ABSTRACT:
A grassroots social movement among authors, readers, librarians, educators, and others seeks greater diversity in literature for children and young adults. They’ve been able to track improvements in statistics compiled each year by the Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC) in the School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison, but ethnic minorities continue to be under-represented among the books’ protagonists. Two possible strains are the fact that the publishing industry is still overwhelmingly white, and online harassment, or “cancel culture,” directed against writers who attempt to write about marginalized communities.
INTRODUCTION:
Among authors, readers, librarians, educators, and others, a grassroots social movement seeks greater diversity in literature for children and young adults. Specifically, the movement addresses a disparity that favors books about white, male, heterosexual, and able-bodied protagonists, with added emphasis upon elevating authors who are, themselves, from marginalized communities.
DISCUSSION:
Identifiable Ideology:
The movement’s core belief is that every child deserves for their experiences and cultures to be validated in the books that they read, as well as to gain insights into cultures and circumstances that are not just like theirs. Rudine Sims Bishop, Ph.D summed up this benefit in her 1990 essay, “Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors.” In a 2015 interview, she talked about the concept:
“We need diverse books because we need books in which children can find themselves, see reflections of themselves. I wrote a piece, maybe 1990 it was published, which I called ‘Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors.’ And I think that's really why we — children need to see themselves reflected.
“But books can also be windows. And so you can look through and see other worlds and see how they match up or don't match up to your own. But the sliding glass door allows you to enter that world as well. And so that's the reason that the diversity needs to go both ways. I mean it's not just children who have been underrepresented and marginalized who need these books” (Reading Rainbow 2015).Here’s how Marley Dias, teen activist behind the #1000BlackGirlBooks campaign, sums up the need for diverse books: “Lots of books offer important lessons about how to deal with complicated issues. But if the characters don’t reflect you, if you can’t relate to them, it can be more difficult to absorb the morals of the stories. They may make less of an impact and leave less of an imprint on your soul. You’ll close the covers of the book, with its lessons still buried” (Dias 2018).
And here’s Young Adult author Kati Gardner explaining why it matters that the cover of her latest book depicts a character with a visible disability:
“Visual representation of people with disabilities has been something that is still lacking in mainstream media. When abled people only see disabled people in Facebook videos where we’re doing the unstoppable, also known as inspiration porn, it only tells one story” (Gardner 2019).Progress in the movement can be tracked in statistics compiled by the Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC) in the School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison. In 2018, from among 3,653 books received by the CCBC, the CCBC documented the following:
* 202 books by, and 405 books about Africans or African Americans
* 38 books by, and 55 books about, American Indians / First Nations
* 351 books by, and 314 books about Asian Pacific or Asian Pacific Americans and
* 197 books by, and 249 books about Latino / Latina people (CCBC 2019).
Progress can also be recognized through a greater diversity among award-winning books. In 2018, “[f]or the first time since its inception in 1922, the Newbery Medal and honor books were all written by authors of color” (Yorio 2018).
Campaigners “have hailed a seismic shift” in U.S. children’s publishing, citing statistics that show “that the number of kids’ books featuring African-American characters has more than doubled over the last 10 years, and the number featuring Asians more than tripled” (Flood 2019).
But CCBC figures also showed that 50 percent of children’s books that it received in 2018 still depicted white protagonists (Huyck 2019). Children’s books were more likely to feature animals or “other” characters (27 percent) than ethnic minorities, and an infographic by David Huyck and Sarah Park Dahlen (shown on the cover page) illustrates the continuing disparity: 1 percent depicting American Indian or First Nation protagonists, 5 percent depicting Latino / Latina, 7 percent depicting Asian Pacific Islander / Asian Pacific American, and 10 percent depicting African / African American.
Organization:
Organizations and campaigns that champion this movement include #1000BlackGirlBooks, American Indians in Children's Literature, the American Library Association and its affiliates in service to children, to young adults, and to various diverse populations; Disability in KidLit, #OwnVoices, Reading While White, We Need Diverse Books, and more. Recruitment and promotion is often done through blogging and social media, as well as expressed among professional associations and journals.
While movement leaders are as numerous as the organizations that espouse it, many in this movement use Dr. Bishop’s terminology to describe their ideology:
“Have you ever used the phrase ‘Mirrors and Windows’ when discussing the need for more diverse children’s books? If so – or even if you’ve only heard someone else speak these words in this context – give a tip of your cap to Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop” (Bloom 2017).Structural Strain:
Activists point with concern to the fact that publishing is still composed primarily of white people. A special report in 2016, compiled by Publishers Weekly, indicated that the industry is 79 percent white (Deahl 2016).
Jennifer Baker, production editor at Teachers College Press in New York, observed that while discussions were taking place around more authors and illustrators of color, “It was very interesting what wasn’t being talked about: Who are the editors? Who are the agents? Who are the production editors? Who are the marketers, the contributors, and all that stuff?” (Maher 2019).
Another strain is the online harassing of authors who attempt to write about marginalized communities; the practice is widely referred to as “cancel culture”:
“In January, a new Chinese-American author, Amélie Zhao, withdrew her forthcoming fantasy novel Blood Heir, and apologised for the way it handled slavery, which she said was based on the Asian experience, not the American one. Zhao had found an agent during a Twitter pitching event for authors from marginalised groups, but as Ellen Oh, co-founder of the campaign group We Need Diverse Books, explained in a tweet: ‘You are not immune to charges of racism just because you are [a person of colour]. Racism is systemic, especially anti-blackness.’ Zhao described the reaction to her debut as ‘devastating’, and now plans to release an amended version in November.
“Another of Zhao’s critics was Kosoko Jackson, whose own debut novel A Place for Wolves, about a romance between two teenage boys during the Kosovo war, was scheduled for release in March. Jackson is black and gay, and a professional sensitivity reader, which means he reads books before publication and offers advice on how they handle matters of identity. Yet on 22 February, he too was accused of insensitivity, for allegedly minimising the suffering of Albanian Muslims. ‘I’ve never been so disgusted in my life,’ said the first review to make this point, on the reading community website Goodreads.com. On 25 February, comments below the review began to discuss sending an open letter to Jackson’s publisher. On 28 February, he posted a note apologising to ‘those who I hurt with my words’ and withdrew the book. In April, the British YA author Zoe Marriott was widely accused of cultural appropriation for writing a Chinese-inspired fantasy novel called The Hand, the Eye and the Heart.” (Benedictus 2019).CONCLUSION:
This movement is made up of well-intentioned and dedicated people who see a value in books that reflect diversity among the readers they serve. I believe that the movement has a chance to succeed if the industry is able to attract and retain more diverse employees - and even among those professionals who are members of a majority, many of them have buy-in and are already acting as allies.
To cite one example: best-selling author Rick Riordan, known for his fantasy stories based on mythology, is an editor and curator for a Disney/Hyperion imprint, “Rick Riordan Presents,” which seeks to present stories by writers from underrepresented cultures:
“Over the years, I’ve gotten many questions from my fans about whether I might write about various world mythologies, but in most cases I knew I wasn’t the best person to write those books. Much better, I thought, to use my experience and my platform at Disney to put the spotlight on other great writers who are actually from those cultures and know the mythologies better than I do. Let them tell their own stories, and I would do whatever I could to help those books find a wide audience!” (Riordan N.d.)But I feel that the online “cancel culture” does more harm than good, and its toxic effect will have to be mitigated. In the words of author John Boyne, quoted by Leo Bendictus for The Guardian, “‘I don’t feel it’s my job as a reader or a writer to tell anyone what they can or can’t write,’ Boyne said. ‘We are supposed to use our imaginations, to put ourselves into the minds and the bodies of others’” (Benedictus 2019).
REFERENCES:
Benedictus, Leo. 2019. “Torn apart: the vicious war over young adult books. The Guardian, June 15, 2019. Retrieved Dec. 8, 2019. (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jun/15/torn-apart-the-vicious-war-over-young-adult-books)
Bloom, Sam. 2017. “Rudine Sims Bishop: In Appreciation.” Reading While White. Retrieved Dec. 7, 2019 (http://readingwhilewhite.blogspot.com/2017/01/have-you-ever-used-phrase-mirrors-and.html)
Cooperative Children’s Book Center. 2019. Publishing Statistics on Children's/YA Books about People of Color and First/Native Nations and by People of Color and First/Native Nations Authors and Illustrators. Retrieved Dec. 7, 2019. (https://ccbc.education.wisc.edu/books/pcstats.asp)
Deahl, Rachel. 2016. “Why Publishing Is So White.” Publishers Weekly, March 14, 2016: Pages 9, 18-21.
Dias, Marley. 2018. Marley Dias Gets it Done and So Can You! New York: Scholastic Press.
Flood, Alison. 2019. “Campaigners hail ‘seismic shift’ in diversity of US children's books.” The Guardian, March 22, 2019. Retrieved Nov. 30, 2019. (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/mar/22/campaigners-hail-seismic-shift-in-diversity-of-us-childrens-books)
Gardner, Kati. “It Matters That My YA Novel Has a Visibly Disabled Character on the Cover.” We Need Diverse Books. Retrieved Dec. 1, 2019. (https://diversebooks.org/it-matters-that-my-ya-novel-has-a-visibly-disabled-character-on-the-cover/)
Huyck, David and Dahlen, Sarah Park. 2019. “Picture This: Diversity in Children’s Books 2018 Infographic.” SarahPark.com. Created in consultation with Edith Campbell, Molly Beth Griffin, K. T. Horning, Dr. Debbie Reese, Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, and Madeline Tyner, with statistics compiled by the Cooperative Children’s Book Center, School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison: http://ccbc.education.wisc.edu/books/pcstats.asp. Retrieved Dec. 7, 2019. (https://readingspark.wordpress.com/2019/06/19/picture-this-diversity-in-childrens-books-2018-infographic/.)
Maher, John. “PW Superstar Jenn Baker on Diversity in Publishing.” Publishers Weekly, Sept. 23, 2019, Pages 10-11.
Reading Rainbow. 2015. A video interview with Rudine Sims Bishop, Ph.D., Ohio State University. Retrieved Dec. 7, 2019. (https://www.readingrockets.org/books/interviews/bishop/transcript)
Riordan, Rick. N.d. “Rick Riordan Presents.” Rick Riordan. Retrieved Dec. 8, 2019. (http://rickriordan.com/rick-riordan-presents/)
Yorio, Kara. 2018. “2018 Newbery Medal Winners Make History.” School Library Journal, March 2018: Page 10.
