Diverse Books - Blog Posts

I want to adopt Kiko

favourite characters (4/?)       kiko himura (starfish)

I draw a girl without a face, drawing somebody else’s face onto her own reflection.  I draw a girl with arms that reach up to the clouds, but all the clouds avoid her because she’s made of night and not day.

do you have any wlw books that star women of colour?

i do!

girls of paper and fire by natasha ngan

girl serpent thorn by melissa bashardoust

take a hint, dani brown by talia hibbert

the bone shard daughter by andrea stewart

the space between worlds by micaiah johnson

the true queen by zen cho

empress of forever by max gladstone

falling into place by sheryn munir

waiting on a bright moon by jy yang

the avant-guards by carly usdin & noah hayes

that could be enough by alyssa cole

abbott by saladin ahmed

a dead djinn in cairo by p djeli clark

the stars and the blackness between them by junauda petrus

the henna wars by adiba jaigirdar

you should see me in a crown by leah johnson

burning roses by s l huang

yellow rose by yoshiya nobuko

don’t date rosa santos by nina moreno

clap when you land by elizabeth acevedo

shatter the sky by rebecca kim wells

the good luck girls by charlotte nicole davis

in the vanishers’ palace by aliette de bodard

once ghosted, twice shy by alyssa cole

afterlove by tanya byrne

buuza!! by shazleen khan

motor crush by brenden fletcher

not for use in navigation by iona datt sharma

ninefox gambit by yoon ha lee

a blade so black by l l mckinney

mangos and mistletoe by adrianna herrera

patsy by nicole dennis benn

escaping exodus by nicky drayden

we set the dark on fire by tehlor kay mejia

the weight of the stars by k ancrum

We need more diverse books in literature. More voices need to be represented.

The Cooperative Children’s Book Center has released the results of their 2019 survey on diversity in kidlit/YA.

We thank them for this invaluable work, note their commitment to adding Arabs/Arab Americans in future surveys, and present these graphs of their findings.

The 3,716 books surveyed have this many main characters total for the following groups:

Black/African: 11.9%

First/Native Nations: 1%

Asian/Asian American: 8.7%

Latinx: 5.3%

Pacific Islander: 0.05%

White: 41.8%

Animal/Other: 29.2%

LGBTQIAP+: 3.1%

Disability: 3.4%

“Taken together, books about white children, talking bears, trucks, monsters, potatoes, etc. represent nearly three quarters (71%) of children’s and young adult books published in 2019.” - librarian Madeline Tyner

When we looked at the breakdown for IPOC creatives who wrote and/or illustrated stories with characters of their own race, we found the following:

First/Native Nations: 68.2%

Pacific Islander: 80%

Latinx: 95.7%

Asian/Asian American: 100%*

*NOTE: these percentages include both authors and illustrators and, as pointed out by author Linda Sue Park for past surveys, Asians/Asian Americans are frequently illustrators but not necessarily authors of their own stories, meaning this is not fully reflective of #OwnVoices representation.

Black/African creatives wrote and/or illustrated only 46.4% of stories featuring Black/African characters.

This is the work that still needs to be done.

  “I still don’t think k!lling it with a pipe is right, that would make us worse than the dragon.”   “Worse than the dragon?! K!lling a murderous, evil, child-eäting dragon with a pipe makes you as bad as the dragon?! Does k!lling a d!ctator by stäbbing them make you as bad as the d!ctator?! No! I don’t know about you, but child-eäting-anything is in the same category as d!ctators, humän träffickers, and släve öwners, and that category is called "people and things I would k!ll without a doubt"!” Everyone stared at him in horror, but he could not care less. The anger boiled in his blood and warmed him up.

A small part of my book:

"...and Kyle just stood there, shock and hurt flowed through him. How was he supposed to react to that? He turned around to go back home but he heard the water move behind him. He turned back around and was met with Anthony’s sad face.

  “I’m sorry for my mother's behavior. I hope I can substitute her?” Kyle couldn’t help but smile.

  “I would actually prefer you to her.” A shy smile flew over his beautiful features. "

Me, Writertok completion open on my laptop and Writblr open on my phone

POV:

The hot merman love interest saves the protagonist from drowning but they hate each other.

If anyone has name suggestions, I would love to hear them.

I have, literally, written for three days straight and I have a permanent headache

Would you read a book about three brothers with family issues during a dragon apocalypse with history-accurate dragons and creatures from mainly Scandinavian folklore that also has queer, ethnic, and disabled diversity?

Please follow me and help me write and publish my book.

Would you read a book about three brothers with family issues during a dragon apocalypse with history-accurate dragons and creatures from mainly Scandinavian folklore that also has queer, ethnic, and disabled diversity?

Please follow me and help me write and publish my book.

If your library doesn't have the diverse books you want and you're comfortable talking with (usually very friendly and helpful) people, you can also talk with someone on staff. In addition to the purchase recommendation form, they may have an agreement with other libraries to borrow the books from them for you. This helps two libraries! Your local library learns that more people want diverse books, so they are more likely to buy them in the future. The other library gets check-outs, so they know people are reading their diverse books.

If you don't have time to read, look for diverse audiobooks, CDs, and DVDs! If it's hard for you to get to the library, look at their website or call/email them. They may have pickup lockers in different areas of town or even a delivery service. They probably have eBooks, eAudiobooks, and/or streaming music and movies that you can check out from home.

Friendly reminder that if you talk about how representation is important and how there's not enough diverse media, I implore you to seek out the media that already exists. And if you live in an area with a public library, go to see if they're available at your public library. And then go check them out.

As a librarian, it is demoralizing to see how low the circulation statistics are on lgbt+ books and books by BIPOC authors. I include them in displays and readers advisory, but people still don't check them out as much. Libraries only have a finite amount of resources, including space. We don't get a book then keep it forever. If not enough people check it out, we have to get rid of it to make room for more books. And when James Patterson Book #69 gets checked out 30 times in one year and cool, subversive Sci fi novel with a Black trans woman main character has never been checked out once, the librarian (me) has to make a hard decision.

If you're looking for something tangible and easy to do this pride month, look for lgbt+ books (there are millions of lists online that you can find. It's easier than it's ever been to find diverse books) and check them out from your library.

No time to read? Look for a short story or poetry anthology and just read as much as you have time for. Or just check out a book cus it looks interesting and read as much as you can. We have movies too.

As cool as it would be for me to just keep the books I want and get rid of the ones I don't, I have to listen to the community on matters of collection development. And the community tells me what books they want by checking them out and leaving the ones they don't want on the shelf.

If you think this doesn't apply to you because you live in a progressive area and obviously the books are being checked out, you're wrong. I once worked in a community with a large lgbt population. Those books were not getting checked out. If you want to tell me you live in a conservative area and your library doesn't have any diverse books, you are legally obligated to check the catalog before replying to this post. I currently work in a conservative community and we have lgbt+ and bipoc books. And if you still cannot find any, you are legally obligated to see if your library has a collection request form that patrons can fill out before replying to this post.