We Need Diverse Books Campaign

Last year I decided to read more diverse books. I realized that most of the books I read were written by and about straight white males. I am a feminist and I love learning about this world and people from different cultures, but you wouldn't be able to tell it by looking at my bookshelves: J.R.R. Tolkien, Terry Pratchett, Dan Simmons, Ivan Yefremov, all great authors, but so monochrome in a way...

“An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.”

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

I started searching for stories written by / about women, people of colour, LGBT folks, and discovered so many lovely authors I never heard of before! Octavia Butler, N.K. Jemisin, Malinda Lo, Margaret Atwood, to name a few. How could I miss them? And how many more books to read! This world is so colourful and beautiful, and it's time to enjoy it fully through the books.

And so, it's not surprising that when I heard about We Need Diverse Books Campaign on Twitter, I knew I had to join it. :)

“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 are some highlights of the campaign:

#WeNeedDiverseBooks bc I want to read about these women - the 1st female doctors in India, Japan & Syria. In 1885. pic.twitter.com/d0NuDT3uvf
— Love, InshAllah (@LoveInshAllah) May 1, 2014

#WeNeedDiverseBooks because I couldn't find one with two gay grannies. - Anna of @RainbowHealthOn pic.twitter.com/zl6NcsluKd
— LGBTQ Parenting Netw (@lgbtqpn) May 1, 2014

#WeNeedDiverseBooks because you don't always know you're a gay kid. pic.twitter.com/tH5NyYrWEP
— Seattle Library (@SPLBuzz) May 1, 2014

#WeNeedDiverseBooks because I want my daughter to know that she can be a LEADING LADY! http://t.co/VXsMyKWQSy pic.twitter.com/vc2u5gF2KR
— Maya Prasad (@mayaprasadwrite) May 1, 2014

#weneeddiversebooks because no little kid ever said, "I want a box of 64 white crayons!" pic.twitter.com/stGrjcZ6EF
— Jamie Ford (@JamieFord) May 1, 2014

#WeNeedDiverseBooks in SFF because some fantasy readers would rather learn elvish than try and "deal with" characters with Asian names.
— cindy pon (@cindypon) April 30, 2014

#WeNeedDiverseBooks because finding books about asexual, genderqueer, intersexual, LGBT, pansexual etc. characters shouldn't be hard.
— 森Ekaterina森 (@EkaterinaTrayt) May 2, 2014

Links:
Official #WeNeedDiverseBooks Twitter account
Official site
'We Need Diverse Books' calls for more representative writing for children
Quotes about diversity