Here’s What Happens When Stores Carry Books By Women, People Of Color — And No One Else

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Here’s What Happens When Stores Carry Books By Women, People Of Color — And No One Else

79% of people in publishing identify as white — and so are a lot of our fictional 'good guys.'

Pamela Blair, owner of children’s bookstore EyeSeeMe in St. Louis, Missouri, was originally inspired to seek out books for her children when she home schooled them. “It was a struggle finding African American and black history books, and I couldn’t find books that had characters that kind of mirrored  their lives or looked like my children,” says Blair. “What we did find we shared with our friends and family and the children of our friends, and families loved the concept that their kids were able to see images of kids that looked like them.”

poc people of color marginalized voices representation bookstore book store

nprbooks:

diversityinya:

People of Color on YA Book Covers in 2015

We’ve been tracking new releases all year, and as the year comes to a close it’s interesting take a look back and see how people of color have been represented on book covers.

In putting together this collection, I focused on covers that feature photos or illustrations of people who appear to represent the book’s main character(s) of color. I omitted images that were silhouettes that did not seem to speak to race, and images of people from the back or the distance that effectively obscured all their characteristics. I may have accidentally omitted some covers because there were quite a few of them! It’s also important to remember that not featuring a person of color on a book about a character of color is not automatically a negative. There are many evocative covers out there that don’t have any people on them. But if you’re interested in covers that do feature people of color, here is 2015’s batch. (For larger images where you can click through to the individual covers, go to this post on our website.)

You may also be interested in a similar roundup from 2014 and 2013.

This is so interesting!

– Petra

(via anniecardi)

PoC book covers representation

#28DaysLater - Black History Month

thebrownbookshelf.com

#28DaysLater - Black History Month

The Brown Bookshelf has been featuring a new Black author/illustrator every day during Black History Month. So if you’re looking for suggestions here’s a great place to start.

However, the Brown Bookshelf is a consistently great resource for more info on Black authors/illustrators year-round. So don’t hesitate to bookmark it! 

black history month the brown bookshelf brown book shelf black authors african authors african american authors black writers black illustrators poc writers of color

#WeNeedDiverseBooks because there are more aliens/vampires/werewolves/yeti in books than people of color.
Submitted by E.C. Myers, author of Fair Coin

#WeNeedDiverseBooks because there are more aliens/vampires/werewolves/yeti in books than people of color.

Submitted by E.C. Myers, author of Fair Coin

weneeddiversebooks POC

WE NEED DIVERSE BOOKS CAMPAIGN

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Recently, there’s been a groundswell of discontent over the lack of diversity in children’s literature. The issue is being picked up by news outlets like these two pieces in the NYT, CNN, EW, and many more. But while we individually care about diversity, there is still a disconnect. BEA’s Bookcon recently announced an all-white-male panel of “luminaries of children’s literature,” and when we pointed out the lack of diversity, nothing changed.

Now is the time to raise our voices into a roar that can’t be ignored. Here’s how:

On May 1st at 1pm (EST), there will be a public call for action that will spread over 3 days. We’re starting with a visual social media campaign using the hashtag #WeNeedDiverseBooks. We want people to tweet, Tumblr, Instagram, Facebook, blog, and post anywhere they can to help make the hashtag go viral.

For the visual part of the campaign: 

  • Take a photo holding a sign that says “We need diverse books because ___________________________.” Fill in the blank with an important, poignant, funny, and/or personal reason why this campaign is important to you. 
  • The photo can be of you or a friend or anyone who wants to support diversity in kids’ lit. It can be a photo of the sign without you if you would prefer not to be in a picture. Be as creative as you want! Pose the sign with your favorite stuffed animal or at your favorite library. Get a bunch of friends to hold a bunch of signs. 
  • However you want to do it, we want to share it! There will be a Tumblr at http://weneeddiversebooks.tumblr.com/ that will host all of the photos and messages for the campaign. Please submit your visual component by May 1st to weneeddiversebooks@yahoo.com with the subject line “photo” or submit it right on our Tumblr page here and it will be posted throughout the first day. 
  • Starting at 1:00PM (EST) the Tumblr will start posting and it will be your job to reblog, tweet, Facebook, or share wherever you think will help get the word out. 
  • The intent is that from 1pm EST to 3pm EST, there will be a nonstop hashtag party to spread the word. We hope that we’ll get enough people to participate to make the hashtag trend and grab the notice of more media outlets.
  • The Tumblr will continue to be active throughout the length of the campaign, and for however long we need to keep this discussion going, so we welcome everyone to keep emailing or sending in submissions even after May 1st.

On May 2nd, the second part of our campaign will roll out with a Twitter chat scheduled for 2pm (EST) using the same hashtag. Please use #WeNeedDiverseBooks at 2pm on May 2nd and share your thoughts on the issues with diversity in literature and why diversity matters to you.

On May 3rd, 2pm (EST), the third portion of our campaign will begin. There will be a Diversify Your Shelves initiative to encourage people to put their money where their mouth is and buy diverse books and take photos of them. Diversify Your Shelves is all about actively seeking out diverse literature in bookstores and libraries, and there will be some fantastic giveaways for people who participate in the campaign! More details to come!

We hope that you will take part in this in any way you can. We need to spread the word far and wide so that it will trend on Twitter. So that media outlets will pick it up as a news item. So that the organizers of BEA and every big conference and festival out there gets the message that diversity is important to everyone. We hope you will help us by being a part of this movement.

diversity poc poc authors change BEA Bookcon weneeddiversebooks


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