Finding Diverse Lit

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Diverse Lit is Out There

Last month, René Saldaña, Jr. wrote a guest post over at Latin@s in Kid Lit that sparked some excellent conversation around the availability and purchasing of diverse lit. If you missed it, the title does give a pretty good hint at the topic – “Forgive Me My Bluntness: I’m a Writer of Color and I’m Right Here In Front of You: I’m the One Sitting Alone at the Table.” He made some pretty clear statements and this stuck with me, “The books are there. All you have to do is look for them.” This wasn’t something entirely new either. Back in January of 2013, Shelley Diaz wrote “Librarians Sound Off: Not a Lack of Latino Lit for Kids, But a Lack of Awareness.”

I am all for the creation of a larger number of diverse books given the statistics that CCBC provides, but I would agree that librarians, teachers, readers, and others who make book purchases, may not be finding the diverse books that already exist.

Where to Find It

To help fulfill our mission to promote diverse young adult lit, we have a release calendar up in the menu bar along with our resource page and review archive. In addition, we post many book lists. Beyond the resources here at Rich in Color, there have also been some posts and lists published around the Internet in the past year that you can access for more titles:

Where Can I Find Great Diverse Children’s Books? (Lee & Low)

Embracing Diversity in YA Lit (Shelley Diaz – scroll down for the resources)

Resources Generated by CCBC-Net Discussion (Edi Campbell)

We Need Diverse Books Campaign – full of reading suggestions and resources

Reading Challenges – these challenges supply suggested titles and participants may provide reviews of the books they read

If we want a greater volume of diverse books in the market going forward, we need to buy and promote the ones that are already here. Many people are talking about the need for diverse literature. Talking about it is a step forward, but to make real change happen, we need to act.