Cover reveal: Learning in Public

Drum roll please…

As you can imagine, it was hard to figure out what should go on the cover of this book. The talented designers at my publisher put out some concepts with generic school vibes, good for protecting identities of real kids, not so good for avoiding cliches about schools, urban life etc. They also worked on a more conceptual cover, which we all appreciated, but felt like could be misinterpreted.

This led us back to the root of this thing. My kid. My self--both mother and citizen. Our school. Our city. I felt conflicted about putting myself or Maya on the cover. But the whole project of this book is making whiteness visible to White people (like making water visible to fish) and then modeling what it feels/looks/sounds like to de-center it (spoiler alert: it’s rarely graceful, though hugely worthwhile). John, my husband, Maya’s dad, is a talented photographer, so I told my editor we’d try a shot and see how it went.

We walked over to the school in the clothes we were already wearing that day, just sort of stood around and took some shots in that weird pandemic silence that fell over our neighborhood for awhile. We thought it was just a mock-up, but I guess the honesty and the intimacy of it translated. My publisher loved it. John was marginally happy with it (he’s a perfectionist).

I feel…well…I feel like it makes sense. I don’t love being on a cover, just as I don’t love being the main “character” in this book. I’m proud of it. I understand it’s a necessary part of my own journey and I believe it’s a useful contribution to the country’s journey. I also feel scared and vulnerable and sometimes want to just crawl into a cave and come out in 2022 when hopefully no one remembers that I was publishing a book at all.

But if the journey has taught me anything, it is to build my racial stamina by knowing that it’s an imperfect offering and that’s the point, that I can take, and even be enriched by feedback, that nothing will change if White folks like me do nothing for fear of doing it wrong. So here I am, standing with my ass on the cover of a book (I loved my friend Anne Mills’ comment: “Beautiful, Courtney!! I’m so happy for you and can’t wait to read the book. Also...I have even more respect for you seeing that you allowed your butt in jeans to be on the cover of what will clearly be a bestseller.”)

The book is out August 3rd. It may or may not be a bestseller. I’ve learned not to define my success in that way. It is about OUR KIDS, not just my kid, our choices, not just my choice. I hope you can imagine the shouts on the playground, the laugher of the staff, the musicality of a motley crew of humans still committed to this fragile foundation of our democracy: public schools.

What do you think? (I mean not about my ass…I’ve got a great ass…but the cover.)