Diversity in children's and young adult literature is something that I have been passionate about for quite some time. I believe that readers benefit from having diverse reading choices. I wrote a post about this over on Rich in Color last year called Why We Need Diverse Literature and How to Find It. Speaking of Rich in Color, here is a podcast that explains why and how Audrey and I co-founded Rich in Color, a blog promoting young adult books by or about people of color.
Over the past year or so I have become more and more of an activist as I realized that there are diverse books being published, but not in the numbers that would reflect the actual people in our country and things aren't changing as quickly as I would like. As part of this activism, I am doing a lot of things in my own school and school district, but I have also been trying to reach beyond my walls. It's exciting because I've had several opportunities lately to encourage others to read and promote diverse literature. I was able to write a Nerdybookclub post about my students and library. I was also a contributor to the School Library Journal Diversity issue. I have to admit that writing is still scary for me, but I want things to change. I believe my students deserve to see themselves in the books that they read. They also deserve to see the wide variety of people that share this world with them.
On this blog, my goal is to talk about all kinds of books and share some of my experiences as I teach and learn with my students. Thanks for joining me on this journey.
**I forgot to mention this, but the #WeNeedDiverseBooks Campaign is an excellent resource and a way to involved in bringing more diversity to children's and young adult literature.
