and fonts reflect the back and forth of edits:

Across the South, newspapers, politicians, and preachers expressed their anger--how dare the president invite a Negro to put his legs under the same table where his wife sat? A paper in Memphis screamed, “The most damnable outrage which has ever been perpetrated by any citizen of the United States was committed yesterday by the President...."

What do you think?

Writing a Book for Kids Part 3

As I research one book, I find myself in edits on another with my editor. Just in time for Labor Day weekend, he sent me three emails of "homework" -- line edits for my book Theodore Roosevelt for Kids. I make corrections, check on dates, answer things that are unclear -- that sort of thing.

Up for discussion was an issue that continues to receive a lot of attention and discussion in writing for kids: when to use words with a history that "hurts." In this particular situation, I'm writing a passage about the first time an African American dined at the White House.

In October 1901, just after Theodore Roosevelt became president, he invited Booker T. Washington to dinner. Details vary a bit depending on which historian you read, but Washington dined with TR, Edith his wife, and several of his children. This was very common for the president, who usually had one or more guests at his table every evening.

No one would have known about the dinner but for a small note picked up by a reporter in the White House Register. He put it on the wires, and within hours Southern newspapers were screaming their outrage that the president had eaten dinner in the White House with a "n----." (Their term, not mine.)

So....the question is, how do I frame this event and present it to young readers? I had written something rhetorical like "How dare a Negro put his legs under the same table where Roosevelt's wife and children sat?"

My editor wanted something more concrete -- a direct quote from a Tennessee newspaper:

The most damnable outrage which has ever been perpetrated by any citizen of the United States was committed yesterday by the President, when he invited a nigger to dine with him at the White House – Memphis Scimitar

So, that's what I'm going with...a hurtful horrible word, but the word that was used.