Today is the first day of May. It’s not only May Day, but also the first day of Asian Pacific Islander Heritage Month, and I’m planning a month-long blog kidlit-centric blog series for it. More about that later.
But today, May 1, 2014 is also a wonderful day for those interested in diversity in YA and children’s literature.
1) Today is the first official launch day for social media movement #WeNeedDiverseBooks, spearheaded by YA author Ellen Oh.
2) Today is the one-year anniversary of the wonderful DiversiFYA, led by the fabulous Marieke Nijkamp.
3) On a personal note, today is my first contribution to DiversiFYA! My article is called: “Reflecting Reality: Visual Representation of Racial Diversity in Children’s Literature in the United States.” It sounds rather academic, but it’s not. It’s more an homage to my illustrator April Chu’s wonderful artistic decisions that she made while illustrating our book Summoning the Phoenix. Of all the guest blog posts I’ve written recently, this is the one I’ve worked on longest and hardest, and I’m so honored that DiversiFYA is publishing it!
We should celebrate
diverse books, read diverse books,
and BUY diverse books!
You are so wonderful. Thank you! <3