Recently, we at Mixed-Up Files of Middle Grade Authors have celebrated wonderful news. Feedspot reviewed thousands of websites and chose us as one of the 80 Best Diverse Book Blogs and Websites. You can check it out here – Feedspot Blogs on Diverse Books
I’d like to spend today’s post relaying what this means to me as an author and as a mom.
Lack of Books by Diverse Authors on the Shelves
I looked around for numbers about diverse books, and this is what I found. At the start of 2018, approximately 95% of all books published in the U.S. were written by white authors. Thankfully, publishing professionals recognized this problem and focused on increasing the number of diverse books on the market. 79% of fiction books published in 2018 were written by authors of color, LGBTQ+, neurodivergent, or people with disabilities, and while this might seem like a substantial amount, the number of books published in a single year is a small fraction of those available in bookstores and libraries.
Goooooaaaaalllll!!!!!!!!
One goal we have at the Mixed-Up Files is to promote books by diverse authors. By promoting diverse books, we help readers, teachers, and parents find middle-grade books featuring diverse characters which are not always easy to find on bookstore or library shelves.
Benefits for Readers
Exposing people to diverse books provides opportunities to dispel stereotypes and cultural misrepresentations, and it fosters empathy, understanding, and creativity. Perhaps most important, readers benefit from connecting with characters with shared culture, background, sexual orientation, or physical attributes. Imagine a nine-year-old child that never saw someone like themselves represented in stories.
Personal Anecdote
When one of my sons was very young, he picked up one of his favorite books, pointed to the main character, and said, “Look Mom, he’s white like me and you, not brown like Dad.”
I struggled at that moment. Paraphrasing a friend, I bring the American to my Mexican-American family, and we had hundreds of books, movies, and TV shows with white kids. Helping me teach my children they were mixed race would’ve been a lot easier if I could’ve pointed out a single role model who shared their identity.
Final Thought
We’re happy to see more books by diverse authors hit the shelves, and we’re very proud of the work we’ve done here to help readers, teachers, and parents find these books. Please check back with us the first Wednesday of every month for more We Need Diverse Middle Grade Books Wednesday
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