If you haven’t heard about it, it’s time to change that.
The “We Need Diverse Books” Campaign is an amazing campaign that started advocating for diverse books in 2014 on Twitter by Ellen Oh and Malinda Lo. They spoke of taking action that there weren’t many diverse books on the market for children’s literature. Once there was some discussion about it, on April 24th 2014, the #WeNeedDiverseBooks hashtag was born and blew up, becoming a trending topic on the social website.
Taking into consideration what this group advocates for, they come prepared with the statistics of the children’s literature market. In the year 2013, there were a reported 3,200 children’s books published. Out of these books, only 93 were about African Americans. That’s roughly 2.9% of books published that year!
The coolest thing about the campaign is how helpful it is to all children, not just children of color. They advocate for the children who identify with the “LGBTQIA, of color, gender diversity, with disabilities, and ethnic, cultural, and religious minorities” (says it right in their mission statement! : http://weneeddiversebooks.org/mission-statement/).
Although this a very fresh idea, spreading the word to educators, friends, family, and more importantly, our younger generation, we can change the amount of children’s literature written for a more diverse audience.
