Chapter 17: We Need Diverse Books
Summary: Weneeddiversebooks.org is a non-profit organization of children’s books that advocates essential changes in the industry of book publishing. Their aim is to produce and promote books that honor and accommodate the lives of all young people. Based on their website, their mission statement is, putting more books featuring diverse characters into the hands of all children. They aim to have all children reading from an autobiographical perspective by accommodating all walks of life and experiences within their stories. We Need Diverse Books also has a blog in order for followers to stay up to date with awards, grants, Q&A’s, book talks with newly published works, cover reveals, and book excerpts.
Reflection/Response: We all need to see ourselves in books. Because if we don’t see ourselves in books we might not feel as connected to the human experience. It’s also important to read about people who aren’t like us in order to gain empathy towards an experience you might not otherwise go through in your lifetime (hence the importance of having diverse books in our world). It’s only then, when empathy is developed, that we’ll have a full understanding of the world around us. It’s important to reflect the realities of our communities and go through events with them, even if it’s only through a book. As a librarian, if you don’t possess a vast array of books for your students, you are disregarding a community of readers from the library and could potentially have long lasting hazardous effects on those people and their reading experience. It is essential to have an altruistic approach in developing a versatile collection in your library to meet the needs of all readers.
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