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The Free Expression Educators Handbook - National Coalition Against Censorship

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The Educators Handbook for teachers, librarians and administrators provides tools and advice for managing book challenges in schools.

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Book challenges aren't new, and neither is the "celebration" of banned books which occurs for a week at the end of September each year. The annual event began in 1982 as a response to a "sudden surge" of book challenges in schools and libraries, and one of the most well-known outcomes of Banned Books Week is the release of the prior year's "most challenged" books. These titles emerge from the American Library Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom, who compile the media reports and librarian/teacher submissions of challenged books. The list makes a splash, most notably in recent years for how clear it is that queer books and books by authors of color, as well as books about sexual health, are under fire.

But when Banned Books Week ends, so often, too, does the energy of highlighting book challenges and censorship. In too many cases, the "celebration" leans heavily into talking about the books in specifics - a particular title was challenged or removed from a classroom because of a specific reason, which is then repackaged in media stories to make it sound as though the people behind these challenges are a minority, oddballs, conspiracy theorists, or simply the kind of people who are afraid their children might be exposed to queer or Black characters.

This is an oversimplification. The lack of nuance only furthers the real threats to intellectual freedom.

Censorship happens when a group or organization works to suppress speech, books, movies, and other materials. This is too often the sole focus on events like Banned Books Week, and the attention gets turned onto the censors and their agenda, as opposed to the real freedom under attack. That attention then further fuels their fire and provides the spark for more fires to ignite, as that attention is a commodity these groups crave. It is in no way about fear of their children learning about groups different than them. It's about white supremacy. It's about power. Calling it anything less than that diminishes the responsibility there is on gatekeepers to uphold intellectual freedom and the First Amendment.

Censorship also happens, though, when materials never get the opportunity to be included in a collection. This quiet or silent censorship is insidious and dangerous, and it emerges in two distinct ways. The first is when a librarian or educator purposefully doesn't include material in their collections because it counters their own beliefs. The second is when those gatekeepers elect not to purchase or promote materials because of the fear they may be challenged. A book that may be an essential addition to shelves never gets purchased because the person in charge of making said purchase bows to fear or intimidation or the possibility of either.

This censorship is not recorded.

Since 2004, over one quarter of U.S. newspapers have disappeared. Many citizens may not see the problem with this as digital media has filled in many of the gaps. But digital media is not the same as local media, and for communities without local newspapers, this means communities are also left without an unbiased resource for understanding what's going on in their backyard.

Newspapers are watchdogs, historically serving as a check-and-balance to civil organizations. Reporters showed up to board meetings across their communities and reported on the happenings. In most cases, this isn't especially noteworthy work; it's a beat. But those beat reporters give community members all of the information they may need before casting a ballot, before showing up to speak out against new town proposals, before showing up to a school board meeting, and so forth. Local journalists know the town they're covering, usually because they live there or are deeply embedded within the community.

With diminishing local news outlets comes the disappearance of local reporting. No longer is someone sitting at every board meeting to report on what's happening; no longer is there that check-and-balance system to report the conversations happening both by elected and appointed officials and those within the community who show up.

It isn't until there's a particularly salacious local story - think pink dildos or an unhinged rant about anal sex - or until a group shouts loud enough - think high school students protesting - that it makes any sort of news. Then, it might hit local news. In the linked pieces, the stories were juicy enough to make major outlets, seeing the opportunity for the click-outrage-share cycle. It is not that the writers don't care about these issues. Most of them are deeply disturbed. But, until the story can pay for its space by means of clicks, it isn't worthy.

It's white supremacy and power which drive those click-y stories. Those stories then repeat themselves in other communities.

The click economy is a major factor in the decline of local journalism, and it's also why you don't hear about the tremendous number of censorship stories happening on the local level every single day across America. Where there were once reporters or citizens sitting at civic meetings to see and share what's happening, now those seats are empty and the stories go unheard.

That doesn't mean those in the community don't know what's going on. Indeed, when it comes to librarians and teachers, it's likely they know not only what's going on, but also the rumors about what's happening. They're aware of groups showing up to school or library board meetings to challenge policies or curriculum or collections. They're hearing about what those groups plan to continue to do to pursue their agenda. They may be hearing from individuals dogging board members to bow to pressure to remove a title from a library shelf.

Without support - and indeed, the local media is a tool of support in communities, particularly in their roles as watchdogs - it's impossible to overstate how easy gatekeepers can fold to that pressure. They may or may not have supportive administration, but in either case, knowing a choice you make for your community may put your job in jeopardy can and does too easily mean that choice simply isn't made.

Celebrating banned books ignores the vital need to protect intellectual freedom. It fails to account for the very real humans whose livelihoods are at stake for doing what's right. Instead, it further serves white supremacy and power, centering the voices of outrage, rather than those whose voices have been forgotten, ignored, or suppressed completely.

Take, for example, what's happened and continues to be happening in Irving, Texas. A far-right Christian group formally challenged the book Jack of Hearts (and Other Parts) by Lev Rosen this summer. Formally is important here. Norman and her compatriots have been showing up to school and city board meetings for nearly two years to challenge queer materials in Irving Public Library.

No local media covered the summer formal challenge, despite the fact that Irving is a large suburb in the Dallas metroplex.

Jack of Hearts went through the library's challenge process and remains on shelves in the public library. This is thanks to a supportive city council, as well as a strong leadership team at the library who not only believe in the power of queer books like this, but who fiercely defend the right for all of their citizens to have access to as wide a range of materials as possible.

What hasn't been reported, though, is that Norman and her group continue to show up to city council meetings. Each of the meetings where they come is a parade of more and more unhinged comments from "concerned citizens," demanding the council do something about the books in the library.

It also hasn't been reported that Jack of Hearts is not available in the Irving Independent School District.

Norman is an employee in the district.

It's unknown whether the book was available in the school libraries prior to the litany of complaints. But certainly, school libraries operate differently than public libraries in so much that they do serve in loco parentis. Where public libraries put the onus on parents to monitor what their children consume - as they should - school libraries have more responsibility for maintaining appropriate collections for the students they serve.

Jack of Hearts is for readers 14 and up, with a range of positive book reviews from trusted sources. The book is appropriate for the school library, with supporting evidence, but it was either pulled or never given the chance to be on shelves at all. With groups like the one pressuring the public library, it's hard to blame a school library for not wanting to fight that battle, despite the fact that is the job.

Without local media on this beat, the story disappears from public view. Out of sight, out of mind.

But the challengers remain.

It's a privilege to consider book bans a thing of the past or a thing that doesn't impact readers. It is easy to believe getting a book is as simple as a one-click at an online retailer. But it's not - and that mentality in and of itself is a product of white supremacist thinking. Book challenges and bans harm the most vulnerable in communities who don't have access to finances, time, or transportation to acquire a book no longer available to them in the places where they are: classrooms or libraries.

It's also a privilege to suggest book bans are great for authors and book sales. Sales increase for some authors, sure. But for the bulk of authors who experience book bans, there's no noticeable difference in sales because often, they don't even know a book has been challenged or pulled from shelves. No author writes with the hopes of gaining notoriety or sales by a book being inaccessible to its intended readership. They write to reach those readers.

What gets forgotten in discussions of censorship, too, is the incredible power of the public library. No other American institution is tasked with unequivocally protecting the First Amendment and intellectual freedom specifically. This isn't a politically negotiable assertion. Libraries are founded on and protect these liberties and need to continue to do so. It's not about banned books. It's about the rights imparted to American citizens as outlined in the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

So what can be done to push back against book challenges and bans? Without structures like local journalism to stay on the beat, how does the average citizen or average librarian, school librarian, or administrator stay abreast and work to ensure intellectual freedom remains a fundamental right? There are several potent tools and methods to engage with, whether you're able to dedicate a few minutes to the cause or lend hours of time to do the work. These lists are split up for citizens and for those inside libraries, but know that these are not mutually exclusive lists.

Methods and Tools for Combatting Censorship in Your Community

For Citizens

Begin first by keeping your local school board, library board, and city council's information handy. Where and when do they regularly meet? Where can you find the minutes from previous meetings? Know where to find agendas, as well as board packets - those packets may be made freely on the appropriate government website or you may need to put in a Freedom of Information Request for them (this is your right). Keep the phone numbers and email addresses of each member of the representing boards accessible and updated. Many of these boards record their meetings, so bookmark those livestreams or archives.

All of these paper trails are resources granted to you by federal and local laws. Utilize them to know what's going on where you live.

Keep up with your local newspaper if you have one. If you don't have one, learn who covers your community for regional papers or national bureaus. Even mainstream, major outlets like Business Insider or Propublica have reporters assigned to different regions of the country. The problem is, of course, they're covering a large region, rather than a single community or county. These reporters are, however, always seeking the stories that matter, so utilize them as resources.

Vote. Yes, it's as simple and straightforward as this to get started. Local elections matter, and in many places, library boards and school boards are elected positions. Know who is on the ballot and ask them questions at open forums or via their social media and websites. Ask them where they stand on censorship and the rights of a community to access the information they desire. The Niles Public Library serves as a stark reminder of what happens when turnout for local elections is minimal - the minority's voice is heard loudest.

Serve on a Board. If you have the time, serve on your local school, library, or city council/board. For appointed positions, apply; for elected positions, run. Every civil body operates differently, so get to know how these positions work, how often you're expected to attend meetings, and what your role may be in the broader community.

Show Up to Meetings. Open comments from the public are given space at civic meetings. Typically, this is time at the start of a meeting, and often, there's a time limit on open comment. It varies community to community and board to board. This is crucial because people who have a problem are the ones who always show up. People who are happy or unaware of how things are going do not show up. Your comments do not need to be scripted or deep. Simply taking ten minutes of your evening to show up and tell the council you're happy with how the library has such a great collection or that the children's programming in the school library has been appreciated is doing the work. Those comments not only remind gatekeepers of the power of their job, but those boards hear and see that, too.

Write Letters. Can't show up to meetings? That's fine - email your city council, email your library's administration, and email the school librarian. Tell them you love what they're doing and why. These letters matter, and even if your letter is handed to the library worker shelving books because you don't know who best to direct it to, the letter will show up in board packets and reports, as proof of the vitality of the organization and how it serves its community.

Talk to the Newspaper. Maybe, if you're lucky, you have local newspapers. Utilize them. Write letters to the editor - which are often capped at 300 or so words - extolling the virtues of the library. Name names, name book titles, name programs. Again: the majority of voices on those letters to the editor page are unhappy people. They rarely are people who are happy. Add a voice of praise and do it often. It's a simple as setting a quarterly or monthly alert to spend five minutes brainstorming praise, writing it, and sending it through the paper's submissions, often right on their digital editions.

Correct Misinformation. Taking into account the above, speak out and write in when misinformation about your library, its materials, or its actions are shared. In Irving, one of the angles of challenge for queer books was that the YA section was nothing but LGBTQ+ sex books and there were no books about other topics in the library. This was patently untrue: the library had books on every topic claimed to be lacking and the YA section is packed with books on every topic imaginable, for readers of all age levels and tastes. This misinformation is what many will latch on to and use as a means of denigrating the library and its work, then it is wielded to fit the white supremacist agenda.

Familiarize Yourself With a Library's Collection Development Policy. All public libraries and most, if not all, school libraries have collection development policies. Often, they're available on their websites. These policies govern how and why materials are acquired for a collection. Keep these handy and be familiar with them, as these are tools helpful for combatting censorship - and encourage your libraries to make these policies accessible online, as well as regularly updated. If there's something amiss in the policy, ask questions.

Submit Materials Requests. Most public libraries allow users to submit titles for the collection. Let your library know you want books by authors of color and queer authors. Your request can be as simple as the name and title or as in-depth as name and title, as well as why the book should be in the collection (and you can absolutely include reviews, if you want). Submitting requests makes it clear to purchasers these materials are desired and allows a paper trail to exist as evidence of this community need.

Ask Why Items Are Not Purchased. Is there a book you've requested or have seen in other libraries that is absent in yours? Ask why. There might be a legitimate reason for this - budget constraints, for example, limit how many books can be purchased in a fiscal year - but the act of questioning may be the wakeup call a staff member needs to pause and reflect on their own biases and fears. Again: public libraries are tasked with protecting intellectual freedom. You've got a right to ask why those freedoms aren't always exercised within the institution.

Report Hate Groups. Contact local media and local authorities about hate groups when they emerge. These groups work to target policies they don't like with the goal of maintaining white supremacy. Call them out on social media, then follow it up with evidence of hateful actions where you can. This is standing up in support of libraries, of intellectual freedom, and of the First Amendment.

Stay Alert. Distraction is harmful. Too often, we forget about a problem or an issue when it feels like it's been resolved. The fact is, protecting Intellectual Freedom is every day work. It doesn't end, and it doesn't magically resolve itself. Keep alert, keep fighting, and keep finding more allies for the cause in your community. Show up together.

Donate Money. Have some money you can donate to the library? Do it. Go through their Friends group or Foundation, if they have one, or simply ask if they have a donation spot on their website where you can leave some money. Even a few dollars will be stretched and put to tremendous use.

Do not take for granted the freedoms given to you. The fact is, those working to actively censor material are working to take them away. We're living through historical times and they mirror previous generations of "historical times": white supremacists are working to limit access and control the information made available to citizens. They're denying the existence of people of color and queer people by working to remove these materials. Public libraries have and will continue to do great work with building necessary collections representing a diversity of viewpoints, upholding their roles in the country. But those who seek power and control don't want that to be the case, and in too many cases, libraries back down in order to not cause a stir (in and of itself an issue with the stereotypes and impressions of who works in a library made more damaging with the loss of local media to prove otherwise).

For Gatekeepers (Educators, Librarians, Administrators)

Libraries have incredible responsibility, as do teachers, though the regulations within the classroom are far more politically limiting than in public libraries. The bulk of people working in these institutions are doing their best, and they're doing so with little support vocalized from the community, compared to the criticism.

Remember your purpose as a radical institution devoted to upholding the fundamental rights of citizens. You are the bastion of intellectual freedom. It doesn't matter what that looks like - children's puppet story times, crime lover book clubs, ditching late fees, whatever - these are all part and parcel of what makes the library the institution that it is. It is a third space where anyone can exist without any purpose. The library is the purpose.

In addition to all of the above items, some specific tools for gatekeepers to combat censorship include:

Have a Formal Review Process. Update or rework your current materials review process and align it with your purpose as an institution of intellectual freedom. Explain where and how items are added to the collection, as well as how items recommended by citizens are included. Put this on your website and make it readily accessible, right alongside your forms for formal material complaints and forms for suggesting materials.

Market Those Materials. Put it on your front doors that the library is an institution of intellectual freedom. Promote that you have these policies. Book displays are part of the work of a library, as are reader's advisory guides. So, too, should be your marketing of what it is you truly do in the library.

Consider Ditching Celebrations of Banned Books Week. Rebrand the concept as Intellectual Freedom Week or a week dedicated to protecting the First Amendment. Get rid of the week-long festival all together and focus instead on working these issues into everyday discourse as Intellectual Freedom or, to put an even finer point on it, upholding the First Amendment rights guaranteed to all U.S. citizens. By highlighting banned or challenged books, you give more attention to those who want to uphold white supremacist ideals, even if the intention is to showcase the books. Just put the books on displays all year long. Make those displays when it's unexpected and give it a non-Banned Books theme. Get all of this in front of your citizens all the time, rather than the one time it's seen as the "right" time.

Befriend the Media. Talk to your local news. Talk to regional news. Talk to national news. Get beyond talking with library-specific organizations - they don't need to be convinced about libraries or intellectual freedom (even if they do need to be convinced to change the language they're using). These outlets are your supporters and your allies in defending the First Amendment.

Recognize Your Staff in Meaningful Ways. Remind them you're supportive of them because they're professionals hired for their skills, talent, and intellect to do their jobs. Kudos do good, but raise those kudos to the level of your library board, as well as city council. Then make spaces where staff feel they can go when necessary. Do they need a few therapy sessions when dealing with a community book challenge? Do what you can to provide that. Do they need flex time or the ability to do some of their work from a non-library space? Make it happen. And don't just make these things happen. Talk about why these decisions are made so that everyone understands that these accommodations are necessary to do the tremendous job of upholding intellectual freedom.

Ask Questions and Be Open to Questions. Know why books aren't being purchased. Be prepared to be asked about the books which are purchased. It should be an expectation of those in charge of working in places of intellectual pursuit to expect engagement on their choices and likewise, feel supported - or challenged! - on them.

Don't fall asleep. It's easy to become complicit, especially during busy seasons. But it's during these times those who wish to dismantle public institutions gain ground, recruit members with their ideologies and propaganda, and act as a group or individuals to tear things apart.

Constant vigilance is exhausting, but if freedom of information and access to ideas is foundational to you, the work is essential.

Students, Teachers, and Librarians are Fed Up With Book Challenges: This Week's Censorship News, December 10, 2021

There've Been More Than 155 Book Challenges Since June: This Week's Censorship News, December 3, 2021

How to Prepare for 2022 Book Challenges: This Week's Censorship News

Wake Up: The Censorship Has Been Alive Forever. It's at Fever Pitch Today.

Craighead County Library's Battle Against Censorship

Students Petition for Library Books, School Board Members Want to Burn LGBTQ+ Titles, and More Censorship News: November 12, 2021

New Report Showcases Wide Damage of Educational Gag Orders

All 850 Books Texas Lawmaker Matt Krause Wants to Ban: An Analysis

Kenai Peninsula's Dual Book Challenges, Embarrassing School Board Outbursts, and More Censorship News This Week: November 5, 2021

No, The FBI Isn't Showing Up at School Board Meetings: Censorship News, October 29, 2021

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How To Fight Book Bans and Challenges: An Anti-Censorship Tool Kit

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Book challenges aren't new, and neither is the "celebration" of banned books which occurs for a week at the end of September each year. The annual event began in 1982 as a response to a "sudden surge" of book challenges in schools and libraries, and one of the most well-known outcomes of Banned Books Week is the release of the prior year's "most challenged" books.

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Back many moons ago on the Hey YA podcast, Eric said something about Stephenie Meyer having written a short story for an anthology back in the day and how readers who want more should go seek it out. That, in my brain, set off some gears. Why don't we know about some of the individual authors within these amazing YA anthologies and what they're contributing? Sure, we can look through each book's table of contents, but what about a table of contents that allows readers to explore the shorter works of their favorite authors more broadly? The idea stewed in my head for a long time. Until now! Welcome to the ultimate guide to YA short stories by your favorite authors.

I've scoured through YA anthologie s past and present-up to 2019-and pulled together an index to their contents by author. This is meant to help you seek out stories by your favorite authors, with a guide to the books in which they appear. Call it my librarian brain or my completionist desires, but it made sense to me to organize this information for others who, like me, sometimes just want to read a handful of short pieces by a single author.

There are a lot of limitations here, so bear this in mind.

This index to YA short stories does not include short stories which are interconnected in an anthology. That leaves out quite a few books, but not as many as one might anticipate. Shaun David Hutchinson's anthologies and Hungry Hearts edited by Elise Chapman and Caroline Tung Richmond are examples of this type of book. It also doesn't include short story collections by a single author, as those are easy enough to track down. Holly Black and Kelly Link are two, among many others, who've done solo short story collections.

These YA short stories stick to major publishers only, as tracking down the information about titles and authors in smaller books, as well as those that served as either Kickstarter or fundraiser-created anthologies is challenging.

I've used my knowledge of YA to whittle down the index here to YA authors who are well-known, well-published, or new and emerging voices. Some haven't yet published a YA title, while others haven't done so in quite a while. I've pulled from these lists YA short stories by adult authors who haven't written for YA otherwise. This it to keep it limited to YA short stories by YA authors.

Short stories below are organized by author's last name. Each of the stories and their respective anthologies are listed below the author, and in cases where stories are coauthored, the story appears under both author names. I haven't included descriptions of the story because that's impossible without having read them all. But by including the book in which you can find the story, it should give a good idea of the themes the story might have.

Some of these books might be out of print, since they're beyond ten years old. But chances are you can track them down at a library, and some of the authors may have republished these stories on their websites or elsewhere, depending on whether or not they own the republication rights.

Again, this isn't comprehensive, but it is pretty robust and, I hope, useful for readers seeking YA short stories by their favorite YA writers. It's my hope to keep this list active and updated annually, as more anthologies publish and more YA writers have their stories in them.

If you find yourself itching for more, you can also dig into this roundup of free YA short stories online.

YA Short Stories By YA Writers

Peter Abrahams

Dahlia Adler

Jaime Adoff

Ann Aguirre

Renée Ahdieh

Samira Ahmed

Karen Akins

William Alexander

Adi Alsaid

Ameriie

Jodi Lynn Anderson

MT Anderson

Jennifer L. Armentrout

Kelley Armstrong

David Arnold

Stefan Bachmann

Paolo Bacigalupi

Tracey Baptiste

Schuyler Bailar

Leigh Bardugo

Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Christopher Barzak

Elizabeth Bear

Fox Benwell

Holly Black

"The Coldest Girl in Coldtown" (The Eternal Kiss: 13 Vampire Tales of Blood and Desire)

"Everything Amiable and Obliging" (Steampunk! An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories)

"In Vodka Veritas" (21 Proms)

"Krampuslauf" (My True Love Gave To Me: 12 Holiday Stories)

"Little Gods" (Under My Hat: Tales from the Cauldron)

"Millcara" (Rags & Bones: New Twists on Timeless Tales)

"Once You're a Jedi, You're a Jedi all the Way" with Cecil Castellucci (Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd)

"The Perfect Dinner Party" with Cassandra Clare (Teeth: Vampire Tales)

Kendare Blake

Francesca Lia Block

Erin Bowman

"It's Just a Jump to the Left" (Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd)

"The Last Ride of the Glory Girls" (Steampunk! An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories)

"Last Stand at the Cinegore" (Summer Days and Summer Nights: Twelve Love Stories)

"Nowhere is Safe" (Vacations From Hell)

"Not Just for Breakfast Anymore" (Up All Night)

"Primate the Prom" (21 Proms)

"Prom Night" (Zombies Vs. Unicorns)

"Rituals"((Don't) Call Me Crazy: 33 Voices Start The Conversation About Mental Health - edited by me)

"The Thirteenth Step" (The Eternal Kiss: 13 Vampire Tales of Blood and Desire)

Sarah Rees Brennan

"Beauty and the Chad" (Grim)

"Faint Heart" (After: Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia)

"I Gave You My Love By The Light of the Moon" (Defy The Dark)

"Let's Get This Undead Show on the Road" (Enthralled: Paranormal Diversions)

"The Spy Who Never Grew Up" (Kiss Me Deadly: 13 Tales of Paranormal Love)

"Undead is Very Hot Right Now" (The Eternal Kiss: 13 Vampire Tales of Blood and Desire)

Kevin Brooks

Jennifer Brown

Rachel Caine

"All Hallows" (The Eternal Kiss: 13 Vampire Tales of Blood and Desire)

"Automatic" (Enthralled: Paranormal Diversions)

"Dead Man Stalking" (Immortal: Love Stories with Bite)

"Dogsbody" by Rachel Caine (Shards and Ashes)

"Drama Queen's Last Dance" (Eternal: More Love Stories with Bite)

Rae Carson

Ally Carter

Caela Carter

Kristin Cast

Cecil Castellucci

Soman Chainani

Elsie Chapman

Erica M. Chapman

Sona Charaipotra

Cherry Cheva

Preeti Chhibber

Roshani Chokshi

Rin Chupeco

"The Murders in the Rue Apartelle, Boracay" (His Hideous Heart)

Cassandra Clare

Kristin Elizabeth Clark

Dhonielle Clayton

J. Anderson Coats

Rachel Cohn

Brandy Colbert

"Good Luck and Farewell" (Summer Days and Summer Nights: Twelve Love Stories)

"Hurdles" (Three Sides of a Heart: Stories about Love Triangles)

"Oreo" (Black Enough: Stories of Being Young & Black in America)

"In Search of Sisterhood"(Here We Are: Feminism For The Real World edited by me)

"The Truth About Queenie" (Toil & Trouble: 15 Tales of Women & Witchcraft)

Ally Condie

Dave Connis

Zoraida Cordova

Eireann Corrigan

Katie Cotugno

Elizabeth Craft

Andrea Cremer

Jocelyn Davies

Melissa de la Cruz

"Code of Honor" (A Thousand Beginnings and Endings)

"The Magis Gifts" (Snow In Love)

"Shelter Island" (The Eternal Kiss: 13 Vampire Tales of Blood and Desire)

"A Six-pack of Bud, a Fifth of Whiskey, and Me" (21 Proms)

Charles de Lint

Heather Demetrios

Susan Dennard

Kimberly Derting

Cory Doctorow

Jaclyn Dolamore

Mayra Lazara Dole

Kathleen Duey

Jeanne DuPrau

Helen Dunbar

Corinne Duyvis

Daniel Ehrenhaft

Simon Elkeles

Zetta Elliot

Kate Ellison

Stephen Emond

Julie Eshbaugh

Sara Farizan

Becca Fitzpatrick

Huntley Fitzpatrick

Sharon G. Flake

Patrick Flores-Scott

Gayle Forman

Aimee Friedman

Neil Gaiman

Eric Gansworth

Kami Garcia

Sonia Gensler

Lauren Gibaldi

Shannon Gibney

Lamar Giles

"Black. Nerd. Problems" (Black Enough: Stories of Being Young & Black in America)

"The Historian, the Garrison, and the Cantankerous Cat Woman" (Three Sides of a Heart: Stories about Love Triangles)

"The Oval Filter" (His Hideous Heart)

Steven Gould

Michael Grant

Tessa Gratton

"Before She was Blood" (Three Sides of a Heart: Stories about Love Triangles)

"The King of Greenlight City" (Corsets & Clockwork: 13 Steampunk Romances)

"Night-Tide" (His Hideous Heart)

"This Was Ophelia"(Defy The Dark)

"Three Witches" (All Out: The No-Longer-Secret Stories of Queer Teens Throughout the Ages)

Claudia Gray

Bethany Hagen

Frances Hardinge

Kim Harrison

Brett Hartinger

Rachel Hawkins

Karen Healey

"Careful Magic" (Kaleidoscope: Diverse YA Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories)

Heidi Heilig

"The Long Road" ( Unbroken: 13 Stories Starring Disabled Teens)

"What We're Born With and What We Pick Up Along the Way" ((Don't) Call Me Crazy: 33 Voices Start The Conversation About Mental Health)

Leah Henderson

Christine Heppermann

"The Devil Inside" ((Don't) Call Me Crazy: 33 Voices Start The Conversation About Mental Health)

Faith Erin Hicks

Tanuja Desai Hidier

Amanda Hocking

Nancy Holder

"Changed" (Immortal: Love Stories with Bite)

"Letters to Romeo" (Eternal: More Love Stories with Bite)

"Pale Rider" (Shards and Ashes)

"Passing" with Debbie Viguie (The Eternal Kiss: 13 Vampire Tales of Blood and Desire)

Ellen Hopkins

Nalo Hopkinson

James Howe

"How Miracles Begin" (Behind The Song)

Shaun David Hutchinson

Justina Ireland

Tiffany D. Jackson

"It's Carnival!" (His Hideous Heart)

S. Jae-Jones

"Manic Pixie Dream Girl" ((Don't) Call Me Crazy: 33 Voices Start The Conversation About Mental Health)

Michelle Jaffe

Brian James

Book Riot Editor Kelly Jensen

"The Light Bulb, the Broom, and the Work They Don't Tell You about" ((Don't) Call Me Crazy: 33 Voices Start The Conversation About Mental Health)

"Owning My Feminism"(Here We Are: Feminism For The Real World)

Alaya Dawn Johnson

Christine Johnson

Maureen Johnson

Varian Johnson

E.K. Johnston

Susan Juby

"Flattened" ((Don't) Call Me Crazy: 33 Voices Start The Conversation About Mental Health)

Julie Kagawa

Rahul Kanakia

Sheba Karim

Michelle Ruiz Keil

Beth Kephart

"The Opposite of Ordinary" (Behind The Song)

Kody Keplinger

"Britt And The Bike God" Unbroken: 13 Stories Starring Disabled Teens)

"The Choice Is Yours" (Here We Are: Feminism For The Real World)

"Walking After Midnight" (All Out: The No-Longer-Secret Stories of Queer Teens throughout the Ages)

Caitlin R. Kiernan

Ellen Klages

Elizabeth Knox

Ron Koertge

Ron Koertge

"Baby" ( Teeth: Vampire Tales)

Jay Kristoff

Stephanie Kuehn

"Being Heard and Hating Sound" ((Don't) Call Me Crazy: 33 Voices Start The Conversation About Mental Health)

"Happy Days, Sweetheart" (His Hideous Heart)

Ellen Kushner

Nina LaCour

Margo Lanagan

Justine Larbalestier

James Lecesne

Mackenzi Lee

"Land of the Sweet, Home of the Brave" ( The Radical Element)

David Levithan

Elie Lichtenschein

Lesley Livingston

Emily Lloyd-Jones

"A Drop of Stolen Ink" (His Hideous Heart)

Malinda Lo

"Forever Feminist" (Here We Are: Feminism For The Real World)

"Ghost Town" (Defy The Dark)

"Good Girl" (Diverse Energies)

"New Year" (All Out: The No-Longer-Secret Stories of Queer Teens throughout the Ages)

"One True Love" (Foretold: 14 Tales of Prophecy and Prediction)

"The Twelfth Girl" (Grim)

Katherine Locke

Alex London

Katherine Longshore

Emery Lord

amanda lovelace

"The Raven (Remix)" (His Hideous Heart)

Elisa Ludwig

Chris Lynch

Jonathan Maberry

Karen Mahoney

Sangu Mandanna

Kekla Magoon

Melissa Marr

Zoe Marriott

Elizabeth May

Lish McBride

Sarah McCarry

"Girl Lessons" (Here We Are: Feminism For The Real World)

Patricia McCormick

Myra McEntire

Katharine McGee

Mindy McGinnis

L.L. McKinney

Anna-Marie McLemore

Lisa McMann

Richelle Mead

Tehlor Kay Mejia

Billy Merrell

Marissa Meyer

Stephenie Meyer

Elizabeth Miles

Kirsten Miller

Saundra Mitchell

Sarah Mlynowski

Goldy Moldavsky

Hillary Monahan

Kass Morgan

Lauren Morrill

Hannah Moskowitz

Julie Murphy

E.C. Myers

"City Girl" (Behind The Song)

"Kiss and Kiss and Kiss and Tell" (Kaleidoscope: Diverse YA Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories)

"The Land of the Morning Calm" (A Thousand Beginnings and Endings)

Lily Myers

"I Have Always Eaten The Bread" (Here We Are: Feminism For The Real World)

"Shrinking Women" (Here We Are: Feminism For The Real World)

Walter Dean Myers

Lauren Myracle

G. Neri

"Under Berlin" (Open Mic: Riffs on Life Between Cultures in Ten Voices)

Marieke Nijkamp

"A Handful of Ashes" (Under My Hat: Tales from the Cauldron)

"Happy Go Lucky"(Kaleidoscope: Diverse YA Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories)

"The Highest Justice" (Zombies Vs. Unicorns)

"Losing Her Divinity" (Rags & Bones: New Twists on Timeless Tales)

"Peace in Our Time" (Steampunk! An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories)

"The Quiet Knight" (Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd)

"Triangle Solo" (Three Sides of a Heart: Stories about Love Triangles)

"Vampire Weather" (Teeth: Vampire Tales)

"You Won't Feel a Thing" (After: Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia)

Alyson Noel

Naomi Novik

Naomi Shihab Nye

"Lexicon" (Open Mic: Riffs on Life Between Cultures in Ten Voices)

Sarah Ockler

Daniel José Older

Tochi Onyebuchi

Danielle Paige

Natalie C. Parker

Shannon Parker

Jackson Pearce

Mary E. Pearson

Susan Beth Pfeffer

Ashley Hope Pérez

"The 'Nice Girl' Feminist" (Here We Are: Feminism For The Real World)

Mitali Perkins

"Three Pointer" (Open Mic: Riffs on Life Between Cultures in Ten Voices)

Stephanie Perkins

Diana Peterfreund

Aprilynne Pike

Marcella Pixley

James Preller

Liz Prince

"So I Guess This Is Growing Up" (Here We Are: Feminism For The Real World)

Amy Reed

"Bless This Mess" ((Don't) Call Me Crazy: 33 Voices Start The Conversation About Mental Health)

Jason Reynolds

Karuna Riazi

Randy Ribay

Debbie Rigaud

"Voilà!" (Open Mic: Riffs on Life Between Cultures in Ten Voices)

Caroline Tung Richmond

William Ritter

Caleb Roehrig

"The Glittering Death" (His Hideous Heart)

Matthue Roth

Veronica Roth

Rainbow Rowell

Lance Rubin

Meredith Russo

Carrie Ryan

Aisha Saeed

Aminah Mae Safi

Sofia Samatar

"Walkdog" (Kaleidoscope: Diverse YA Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories)

Alex Sanchez

Lisa Ann Sandell

Kate Scelsa

Tiffany Schmidt

"Anyone Other Than Me" (Behind The Song)

Samantha Schutz

Victoria Schwab

Dana Schwartz

Michael Scott

Tarun Shanker

Tess Sharpe

Sara Shepard

Megan Shepherd

Delia Sherman

Adam Silvera

Laura Silverman

Jon Skovron

Jordan Sonnenblick

Cynthia Leitich Smith

Book Riot Contributor Eric Smith

Jennifer E. Smith

Lindsay Smith

Jeri Smith-Ready

Maria V Snyder

Rachel Lynn Solomon

Jessica Spotswood

Lili St. Crow

Courtney C. Stevens

Maggie Stiefvater

Margaret Stohl

Laurie Faria Stolarz

Nic Stone

Francisco X. Stork

Nova Ren Suma

"The Birds of Azalea Street" (Slasher Girls & Monster Boys)

"The One Who Stayed" (Toil & Trouble: 15 Tales of Women & Witchcraft)

"Reading Worthy Women" (Here We Are: Feminism For The Real World)

"Twelve Frames"(It's a Whole Spiel: Love, Latkes, and Other Jewish Stories)

Courtney Summers

Sabaa Tahir

Robin Talley

Liara Tamani

Sarvenaz Tash

Laini Taylor

McCormick Templeman

Shveta Thakrar

"Daughter of the Sun" (A Thousand Beginnings and Endings)

"Krishna Blue"(Kaleidoscope: Diverse YA Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories)

"The Moonapple Menagerie" (Toil & Trouble: 15 Tales of Women & Witchcraft)

"A Thousand Paper Cuts" (Here We Are: Feminism For The Real World)

Scott Tracey

April Genevieve Tucholke

Catherynne M. Valente

Carrie Vaughn

Jessica Verday

Debbie Viguie

Rachel Vincent

Siobhan Vivian

"Corny Won't Kill Your Cred: Rearview Mirror Reflections on Feminism and Romance" (Here We Are: Feminism For The Real World)

Ned Vizzini

Cecily Von Ziegesar

Adrienne Maria Vrettos

K.M. Walton

Lesley Walton

Daniel Waters

Kate Watson

Sarah Weeks

Elizabeth Wein

Kasie West

Scott Westerfield

Kayla Whaley

Kiersten White

Fran Wilde

"The Fall of the Bank of Usher" (His Hideous Heart)

Rita Williams

Sean Williams

"The Legend Trap" (Kaleidoscope: Diverse YA Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories)

Cat Winters

Ellen Wittlinger

Alyssa Wong

Chris Wooding

Jacqueline Woodson

Erika T. Wurth

"Dear Teen Me: It Would Have Changed Everything; It Would Have Changed Nothing" (Here We Are: Feminism For The Real World)

Kristine Wyllys

Wendy Xu

"The Princess and the Witch" (Here We Are: Feminism For The Real World)

Gene Luen Yang

"The Motherless One" (Up All Night)

"Paladin/Samurai" (Fresh Ink)

"Why I Won't Be Watching the Last Airbender Movie" (Open Mic: Riffs on Life Between Cultures in Ten Voices)

David Yoo

Nicola Yoon

Suzanne Young

Brenna Yovanoff

Kelly Zekas

Gabrielle Zevin

Michelle Zink

Markus Zusak

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The Ultimate Guide To YA Short Stories By Your Favorite YA Authors

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Back many moons ago on the Hey YA podcast, Eric said something about Stephenie Meyer having written a short story for an anthology back in the day and how readers who want more should go seek it out. That, in my brain, set off some gears.

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Who Am I?

​​My name is Stephanie Renee Toliver, and I am an assistant professor of Literacy and Secondary Humanities at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Informed by my love of science fiction and fantasy texts as well as my experience as a 9th and 10th grade English teacher, my scholarship centers the freedom dreams of Black youth and honors the historical legacy that Black imaginations have had and will have on activism and social change. Specifically, I focus on representations of and responses to Black youth in speculative fiction texts to discuss the implications of erasing Black children from futuristic and imaginative contexts and to assist teachers in imagining how classrooms can use speculative fiction as a means to center Black joy and Black dreams.

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Reading Black Futures: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror by Black authors

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​​My name is Stephanie Renee Toliver, and I am an assistant professor of Literacy and Secondary Humanities at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Informed by my love of science fiction and fantasy texts as well as my experience as a 9th and 10th grade English teacher, my scholarship centers the freedom dreams of Black youth and honors the historical legacy that Black imaginations have had and will have on activism and social change.

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The Schneider Family Book Awards honor an author or illustrator for a book that embodies an artistic expression of the disability experience for child and adolescent audiences.

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The store will not work correctly in the case when cookies are disabled.

JavaScript seems to be disabled in your browser. For the best experience on our site, be sure to turn on Javascript in your browser.

At REYCRAFT BOOKS our mission is to create books of interest for ALL children. We publish original and licensed works from authors and illustrators around the globe who have unique stories to tell.

Dear Reader,

I came to the United States as a child. I can remember the sense of alienation during those early days in my new country, in a new school. I remember turning to books, searching for characters that looked like me, characters that mirrored my feelings and experiences. I remember not finding any. Those memories are at the heart of Reycraft Books.

I believe every child needs to know that their story is important-that it has value. I decided to start an imprint to publish the stories that have not yet been told, as well as the stories that have been told but have not yet been truly heard. This is my mission and my passion.

I am very proud to present to you the inaugural list from Reycraft Books-an incredible collection of beautiful fiction and nonfiction trade books with a focus on diversity. As you browse through these pages you'll find familiar, award-winning authors and illustrators and a host of inspiring new talent, each bringing their unique vision and perspective. Please let me know what you think.

- Sera Reycraft, Publisher

2020 SPUR Award Winner

Western Writers of America: 2020 Best Western Juvenile Nonfiction

Founded in 1953, Western Writers of America annually honors distinguished writing about the American West.

2019 AICL Best Books Winner

American Indians in Children's Literature

Established in 2006, AICL provides critical analysis of Indigenous peoples in children's and young adult books.

Devotion to Diversity in Children's Book Publishing

Reycraft Books Publisher Sera Reycraft speaks to School Library Journal about her calling to reach every child.

Read the Interview Here

Sera Reycraft

Publisher

Korean born, Sera knows firsthand the struggles of an immigrant child in a strange land, looking to find herself reflected in the world around her. A trained architect, Sera has brought her eye for design and function to create high-quality, visually impactful, and innovative books for children that honor and respect their community, and help them build essential literacy and language skills.

Eileen Robinson

Eileen Robinson has worked with children's writers all over the world for more than twenty years. Former Executive Editor at Scholastic and Editorial Director at Harcourt, she has acquired published works from the U.K. and Italy, and created original works for U.S. markets. She teaches the art of revision through Highlights and workshops, and is an adjunct academic advisor for Rosemont College's publishing program.

Sunita Apte

Sunita is the half-Indian, half-Hungarian child of immigrants. She has lived and traveled in Asia, Europe, South America, and Africa. Born and raised in the southern United States, she grew up never seeing herself reflected in the books she read. To help rectify this state of affairs, she has spent thirty years in publishing working to create inclusive, compelling material for children and young adults.

Wiley Blevins

Wiley has lived throughout the United States, South America, and the Middle East. He has also worked extensively in Asia. As an author, former Editorial Director at Scholastic and McGraw-Hill, and early reading specialist, he brings three decades of experience in creating books for young readers.

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Authentic Stories and Illustrations Reflecting the Voice and Vision of Children

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At REYCRAFT BOOKS our mission is to create books of interest for ALL children, with a special focus on #OwnVoices books. We publish original and licensed works from authors and illustrators around the globe who have unique stories to tell.

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The Stonewall Book Awards are presented to English language books that have exceptional merit relating to the gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender experience.

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Stonewall Book Awards - Mike Morgan & Larry Romans Children's & Young Adult Literature Award

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About the Stonewall Book Awards - Mike Morgan & Larry Romans Children's & Young Adult Literature Award TheStonewall Book Awardsare presented to English language books that have exceptional merit relating to the gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender experience.

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The Alex Awards are given to ten books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults, ages 12 through 18. The winning titles are selected from the previous year's publishing.

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About the Alex Awards

The Alex Awards are given to ten books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults, ages 12 through 18. The winning titles are selected from the previous year's publishing.

The Alex Awards were first given annually beginning in 1998. The titles were selected by the YALSA Adult Books for Young Adults Task Force from the previous year's publishing and were part of the Adult Books for Young Adults Project, which explored the role of adult books in the reading lives of teenagers and was funded by the Margaret Alexander Edwards Trust. Edwards was a young adult specialist for many years at the Enoch Pratt Library in Baltimore. Her work is described in her book Fair Garden and the Swarm of Beasts, and over the years she has served as an inspiration to librarians who serve young adults. With the approval of the Trust, the task force appointed to develop and implement the project named the awards the Alex Awards after Edwards, who was called "Alex" by her friends.

The task force decided to select ten titles annually, and also decided to select a top ten list rather than a single title or a long list because of the popularity of the concept and because it parallels the Top Ten titles selected by the Best Books for Young Adults and Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers committees. The task force members also believed that selecting more than one book provided a greater variety of titles, whereas a longer list would be less selective than desired. A top ten list also allows for a more balanced list-fiction and nonfiction, as well as various genres. The task force also wanted to make diversity a priority in the lists.

In 2002 the Alex Awards were approved as an official ALA award, and the Task Force was superseded by the Alex Awards Committee.

The major sponsor of the Alex Awards continues to be the Margaret Alexander Edwards Trust. Booklist is also a sponsor.

Administered by:

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About the Alex Awards The Alex Awards are given to ten books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults, ages 12 through 18. The winning titles are selected from the previous year's publishing. The Alex Awards were first given annually beginning in 1998.

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The Batchelder Award is awarded to a United States publisher for a children’s book considered to be the most outstanding of those books originating in a country other than the United States and in a language other than English and subsequently translated into English for publication in the United States during the preceding year.

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"The Distance between Me and the Cherry Tree", published by Atheneum Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing, written by Paola Peretti, illustrated by Carolina Rabei and translated from the Italian by Denise Muir. Originally published in 2018 as "La distanza tra me e il ciliegio."

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"The Distance between Me and the Cherry Tree", published by Atheneum Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing, written by Paola Peretti, illustrated by Carolina Rabei and translated from the Italian by Denise Muir. Originally published in 2018 as "La distanza tra me e il ciliegio."

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"I often wonder what I'd do if there weren't any books in the world."
― James Baldwin, Giovanni's Room

A few weeks ago I was thinking about how writers of color are almost never asked to speak about craft, and instead are always is asked to talk about race, identity, and the immigrant experience. And it's true - when I think about all the books on writing craft I've read or heard about over the years I'm struck by how few POC-authored books on writing I've seen. Are they really that rare? Or are the books and essays out there, but we don't know where to find them?

In some respects, this is really another part of a longer discussion around the violence and erasure of POC experiences and writing in many contemporary MFA writing workshops. The 2014 article " MFA vs POC" in The New Yorker brought into the public forum many of the frustrations and issues that writers of color have come to know as part of the MFA experience. For many, the MFA workshop is too often a space that privileges and celebrates a white and often male perspective, while silencing other voices. In what is often a profoundly white space, the student writer of color is often asked to conform to a standard rooted in white experience, or else asked to perform as a token or a race ambassador, or to write toward expected race narratives for the sake of "believability" as judged by their predominantly white peers. In such settings, feedback tends to be grounded in the assumption that the "reader" is white and imply that their appetites and approval require particular handling, placating, or self-mutilation to appease. This article led to a number of responses from well-known writers of color as well as current and former creative writing workshop students who had witnessed or experienced similar things. The end of this article features a collection of some of these responses.

At the heart of the MFA vs POC discussion is the contention that any discussion of craft does not take place in a vacuum -- that race is part of one's lived experience and how we see ourselves and are seen does impact how and what we write. Much of what is taught, for example, about craft in a writing workshop presumes the primacy of a Western European aesthetic tradition, ignoring 1) that tradition's historical debts to other cultures and traditions; 2) the multiple aesthetic traditions in literature and the arts elsewhere in the world which were concurrent or preceded the European tradition; 3) the complexity and fluidity of cultural exchange happening presently -- that we live in a global society where our literature and art should more accurately reflect the reality of our communities, not look back nostalgically to a whitewashed world that never was.

So how do we move forward? A key step is becoming better educated about what is and isn't out there already. If we wish to be more cognizant of the ways race and craft intertwine as we interrogate assumptions about canon, aesthetic tradition, and the workshop, then we need to read and study the existing archive (which, though often invisible inside a typical workshop, nonetheless exists) -- and if we find some things are missing, we should call attention to the gaps and (if possible) work toward filling them.

The following list is an expansion of a post I started on my own blog to catalog what writing resources are out there that have been written, edited, or presented by other writers of color (if you are aware of other texts, essays, and resources that should be listed, please post in the comments and I'll add them in).

Last updated: 21 Nov 2021

Disclaimer: A few years after the original "MFA vs POC" article was published, numerous accounts surfaced of its author's sexual harassment of young women (particularly young POC women writers). De-Canon does not condone sexual harassment or assault in any form. We have stricken his name and quotes from this above article, but are preserving the link to the article below for historical purposes - as many writers (unaware of his conduct) did respond to his article and the subsequent conversation can be understood better in context.

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Writers of Color Discussing Craft - An Invisible Archive - De-Canon

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"I often wonder what I'd do if there weren't any books in the world."

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Across the country, a coordinated disinformation campaign is being waged against history, against the books our kids read, and how they learn

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Home

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Melanin in YA was created as a resource for all things Black in traditional Young Adult publishing. The mission for Melanin in YA is to provide a hub of information to amplify and invest in Black voices, making this a no excuses database in the YA space.

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Your resource for all things Black in YA

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Like many foolhardy ideas, The Book Smugglers was born of a time of great adversity. Faced with threats concerning the overwhelming volume of books purchased on a daily basis, Ana Grilo and Thea James resorted to “smuggling” books home in huge handbags to avoid scrutiny. In 2008, the devious duo founded The Book Smugglers, a blog dedicated to speculative and genre fiction for all ages.

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The Book Smugglers | Smuggling Since 2007 | Reviewing SF & YA since 2008

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A book review blog specializing in speculative fiction and popgeekery for all ages since 2008

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If you love books, especially those written for children and young adults, then you are an honorary member of The Nerdy Book Club. Like us, you probably always have a book along to read, a title to recommend, and time to talk about works held dear.

This online space was designed to give us a home to share that love of reading with others as well as to organize voting and announcing winners of our First Annual Nerdies Book Awards.

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Move Books’ vision is to grow and sustain boys’ appetite for reading—to move them to read for the long term.

Our mission is to cultivate a generation of boys who are recreational readers, who will choose their own books and don’t have to be led. We want boys to be compelled and inspired to read on their own because the stories and experiences mean something to them. We want to change the way boys look at reading.

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Move Books mission is to move more young boys to read. To do that, we work with amazing authors that write about the topics that boys love!

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Welcome to BookDragon, filled with titles for the diverse reader. BookDragon is a new media initiative of the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center (APAC), and serves as a forum for those interested in learning more about the Asian Pacific American experience through literature.

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Welcome to BookDragon, filled with titles for the multi-culti reader. BookDragon is a new media initiative of the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center (APAC), and serves as a forum for those interested in learning more about the Asian Pacific American experience through literature.

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Hello! My name is Tara and I am (former) middle school teacher and school librarian. Currently, I am a doctoral student in education at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I love YA literature so much that I’ve devoted much of my research to writing and presenting on books for young people. My dissertation focused on how young people use BookTube as a site of literacy learning.

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The Librarian Who Doesn't Say Shhh! - Opening books to open minds.

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** Last Post 2018**

Disability in Kidlit is dedicated to discussing the portrayal of disability in middle grade and young adult literature. We publish articles, reviews, interviews, and discussions examining this topic from various angles — and always from the disabled perspective.

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Disability in Kidlit - Reviews, articles, and more about the portrayal of disabilities in children's fiction

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Despite some reservations, our reviewer would recommend this contemporary novel about young Bat - and the reviewer's ten-year-old goddaughter agrees.

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This website seeks to be a comprehensive list of all LGBTQIAP+ YA titles published between 2000 and 2020. It includes all major and indie US presses and selective self-published material. This website is not meant to act as a list of book recommendations, although we provide best of lists for those who seek recommendations.

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This website seeks to be a comprehensive list of all LGBTQIAP+ YA titles published between 2000 and 2020. It includes all major and indie US presses and selective self-published material. This website is not meant to act as a list of book recommendations, although we provide best of lists for those who seek recommendations. These lists were commissioned from experts who share that identity and feature what they felt were the best representations that specific set of identities.

When looking at the filters you may notice that there are fewer published books for certain types of representation, especially books representing characters with multiple marginalized identities, for example queer people of color, queer Muslims, queer people with disabilities and more. We hope that seeing the reality of these numbers encourages publishers to seek out and publish more titles that represent the intersections of marginalized identities, especially when those titles are #ownvoices. If you have titles for us to add, please contact us!

Please check out our updates and changes page to see what we are working on and how we have progressed.

Thanks for stopping by!

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This website seeks to be a comprehensive list of all LGBTQIAP+ YA titles published between 2000 and 2020. It includes all major and indie US presses and selective self-published material. This website is not meant to act as a list of book recommendations, although we provide best of lists for those who seek recommendations.

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The Holocaust Kidlit database seeks to inventory titles published in the United States and Canada from 2002 until the present. It does not include series titles from educational publishers.

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The Holocaust Kidlit database seeks to inventory titles published in the United States and Canada from 2002 until the present. It does not include series titles from educational publishers. By using the search box below, you can search the following fields:

Author

Illustrator

Title

Place of publication (US or Canada)

Publisher

Year of publication

Genre

Age group

Kimmel category

Geographical scope

Results will also eventually show:

Synopsis

Association of Jewish Libraries Sydney Taylor Award or Jewish Book Council National Jewish Book Award

Reviews, where available online

Book cover

This database is a work in progress and should not be considered an inventory.

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The Holocaust Kidlit database seeks to inventory titles published in the United States and Canada from 2002 until the present. It does not include series titles from educational publishers.

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My name is Angie Manfredi: I’m fat and I read books.  Most of the books I read are written for children and teens.  This site was created to give me a forum to not only discuss trends and topics in library services and literature but to critically review the messages and quality of books and media geared to teenagers that deal with issues of weight and body/size acceptance.

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Re-Vamping Summer Reading, Part Three: Super-Action Play Packs
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It is the eternal question of youth services in a public library. What the heck do we do about the darn summer reading prizes? How do we stop kids from cheating? WHY are we even giving prizes? Why do we have so much plastic crap? How can we get kids interested in the program without incentives? How do we stop parents from cheating?

Yes, if you do youth services in a public library of any size, you have asked yourself these questions over and over. And I truly believe there is no one answer. More than that: I truly believe that you can keep trying and finding new answers and tweaking it. You are NOT locked into "that's what we've always done" or "people will hate the change!" Will it be hard at first? Will there be bumps? Will you get a few complaints? Sure - maybe. But for one: that's no reason not to make a change. For another, believe me, for the most part people are just happy to have a fun, free program to participate in with their kids and kids LOVE new stuff.

We've been making tweaks over the past few years as I strove to move our program away from the curse of CHEAP PLASTIC CRAP that instantly breaks, costs too much money, and has never motivated a single kid to read one single thing. Because of this, I like to think about our program as a work in progress. This has really helped ease my anxiety about things: we can try things out! We can learn! We can change!

We still use paper logs. I think this needs to be addressed up front. We just don't have a high enough population or summer participation to warrant the cost right now of switching over to software that keeps logs and tracking online. I hope that in years to come, this software will become cheaper (and, errr, a little easier to use) and we can switch over, but for now we're still using paper tracking.

In 2015 we made our most radical overall yet: changing the entire program to incorporate MORE than just reading. I had been wanting to make this move for some time and I finally realized it was time to take the jump. I want to thank all the librarians who have shared their MORE THAN READING programs, not only did it give me an outline of what I wanted, it gave me the courage to make the change. You should start with their amazing, wonderful blogs, as I used them as inspiration'templates.

Summer LIBRARY Club from Library Bonaza

Summer Prizes - Goodbye! from Tiny Tips for Library Fun

Summer Reading Booklets from Hafuboti

I loved all the elements I saw there (and in other places) but I realized I had two major problems that had kept me from trying to make these shifts. I think if you live in a smaller town, you might have similar problems.

We don't have anything like a minor league baseball team or a water park or anything I have seen as a giant "experience" incentive in other programs.

My library is part of the county government and, as of now, we've run into many bureaucracy problems about getting local coupons and discounts. There's just SO MUCH red tape about it. Sigh. And many of these programs use these coupon books as a key component and incentive.

But then I realized instead of thinking about the things we DIDN'T have to build a new program based on experiences and not just checking off "I read ____ minutes" boxes, I should look at what we DID have and build around that.

We have a generous Friends organization! So I bought a lot of cool, new, high interest books from Scholastic FACE to give away as prizes - and we set up one of our program rooms as a bookstore for the kids. (Sadly, our town doesn't have a bookstore anymore, so kids might not always get the chance to have the delight of browsing a bookstore. But one fun thing we could do was create a similar experience.

We have the Aquatic Center - and they not only part of the county but part of our same division. They love to cooperate with us by giving us children's passes as a way to encourage whole families or groups to come.

I figured I could use those to create something that would work for our library and our community. The next step was setting some goals for what I wanted to new program to achieve and WHY. I think that's very important before you begin ANY program revamp. It gives you focus and drive.

Our NEW summer goals:

Make the program include more than just reading - but keep reading a key element.

Add in something for actually showing up to the library. We want to get people in doors and at programs - so why not have the program reflect that?

Have it easy to adjust to individual needs, i.e. make it as customizable as possible.

To me, one thing that would address all of these goals was to ADD LEVELS . That had elements of gamifcation on a level I liked. In this new configuration, patrons could choose to participate as they wanted. They could try to finish ALL the levels to earn a trip to our "bookstore" and pick out a free book (they also got a plastic bookbag and some scented bookmarks) or they could just finish one level and get the prize for that level.

At this point, two great things happened - we had Rebecca's amazing superhero art to use and we had awesome in-house design skills. Kate is a former full-time librarian at our library in both circulation and reference but she went to on-call/substitute status when she had her baby. She's AMAZING at design. (you can find her Teachers Pay Teachers page here - she's just launching so you'll want to follow her NOW.) She took all of my half-formed ideas and created something totally cool. Why don't we take a look??!

Worth noting:

Instead of NUMBERING the goals (W hat order do we do these in? Can I start on #3 before I finish #2??) we named them after fictional superhero/ine locations. (and heck yeah we used Themyscira, the island Wonder Woman is from.)

For many years our paper logs were 8 x 11.5 sheets of paper - we folded these so they made small "booklets" with SpiderKid on the front. This made it feel more like a game piece and more personal "that one is MINE!" over just a sheet of paper. And it let us tie the passport theme with the locations.

The reading goal prize for kids is "A Super-Action PlayPack." What's that, you ask? Here's the post all about Super-Action PlayPacks!

Kids and parents LOVED the booklets. I talked in my first post about re-vamping the program about how we added sticker collages to reflect weekly visits - these were tied to the passports. They got a stamp in their booklet under the Asgard goal and then went and put their sticker up. This was practically prize enough and kids LOVED collecting the stamps. BUT we still gave away "small prizes." I think this is a way you can bridge "but how will we survive without any prizes? Patrons will complain!" with "Ugh, no more useless junk."

It can be transitional OR you can change what you give-away as "small prizes." One of our greatest changes was letting go of stuff like sticky hands, slinkies, plastic animals and the like and moving to things we can feel OK with as "small prizes." That means bookmarks, pencils, stickers, and erasers. That's IT. Things that can be of use to children, things that are connect to the library. No more junk!

The Asgard goal meant: get a stamp in your passport, put a sticker up on the weekly collage, and get whatever the small prize of the week was. (another big help was rotating the weekly prize and keeping it to just one thing per week.) You needed to do that at least five times to complete Asgard.

Also helpful: setting specific times for the "store" to be open. We gave everyone a whole month to come shop and the opening day wasn't until after the first month of summer activities had passed.

We wanted to do something very similar for the teens. So, again using Rebecca's art and Kate's design skills we made them DOSSIERS instead of passports. (Shout-out to a log shared by Andrea Scherer in Storytime Underground, we modified that to get our superhero/ine symbols for the reading objective.)

You'll notice that we just had a few tweaks but kept the format very similar. But we used different words: objectives instead of goals, dossier instead of passport. Teens earned the same things: passes to the Aquatic Center, a free book, and small weekly prizes for visiting the library. Their weekly prizes were erasers, earbuds, bookmarks, and puzzle cubes, and lanyards. (my gosh they loved those stupid lanyards!) They also got a big "end of summer" treat - finish all the goals and they could come to our after hours lock-in.

Teens definitely had a harder time managing to remember to bring the log - which is of course a consistent problem for teens. I know that's something we have to work on and for this summer,. I'm definitely considering keeping ALL the teen's paperwork AT the library. It might be worth it.

And yes, we had an early literacy component too! Previously, our early literacy element was for 0-5 but I could definitely feel parents (and even the kids) of 4-5 year olds being restless. It felt much more natural to set the literacy goals for 0-3 instead. They worked with the board all summer (we let them put up stickers on the attendance collage too because hey, why not! Another fun way to make them feel included) and got a bag full of early literacy goodies when it was done: a song book or board book, a pass to the Aquatic Center, some crayons and paper, a bib, and some bubbles.

Overall: we definitely learned some lessons! We needed to be more precise in our wording in places. We struggled, as always, with kids and parents losing their logs. But guess what? No one complained about how it "used to be." No one wanted the junky prizes back. Yes, some people wanted to be out of town all summer and still participate and we explained that they were welcome to do that and still get two levels of prizes. That was an actually justifiable answer, when it came right down to it, even if it wasn't always the one they wanted to hear.

I think we turned the program into a true Summer Library Club, not just a reading program of checking off minutes and getting tiny whats-its for every box. And we have more work to do - but now it all feels so much more possible.

How have YOU changed and re-imagined your summer "reading" program? What do your patrons respond to? How do you manage lost logs if you still use paper - do you have a brilliant solution I'm missing? What fun things have you done to re-imagine what your program can be for your community? Do you have any questions I didn't answer here? Let me know about it all here in the comments or chat with me on Twitter!

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Re-Vamping Summer Reading, Part Three: Super-Action Play Packs --- It is the eternal question of youth services in a public library. What the heck do we do about the darn summer reading prizes? How do we stop kids from cheating? WHY are we even giving prizes? Why do we have so much plastic crap?

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Africa Access, a 501 c (3) organization was founded in 1989 to help schools, public libraries, and parents improve the quality of their K-12 collections on Africa.

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Expanding Perspectives on Africa Book by Book

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Click on the covers below or enter the title of the book into the SEARCH FUNCTION. You are invited to: Add your comments and ratings for a book.

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Confession: we love books more than people. We read hundreds of books a month, when we should be working, socializing or doing grown up things like the dishes. We buy all the new releases in young adult and new adult fiction, but are open to reading books in other genres.

We desperately want to fall in love with new characters, plots and worlds. We adore fresh magical systems, supernatural powers, and teenage protagonists finding themselves while facing impossible odds. But we are also critical readers. We like exceptional writing and story-telling, which means our reviews are fair, but critical when necessary.

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Fantasy, Paranormal, Paranormal Romance, Urban Fantasy, YA/NA

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Fantasy, Paranormal, Paranormal Romance, Urban Fantasy, YA/NA

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Apocalyptic, Fantasy, Paranormal

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Best Books List, Fairytale Retellings, Fantasy, YA/NA

Best Books List, Contemporary, Dystopian, Fantasy, YA Fandom, YA/NA

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Uncategorized Fantasy, Paranormal, Paranormal Romance, Urban Fantasy, YA/NA Fantasy, mermaids, Paranormal Romance Fantasy, Paranormal, Paranormal Romance, Urban Fantasy, YA/NA Dystopian, Thriller Apocalyptic, Fantasy, Paranormal Uncategorized Best Books List, Fairytale Retellings, Fantasy, YA/NA Best Books List, Contemporary, Dystopian, Fantasy, YA Fandom, YA/NA

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De Colores: The Raza Experience in Books for Children

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De Colores: The Raza Experience in Books for Children

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Modeled after the award-winning A Broken Flute: The Native Experience in Books for Children (which I had the honor of co-editing), De Colores reviews and critiques children's and young adult books about Raza peoples throughout the Diaspora. This blog contains critical reviews, poems, “living stories,” and essays setting the work in cultural, historical, and contemporary contexts. Some of these essays emphasize the effect of “multiculturalism” on primary and secondary education and its impact on Raza young people and communities.

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De Colores: The Raza Experience in Books for Children

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Celebrate Halloween by reading some YA horror books, recommended by your friends from Tor Teen and Nightfire!

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We are a network of book professionals committed to supporting and increasing the number of Latino/a/x in the publishing industry, as well as promoting literature by, for, and about Latino/a/x people.

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Antonio wants to avoid thinking about his sister―even though he knows he won't be able to avoid thinking about his sister―because his sister is on the run after allegedly threatening to shoot her neighbors, and has been claiming that Antonio, Obama, the Pentagon, and their mother are all conspiring against her.

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Brittle Paper is an online literary magazine for readers of African Literature. We are Africa’s premier online literary brand inspiring readers to explore and celebrate African literary experiences in all its diversity.

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MahoganyBooks is an online bookstore that believes in social entrepreneurship. We take a leadership role in the African American community promoting reading, writing, and cultural awareness as tools to improve communities as well as enrich the lives of motivated individuals.

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Black History Makers: Happy Birthday James Baldwin Black History Makers

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Afoma Umesi is home to a large directory of book reviews and book lists. While the blog focuses mainly on middle-grade books, you will also find a carefully curated selection of picture book reviews, chapter book reviews, young adult book reviews, and adult fiction and non-fiction reviews.

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Afoma Umesi is home to a large directory of book reviews and book lists. While the blog focuses mainly on middle-grade books, you will also find a carefully curated selection of picture book reviews, chapter book reviews, young adult book reviews, and adult fiction and non-fiction reviews.

Beyond that, you can expect to find book lists packed with diverse, engaging recommendations. Book lists also span across the same categories: picture books, chapter books, middle-grade, young adult, and adult. Because we care about all things bookish, we also feature regular interviews with authors whose books we have enjoyed.

Finally, this blog also contains useful freelancing resources especially targeted to freelancers who use freelancing platforms like Upwork.

Or just head straight to my blog here.

YA books about sports aren't the most common, but for some reason, I keep running into them -- and I don't even like sports! However, I've found some of my favorite protagonists in these books, as well as many sports I never really thought of teens playing in high school. That's why I decided to make this list. In this list of YA books about sports, you'll meet characters who do everything from rowing to playing hockey. You'll also find a gymnast, several basketball players, a sumo wrestler, soccer players, and many more.

Some backlist middle-grade books don't get as much love as they deserve. Typically, once the pub day frenzy is past, these titles get forgotten, almost like their worth depends on their publication date! None of that around here. For my list, I'll be focusing on books published at least one full year prior. Pstt, many backlist titles are often less expensive than new releases (which you should definitely still purchase if you can) and readily available at your libraries. Here are 15 older middle-grade titles I'm hoping to read soon.

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Middle-Grade and Young Adult Book Blog by Afoma Umesi

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Afoma Umesi is home to a large directory of book reviews and book lists. While the blog focuses mainly on middle-grade books , you will also find a carefully curated selection of picture book reviews, chapter book reviews, young adult book reviews, and adult fiction and non-fiction reviews.

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Teaching Tolerance provides free resources to educators—teachers, administrators, counselors and other practitioners—who work with children from kindergarten through high school. Educators use our materials to supplement the curriculum, to inform their practices, and to create civil and inclusive school communities where children are respected, valued and welcome participants.

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Understanding how school discipline policies can contribute to the school-to-prison pipeline is essential for educators and families. Harsh punishments, automatic out-of-class time and police involvement for discipline can push young people out of classrooms and into the criminal legal system. But educators, parents and caregivers can help to change this harmful system by advocating for and implementing practices that prioritize mental health and well-being.

We offer this new resource page that highlights LFJ articles and content to open dialogue, shift practices and foster change to benefit all young people.

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Learning for Justice | Education Resources

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Learning for Justice provides free resources to educators-teachers, administrators, counselors and other practitioners-who work with children from kindergarten through high school. Educators use our materials to supplement the curriculum, to inform their practices, and to create civil and inclusive school communities where children are respected, valued and welcome participants.

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Teaching for Change provides teachers and parents with the tools to create schools where students learn to read, write, and change the world.

By drawing direct connections to real world issues, Teaching for Change encourages teachers and students to question and re-think the world inside and outside their classrooms, build a more equitable, multicultural society, and become active global citizens.

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Teaching for Change - Building social justice starting in the classroom

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Teaching for Change provides teachers and parents with the tools to create schools where students learn to read, write and change the world. By drawing direct connections to real world issues, Teaching for Change encourages teachers and students to question and re-think the world inside and outside their classrooms, build a more equitable, multicultural society, and become active global citizens.

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*Stopped Posting in 2015, but still good resources*

Diversity in YA was founded in 2011 by authors Cindy Pon and Malinda Lo as a website and book tour. While the tour is over, we revived the website on Tumblr in February 2013, and we relaunched DiversityinYA.com in January 2014.

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LGBTQ Reads is a site dedicated to promoting curated LGBTQIAP+ literature for all ages, run by author and blogger Dahlia Adler.

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Today on the site, I'm welcoming Chrissy Holm, author of the new memoir Finding Sunlight, to discuss find herself and her bisexuality after being raised in purity culture. Here's a little more on the book:

In the inspirational coming-of-age memoir Finding Sunlight (Wise Ink, September 2023), Chrissy Holm separates the pressures of purity culture from all the possibilities of meaningful love. Homeschooled at church and raised by a devout father, Chrissy suppressed her bisexuality and followed all the teachings of purity culture. But when she turned sixteen, her parent's divorce flipped the script. Devastated and unsure of her values, Chrissy embarked on a long journey, often making mistakes, until she figured out just exactly who she is and what she believes in. Raw and hopeful, this liberating memoir is an intimate look at figuring out how to forgive-and love-after purity culture.
Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon
Imagine soaring in the sky on a hot air balloon ride with an ex-boyfriend, wondering if you should've married him while also being interested in pursuing someone else. You feel like you know what you're doing, yet floating up there, you feel unstable and unable to get down. For me, that state of confusion-while thousands of feet in the air-stemmed from purity culture. When I was a kid in the '90s and early '00s, I learned from my church that dating was only intended for marriage. That I needed to "remain pure" and abstain from sex before marriage. As a woman, it meant succumbing to traditional gender roles and submitting to men. And it meant that it was a sin to love anyone of the same sex.

But I knew deep down, after a game of truth or dare with one of my friends who was a girl, that this meant I also had to hide my sexuality and desires. As I continued life, I was homeschooled at my church and learned more about "God's will" and how I could abide by it. Flash forward a few years when I attended a purity conference with my mom and sisters, where speakers talked about making decisions about relationships and sexual health. They encouraged us to maintain purity, especially in a world that promotes sexual promiscuity. One speaker in particular focused on how she became a grandmother at age thirty-six and blamed it on generations of sex before marriage. Though romantic relationships were forbidden in my house until I was sixteen, I still sought out connections with boys. And with every relationship I entered, I had to imagine it was my intention to marry them, even at a young age. I also needed to satisfy them and address their needs, as mine came last. And yet, when I had moments of attraction to women sprinkled throughout my teenage years, I had to hide in shame in hopes that no one would discover my secret. If I forced myself not to think about it, I would be safe, and God wouldn't send me to Hell. When I turned fifteen, I dated someone who I eventually lost my virginity to. Instantly, I felt shame, guilt, and like I had failed as a Christian. I was going to Hell, and nothing would save me - not even Jesus, whom I had accepted into my heart when I was six. At seventeen and eighteen, I kissed two girls, and those small moments allowed me to slowly unbury that part of who I was, though it would take many more years to express it out loud. More clarity would start to arrive as I headed to college a few months after breaking up with my boyfriend and the hot air balloon ride. At school, I learned the differences between sex and gender. I learned about gender roles, societal expectations, and sexuality. During lectures about cohabitation, my throat would close, and my stomach would churn, but I realized that it was okay to live together and be in a sexual relationship without being married. It was the first time I had accepted and understood that. In my college relationships, each moment I embraced sex or intimacy before marriage, I still felt in the pit of my gut telling me it was wrong. But yet, I kept learning and continued embracing my desires. The second night I met my now-husband, we had sex. I had come a long way beyond shame and confusion, and for the first time in my adult life, I felt empowered. Over the next several years, I learned more about well-being, spirituality, and sexuality. I prioritized my health, set boundaries, sought therapy, and found ways to practice self-compassion. I spent time in nature, hiked, and connected with people who understood the harm of restrictive religion.

On one of those long hiking trips, one person inspired me to dedicate myself to writing a book, a passion of mine since I was little. Over the following five years, my memoir became a space to heal and reflect on these aspects of my life - sex, love, purity, religion, sexuality, and more. And though I stepped away from the church, I built a community and found acceptance and empowerment in who I am. I finally had the courage to share and no longer hide my queer identity. While there still may be flashes of shame and guilt that sit in my body, it's finally freeing to know that I can connect the dots and understand where that's coming from. It's liberating to know that I can feel stable, get down from that hot air balloon ride, and ground myself with greater clarity.

***

Chrissy Holm (she/they) is a writer, editor, and project manager. She is the host of the podcast Stirred By Words, where she interviews guests and discusses words, writing, and wellness. Her writing has been featured on Everyday Health, National Council on Aging, and more. She is an alumni at the University of Minnesota, Duluth, where she studied Public Health Education and Promotion. Chrissy lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota with her husband and daughter.

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Queering up your shelf, one rec at a time!

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POC Protagonists in Fantasy and Science Fiction

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POC Protagonists in Fantasy and Science Fiction

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This list is basically a compilation of books the author has read plus books their meaning to read at some point in the future.

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This list is basically a compilation of books I've read plus books I'm meaning to read at some point in the future. If you have a suggestion feel free to post in the comments section (and if you want even more books be sure to look at the comments!) Or if you've happened to come across any other articles, I would be happy to add them to the resources list.

Also, check the tag "Diversiverse" for books by authors of color.

I have not read all the titles on these lists. The ones I've reviewed are linked to.
Speculative Fiction with Asian Protagonists

Fantasy

by Fonda Lee is a fantasy novel with an East Asian culture and technology equivalent to the mid 1900's. Also, martial arts and mafia. #ownvoices

The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang is a dark epic fantasy novel inspired by the Sino-Japanese War. #ownvoices

The Red Threads of Fortune by JY Yang is a queer, fantasy novella. #ownvoices

Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho is a fantasy of manners set in Regency-era England. The female lead is Indian and mixed race. The sequel, The True Queen, follows a Malaysian witch and her sister. #ownvoices

Empire of Sand by Tasha Suri is an epic fantasy novel inspired by Mughal India. #ownvoices

Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit is a fantasy story which is set in Japan. After being a huge hit there, it has now been translated into English. #ownvoices

In the Vanishers' Palace by Aliette de Bodard is a f/f retelling of "The Beauty and the Beast" with a setting inspired by Vietnam. #ownvoices

The House of Shattered Wings by Aliette de Bodard is set among the magical ruins of Paris. One of the three POV characters is a Vietnamese man. #ownvoices

The Devouers by Indra Das is a literary fantasy novel about monstrous shapeshifters in India. #ownvoices

Heroine Complex by Sarah Kuhn is a light-hearted story about two Asian American superheroines. #ownvoices

The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is a retelling of the Mahabharat, focusing on Panchaali. #ownvoices

The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo is a historical fantasy set in 1800s Malaya. #ownvoices

The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo is a historical fantasy set in early 1900s Malaya. #ownvoices

Rupert Wong Cannibal Chef by Cassandra Khaw follows a Malaysian chef who cooks for cannibals and supernatural beings. #ownvoices

The Archer Who Shot Down Suns by Benjanun Sriduangkaew is a short story anthology of Chinese mythology retellings. #ownvoices

The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu is an epic fantasy based on Chinese history. #ownvoices

The Goddess Chronicle by Natsuo Kirino is a retelling of Japanese mythology. #ownvoices

Full Fathom Five by Max Gladstone has an Pacific Islander transwoman priestess and black teenage girl as its protagonists.

City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett is a about a high ranking intelligence officer who is investigating the death of a historian. She has brown skin and is from a country that seems to be based of India. Also look at the sequel, City of Blades.

Range of Ghosts by Elizabeth Bear is the first in an epic fantasy series based around the fall of the Mongol empire. Both protagonists come from central Asian cultures.

Set in the same world, The Stone in the Skull by Elizabeth Bear takes place in a setting inspired by the Indian subcontinent.

The Emperor's Soul by Brandon Sanderson is a truly excellent novella in a setting based on Korea.

Daughter of the Sword by Steve Bein is an urban fantasy set in Tokyo.

Snake Agent by Liz Williams is an urban fantasy set in Singapore.

The Initiate Brother by Sean Russell is a fantasy novel in a culture based on Japan and China.

Fudoki by Kij Johnson is a fantasy set in ancient Japan.

Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay is a historical fantasy inspired by Tang dynasty China. There's also River of Stars, which is set in the same world but later in time and inspired by the Song dynasty.

When Fox is a Thousand by Larissa Lai is a literary fantasy novel with three different timelines drawing on Chinese mythology.

YA Fantasy

Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan is a second world fantasy novel about a girl taken to be a concubine to the king of the demons. #ownvoices

Dragon Sword and Wind Child by Noriko Ogiwara is YA second world fantasy inspired by Japanese mythology. It was originally written in Japanese, but there is a translation available. #ownvoices

Forest of a Thousand Lanterns by Julie C. Dao is a retelling of the backstory of the Evil Queen from "Snow White." #ownvoices

The Epic Crush of Genie Lo by F.C. Lee is a female-led YA book involving Chinese mythology in the modern world. #ownvoices

Empress of All Seasons by Emiko Jean is a Japanese influenced fantasy novel about a girl competing to become Empress. #ownvoices

by Traci Chee is a YA fantasy adventure in a world where reading is magic. #ownvoices

The Girl King by Mimi Yu is about two sisters competing for the throne of a country with East Asian cultural influences. #ownvoices

Serpentine by Cindy Pon is a YA fantasy story about a girl who discovers she's part demon. #ownvoices

Silver Phoenix by Cindy Pon is a YA fantasy in an Chinese type setting with a female lead. #ownvoices

by Malinda Lo has two female leads and is in a setting based on China. #ownvoices

A Darkly Beating Heart by Lindsay Smith is a paranormal time travel story about a bisexual Japanese-American girl in Japan.

When the Moon Was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore is a magical realism story where one of the two protagonists is a transboy of Pakistani descent.

Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale is a fairy tale retelling in a setting based on Mongolia.

The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi is a YA fantasy inspired by Hindu mythology.

Team Human by Sarah Rees Brennan and Justine Larbalestier is a YA story that satirizes vampires. The heroine is Chinese-American.

Science Fiction

An Excess Male by Maggie Shen King is a dystopian novel about China's One Child Policy. #ownvoices

Aliette de Bodard, On a Red Station Drifting is a science fiction set on a space station with Vietnamese influences. #ownvoices

The Tea Master and the Detective by Aliette de Bodard is a gender-flipped Sherlock Holmes retelling in space. The setting has Vietnamese influences. #ownvoices

Invisible Planets is an anthology of translated Chinese science fiction short stories. #ownvoices

China Mountain Zhang by Maureen F. McHugh is a science fiction/dystopian story with a Chinese American man as the protagonist.

Company Town by Madeline Ashby is a science fiction thriller starring a mixed race Korean woman who works as a bodyguard.

by Genevieve Valentine is a near future thriller with a Korean hero.

The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin is a translated Chinese science fiction novel which I think has aliens.

YA Science Fiction

Not Your Sidekick by C.B. Lee is a superhero story with female protagonist who's Chinese and Vietnamese. #ownvoices

Rebel Seoul by Axie Oh is a novel set in Korea with teenagers piloting giant mechas. #ownvoices

A Spark of White Fire by Sangu Mandanna is a YA space fantasy novel that is inspired by Indian mythology. #ownvoices

The Lost Girl by Sangu Mandanna is a YA science fiction (dystopia?) with an Indian girl as the lead. #ownvoices

by Lydia Kang is a far-future science fiction story about a girl of Korean descent stranded on a dying bioship. #ownvoices

The Abyss Surrounds Us by Emily Skrutskie has a Chinese heroine and genetically engineered sea monsters.

Extras by Scott Westerfeld is a sequel to his Uglies series. It is set in Japan.

Partials by Dan Wells is a YA dystopia. The main character is an Indian girl living in a small human settlement in the remains of New York City.

Resources:

Speculative Fiction with Black Protagonists

Fantasy:

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin is a apocalyptic fantasy novel with imaginative world building and a black woman as the lead. #ownvoices

The Broken Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin is the second book in the series but can be read independently and has a black woman as the protagonist. #ownvoices

Redemption in Indigo by Karen Lord is a fantastical story based off a Senegalese folktale. #ownvoices

by Na'amen Gobert Tilahun is an urban fantasy novel where both the male and female protagonists are black. #ownvoices

The Black God's Drums by P. Djèlí Clark is a fantasy steampunk novel set in New Orleans. #ownvoices

by Nicky Drayden is a fantastical story with a setting that may be an alternate-world South Africa. #ownvoices

Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson is a fantasy dystopian set in Canada with a Jamaican woman as the lead. #ownvoices

Will Do Magic for Small Change by Andrea Hairston is a novel that mixes science fiction and fantasy (aliens and ghosts!) to tell the story of an alien who arrived in West Africa and a black teenage girl in 1980's Philadelphia. #ownvoices

The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps by Kai Ashante Wilson is a fantasy novella in a setting based on ancient Africa. #ownvoices

The Gilda Stories by Jewelle Gomez is about a black lesbian vampire. #ownvoices

Wheel of the Infinite by Martha Wells is a stand alone second-world fantasy novel.

Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman could roughly be refereed to as urban fantasy. The major characters are black, and the story deals with West African mythology.

Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone is about a necromancer who's been hired to revive the dead god of a city that depends on him. She also has to seek out the cause of his death. The main character is black.

Two of the four leads of London Falling by Paul Cornell are black. It's a really awesome urban fantasy/detective story set in London. I have a review of the sequel.

Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch is a police procedural urban fantasy set in London with a mixed race narrator.

by Lauren Beuke is an urban fantasy mystery set in South Africa with a black heroine.

Full Fathom Five by Max Gladstone has a Pacific Islander trans woman priestess and a black teenage girl as its protagonists.

The Innkeeper's Song by Peter Beagle is a very odd fantasy book that rotates between the POV of several principal characters, one of whom is a black woman.

The Killing Moon by N.K. Jemisin is an epic fantasy based on ancient Egypt.

YA Fantasy:

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi is an epic fantasy novel set in a fantasy Africa. #ownvoices

Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor is a YA (or more likely middle grade) fantasy about an American-Nigerian albino girl who discovers that she has magical powers. It's set in Nigeria. #ownvoices

Shadowshaper by Daniel José Older is an urban fantasy set in Brooklyn about a Puerto Rican girl of African descent. #ownvoices

by Dhonielle Clayton is a young adult fantasy dealing with body image. #ownvoices

Wake of Vultures by Lila Bowen is a fantasy Western about a biracial (black and Native American), bisexual, transgender sixteen-year-old who kills monsters.

Science Fiction:

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon is a science fiction novel set aboard a generation ship who's social structure resembles the Antebellum South. #ownvoices

by Octavia Butler is about an African American woman who's kidnapped by aliens after nuclear bombs destroy the earth. #ownvoices

by Octavia Butler is about people with X-Men sort of powers. Anwanyu, the protagonist, is an immortal African woman. Octavia Butler has a lot more speculative fiction novels with black women as protagonists, so if neither of these appeal you should check the others out. #ownvoices

Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler is a dystopian novel following teenage Lauren during the chaotic 2030's. #ownvoices

The Prey of Gods by Nicky Drayden is a science fiction novel set in future South Africa. One of the protagonists is a Zulu demi-goddess. #ownvoices

by Tenea D. Johnson is a queer black post-apocalyptic science fiction novel with a touch of fantasy. #ownvoices

by Tade Thompson is a science fiction story with aliens and psychics in a future version of Nigeria. #ownvoices

Buffalo Soldier by Maurice Broaddus is a steampunk novel with a Jamaican protagonist. #ownvoices

by Nnedi Okorafor is about aliens who make first contact with humans in Nigeria. #ownvoices

The Book of Phoenix by Nnedi Okorafor is about a genetically engineered woman who brings about the end of the world. #ownvoices

Planetfall by Emma Newman is set in a human colony on an alien planet. The narrator is either black or biracial.

Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson is a dystopian with fantastical elements set in Canada with a Jamaican woman as the lead. #ownvoices

Midnight Robber by Nalo Hopkinson is a dark science fiction story set on a Caribbean colonized planet. #ownvoices

False Hearts by Laura Lam is a science fiction thriller set in a future San Francisco. The protagonists are black and mixed race (also former conjoined twins who escaped a cult).

Clementine by Cherie Priest is a book in her Clockwork Century steampunk series with one of the two leads being a black man, Captain Croggon Beauregard Hainey, a pirate captain.

Earthrise by M.C.A. Hogarth is a space opera with a black woman as the lead.

The Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad by Minister Faust is a hard to classify book brimming with pop culture references.

YA Science Fiction:

Dread Nation by Justina Ireland is an alternate history zombie novel. #ownvoices

by Sherri L. Smith is yet another YA dystopia. It's darker than normal for the genre, and features a society divided by blood types and an African American girl as the protagonist. #ownvoices

by Nnedi Okorafor is a novella about a girl traveling through space to university. #ownvoices

On the Edge of Gone by Corinne Duyvis is about a mixed race autistic girl during the apocalypse.

The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm by Nancy Farmer is a science fiction novel set in future Zimbabwe.

The True Meaning of Smek Day by Adam Rex is a hilarious YA or middle grade book about an alien invasion. The main character is half black and journeying across America with an alien hitchhiker to try and find her mother.

Tankborn by Karen Sandler is a YA dystopian novel with a female lead.

Resources:

Speculative Fiction with Latino or Latina Protagonist

California Bones by Greg van Eekhout is an urban fantasy. The lead is Hispanic. #ownvoices

Labyrinth Lost Zoraida Córdova is a YA fantasy novel about a Latina girl who's a bruja and accidentally sends her entire family to another world. The book also contains a bisexual love triangle. #ownvoices

Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia is a vampire story set in Mexico City. #ownvoices

Prime Meridian by Silvia Moreno-Garcia follows a woman in near-future Mexico City who wants to go to Mars. #ownvoices

When the Moon Was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore is a magical realism story where one of the two protagonists is a Latina girl.

As I Descended by Robin Talley is a queer, paranormal YA retelling of Macbeth. The book's version of Macbeth is a high achieving Latina student.

Santa Olivia by Jacqueline Carey is about a lesbian or bisexual Latina girl with special powers facing the army and gangs which control her town.

The House of the Scorpion Nancy Farmer is a YA dystopian set in a drug kingdom located between Mexico and the United States. The main character is a Hispanic clone.

The Young Wizard series by Diane Duane (starts with So You Want to Be a Wizard) are YA books on the boundary between science fiction and fantasy. The male lead, Kit, is Hispanic. Later on in the series, his sister becomes an important character as well.

Shadowshaper by Daniel José Older is YA urban fantasy with a Puerto Rican heroine in New York City. #ownvoices

by Genevieve Valentine is a near future thriller where the heroine comes from a new country in the Amazon rain forest. #ownvoices

Otherbound by Corinne Duyvis is a YA fantasy where the male lead is Hispanic.

Ink by Sabrina Vourvoulias is a science fiction novel where immigrants in the United States are made to get a bio metric tattoo. #ownvoices

Luna: New Moon by Ian McDonald is a science fiction novel set on the moon that follows a Brazilian family.

Resources:

Speculative Fiction with Middle Eastern Protagonists

Fantasy:

The Ninety-Ninth Bride by Catherine Faris King is a retelling of the frame story of A Thousand and One Nights. #ownvoices

The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty is a historical fantasy novel with djinn. The heroine is Egyptian.

Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed is an epic fantasy in a setting based on the Middle East and North Africa. #ownvoices

by Sami Shah is an urban fantasy novel set in Pakistan. #ownvoices

Baba Ali and the Clockwork Djinn by Dantelle Ackley-McPail and Day Al-Mohamed is a steampunk retelling of "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves." #ownvoices

The Bloodprint by Ausma Zehanat Khan is an epic fantasy novel with Middle Eastern cultural influences. #ownvoices

The Steel Seraglio by Linda, Louise and Mike Carey is a story about a group of women who form their own community.

A Thousand Nights by E.K. Johnston is a fairy tale like fantasy novel influenced by The Thousand and One Nights.

The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay is a historical fantasy set on the divided Iberian peninsula. As such, there are a number of Muslim characters and characters of Middle Eastern descent, Ammar ibn Khairan being the main one.

The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker is the story of two fantastical immigrants to America around 1900. It's set primarily among Jewish and Syrian immigrants..

The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate by Ted Chiang is a time travel story set in medieval Baghdad.

The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh is a YA retelling of the Arabian Nights stories.

Science Fiction:

Fool's War by Sarah Zettel is a space opera dealing with Artificial Intelligence. The main character Al-Shei, the chief engineer and owner of the spaceship, and her cousin Resit, ship's lawyer, are both Turkish Muslim women.

by Kameron Hurley is a military themed science fiction set on an Islamic planet. The major characters are likely Middle Eastern or North African in heritage - almost all of them have brown or black skin.

Resources:

Speculative Fiction with Native American Protagonists

Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse is an adult urban fantasy/post-apocalyptic novel with a Najvo protagonist. #ownvoices

The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline is a YA dystopian novel where the government is murdering Native people for their bone marrow. #ownvoices

Killer of Enemies by Joseph Bruchac is a YA dystopian with fantasy elements about an Apache girl who kills monsters. #ownvoices

Two Serpents Rise is in a city that's similar to Aztec culture, and the protagonist is of that background.

Servant of the Otherworld by Aliette de Bodard is a fantasy mystery set in the Aztec Empire.

Wake of Vultures by Lila Bowen is a fantasy Western about a black Native American, bisexual, trans gender sixteen year old who kills monsters.

Tremontaine is a story that's available through Serial Box, which creates stories that have a format akin to television (one "episode" is released a week). One of the main cast members comes from a Mesoamerican inspired culture.

The Way of Thorn and Thunder by Daniel Heath Justice is the beginning to a queer Amerindian epic fantasy series by a Cherokee author.

The Jaguar Princess by Clare Bell is a fantasy story set in the Aztec Empire.

Six Gun Snow White by Catherynne M. Valente is novella retelling the fairy tale Snow White with a mixed race Crow girl as the lead.

Bear Daughter by Judith Berman is set in a fantasy world based on the Pacific Northwest before colonization. Has issues with a white washed cover.

Time Trap by Micah Caida sounds like it's either science fiction or fantasy.It's definitely YA.

Science Fiction:
by Elizabeth Bear is a dystopian, hard science fiction story with a cyborg Native American woman as the lead.

Resources:

Speculative Fiction with Other POC Protagonists

by Rachel Manija Brown and Sherwood Smith is a YA post-apocalyptic story that has five protagonists of various different races including black, Hispanic, and Japanese.

by Max Brooks is told through the form of interviews with a multicultural cast from all over the world.

Magic or Madness by Justine Larbalestier is a YA urban fantasy with a mixed race Aboriginal Australian girl as its lead.

The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf by Ambelin Kwaymullina is a YA dystopian with a lead of Aboriginal Australian descent. #ownvoices

Zero Sum Game by S.L. Huang has a superpowered heroine who's described as brown and looking sort of Middle Eastern.

The protagonist of A Wizard of Earthseas is described as having red skin and many of the other characters have brown or black skin.

The characters of The Mirror Empire don't match up to any real world cultures or ethnicities, but most are described as nonwhite.

The male protagonist of Perdido Street Station by China Miéville is described as having dark skin. The book's sort of a "grimdark," other world, urban fantasy. I had some trouble with the treatment of female characters in this one.

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin is a secondary world story about a young woman who's named an heir to the ruler of the world. Yeine, the narrator and protagonist, is described as having brown skin.

by Intisar Khanani is a fantasy novella. Many of the characters are dark skinned and the setting is non-European. If I remember correctly, the heroine was mixed race with brown skin.

Sandry's Book by Tamora Pierce (YA fantasy, multicultural cast)

An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir is a YA fantasy that I've heard qualifies. I don't know much about it besides that it's set in a desert city roughly based on the Roman Empire.

Because so many of the authors who get talked about the most are white, here's a list of books with some more diverse authors. I'm including both books I've read and books I haven't read.
Fantasy and Science Fiction Books by POC Authors

Adeyemi, Tomi - Children of Blood and Bone (YA fantasy)

Ahmed, Saladin - Throne of the Crescent Moon (sword and sorcery, Middle Eastern leads)

Al-Mohamed, Day (with Danielle Ackley-McPhail) - and the Clockwork Djin (steampunk fairy tale)

Blake, Kendare - Anna Dressed in Blood (paranormal, ghosts, YA)

Broaddus, Maurice - The Voices of Martyrs (short stories), Buffalo Soldier (steampunk)

Bruchac, Joseph - Killer of Enemies (YA dystopia, Apache heroine)

Chee, Traci. (YA fantasy)

Chiang, Ted - Stories of Your Life and Others (short stories)

Clarke, P. Djèlí - The Black God's Drums (fantasy, steampunk)

Clayton, Dhonielle - (YA fantasy)

Córdova, Zoraida - Labyrinth Lost (YA urban fantasy/portal fantasy)

Dao, Julie C. - Forest of a Thousand Lanterns (YA second world fantasy, fairy tale retelling)

Das, Indra - The Devourers (literary fantasy, shapeshifters)

Daud, Somaiya - young adult, space fantasy)

de Bodard, Aliette - Servant of the Otherworld (fantasy mystery, Aztec setting), On a Red Station Drifting (space opera, Vietnamese influences), The House of Shattered Wings (fantasy, post-apocalyptic, urban), In the Vanishers' Palace (fairy tale retelling), The Tea Master and the Detective (science fiction, Sherlock Holmes)

Dimaline, Cherie - The Marrow Thieves (YA dystopia)

Divakaruni, Chitra Banerjee - The Palace of Illusions (mythology)

Divya, S.B. - (sci-fi novella)

Drayden, Nicky. The Prey of Gods (science fiction),(fantasy)

Dyer, Thoraiya - Crossroads of Canopy (fantasy)

Ee, Susan - (YA dystopia/fantasy)

Gomez, Jewel L. - The Gilda Stories (lesbian vampire)

Hairston, Andrea. Will Do Magic for Small Change (fantasy, science fiction)

He, Joan. Descendant of the Crane (YA fantasy)

Heilig, Heidi. The Girl from Everywhere (YA fantasy)

Ireland, Justina - Dread Nation (YA zombies)

Ishiguro, Kazuo - Never Let Me Go (science fiction)

Jean, Emiko. - The Empress of All Seasons (YA fantasy)

Jemisin, N.K. - The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (high fantasy), The Fifth Season (apocalyptic fantasy), The Killing Moon (epic fantasy based on ancient Egypt)

Josey, Imani. The Blazing Star (YA fantasy)

Kang, Lydia. (YA science fiction)

Khan, Ausma Zehanat - The Bloodprint (epic fantasy)

Khaw, Cassandra - Rupert Wong Cannibal Chef (urban fantasy)

King, Catherine Faris - The Ninety-Ninth Bride (YA fantasy, retelling)

King, Joe (with Mark Gelineau) - Echos of the Ascended (fantasy novella series). I've read Faith and Moonlight.

King, Maggie Shen - An Excess Male (dystopia)

Kirino, Natsuo - The Goddess Chronicles (mythology retelling)

Kuang, R.F. The Poppy War (epic fantasy)

Kuhn, Sarah. Heroine Complex (superheros)

Kwaymullina, Ambelin - The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf (YA fantasy/dystopian)

Lee, C.B. - Not Your Sidekick (superheros, YA)

Lee, F.C. - The Epic Crush of Genie Lo (YA urban fantasy, mythology)

Lewis, L.D. A Ruin of Shadows (fantasy)

Lo, Malinda - (YA fantasy, Asian lesbian lead)

Lord, Karen - Redemption in Indigo (fantasy, fairy tale)

Lowachee, Karen - space opera/military science fiction)

Lu, Marie - (YA dystopia), The Young Elites (YA fantasy)

Machado, Carmen Maria - Her Body and Other Parties (short stories)

McLemore, Anna-Marie - When the Moon Was Ours (YA, magical realism)

Mehrotra, Rati - Markswoman (YA science fantasy)

Ng, Jeannette - Under the Pendulum Sun (historical fantasy, Gothic)

Ngan, Natasha - Girls of Paper and Fire (YA fantasy)

Ogiwara, Noriko - Dragon Sword and Wind Child (YA epic fantasy, Japanese influences)

Oh, Axie. Rebel Seoul (YA science fiction)

Okorafor, Nnedi - Akata Witch (YA/MG fantasy, Nigerian lead), (science fiction, aliens, Nigerian leads), (YA science fiction novella), The Book of Phoenix (science fiction)

Older, Daniel José - Shadowshaper (YA urban fantasy, Caribbean heroine)

Polk, C.L. - (fantasy)

Pon, Cindy - Silver Phoenix (YA fantasy, Chinese lead), Serpentine (YA fantasy)

Roanhorse, Rebecca - Trail of Lightning (urban fantasy, post-apocalyptic)

Saulter, Stephanie - (dystopia, social science fiction)

Shah, Sami - (urban fantasy)

Smith, Sherri L. - (YA dystopian, African American heroine)

Solomon, Rivers. An Unkindness of Ghosts (space opera),(serialized space opera)

Sriduangkaew, Benjanun - The Archer Who Shot Down Suns (short stories, Chinese mythology retellings)

Suri, Tasha. - Empire of Sand (epic fantasy)

Tahir, Sabaa - An Ember in the Ashes (YA fantasy)

Tilahun, Na'amen Gobert - (urban fantasy)

Uehashi, Nahoko - Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit (YA fantasy adventure)

Valentine, Genevieve - (science fiction)

Van Eekhout, Greg - California Bones (urban fantasy)

West, Michelle - (see Sagara, Michelle)

Wilson, Kai Ashante - The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps (fantasy)

Yu, Mimi. The Girl King (YA, fantasy)

Zhang, Kat - What's Left of Me (YA dystopian)

Justice, Daniel Heath. The Way of Thorn and Thunder (queer Native American epic fantasy)

Renee Ahdieh - The Wrath and the Dawn (YA retelling of the Arabian Nights)

Liu Cixin - The Three Body Problem (science fiction)

Wesley Chu - Time Salvager (science fiction, time travel)

Julie Kagawa - The Immortal Rules (YA vampires) and The Iron King (YA faeries)

Larissa Lai - When Fox is a Thousand (literary fantasy, Chinese mythology)

Sofia Samatar - A Stranger in Olondria (second world fantasy)

Nicole Givens Kurtz - Silenced (science fiction mystery, future)

Sabrina Vourvoulias - Ink (science fiction)

Minister Faust - The Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad (science fiction/fantasy)

Ramez Naam - Nexus (science fiction, cyberpunk)

Roshani Chokshi - The Star-Touched Queen (YA, fantasy)

Louise Erdich - The Antelope Wife (magical realism)

Hiroshi Yamamoto - The Stories of Ibis (science fiction)

Jacqueline Koyanagi - Ascension (science fiction)

Resources

Other Resources:
On the writing side of things, this tumblr post has a whole load of interesting links.

Last update: October 13th, 2018.

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POC Protagonists in Fantasy and Science Fiction

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This list is basically a compilation of books I've read plus books I'm meaning to read at some point in the future. If you have a suggestion feel free to post in the comments section (and if you want even more books be sure to look at the comments!)

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All Our Worlds: Diverse Fantastic Fiction

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All Our Worlds: Diverse Fantastic Fiction

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The database of over a thousand books is searchable by 17 tags (plus 23 race/culture/setting subtags and 13 disability subtags), publication decade, genre, and audience.

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All Our Worlds: Diverse Fantastic Fiction

The endless variety of fictional worlds should also reflect the infinite diversity of human beings. Queerness, race, culture, disability, all deserve and need representation.

While these stories can sometimes be difficult to find in the mainstream, that does not mean that they do not exist. From Octavia Butler, Samuel Delany, and Ursula K Le Guin to the newest rising stars, diversity has always been a part of speculative fiction.

Today, with questions of representation at the forefront of discussion, diverse science fiction and fantasy is being published at an ever-increasing rate. Much of it comes from small independant presses, and a great proportion is published primarily as ebooks and online short stories.

All Our Worlds aims to make these stories easy to find. The database of over a thousand books is searchable by 17 tags (plus 23 race/culture/setting subtags and 13 disability subtags), publication decade, genre, and audience. If something's missing, suggest it on the submit page. The Resources pages gather book lists, publishers, blogs, articles, awards, and other sources for diverse fiction. Book reviews are posted on the project blog.

Want to start reading right away? Check out a webcomic!

Want recommendations? Here's a list of my favorites.

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All Our Worlds: Diverse Fantastic Fiction

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All Our Worlds: Diverse Fantastic Fiction The endless variety of fictional worlds should also reflect the infinite diversity of human beings. Queerness, race, culture, disability, all deserve and need representation. While these stories can sometimes be difficult to find in the mainstream, that does not mean that they do not exist.

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AALBC is the oldest, largest, and most popular online bookstore dedicated to African American and Black literature from around the world. We also provide a variety of resources and services to authors and publishers and celebrate Black culture, through books, for ALL readers to enjoy.

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AALBC.com, the African American Literature Book Club

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AALBC is the oldest, largest, and most popular online bookstore dedicated to African American literature and Black Literature from around the world. We celebrate Black culture, through books, for ALL readers to enjoy. AALBC is: Books, Authors, Reviews, Events, Resources, Discussions, a Blog, Book Club, Articles, Home to#ReadingBlack, and Much More ►

We maintain a curated and growing collection of over 13,000 books covering a century of Black literature. You'll find reviews, bestsellers, awards, excerpts, publisher information, a variety of purchase options, and more. Visit our Books Section ►

We have profiles of over 4,800 authors and illustrators, which includes biographies, published books, interviews, videos, and more. You'll find writers, in every genre, from the United States, Africa, and the entire the African Diaspora. Visit our Authors Section ►

We've reviewed over 1,000 books and hundreds of films. Visit our Reviews Section ►

You'll discover almost 150 important book fairs and conferences coming up during the next 12 months, as well as videos, articles, and photos of events we've covered since 1998. Visit our Events Section ►

We share a wealth of information for both professional and aspiring writers. We provide manuscript editing, book printing, and a variety of other tools and articles to help writers produce their best possible book. We also share lists of bookstores, book clubs, book websites and provide a variety of advertising opportunities to help authors and publishers connect with the readers who will enjoy their books the most. Visit our Resources Section ►

We hold interesting conversions on Black literature, culture, blogging and website strategies, poetry, and more. Share your ideas and Join the Conversation ►

The mission of #readingblack is to encourage everyone to read quality books written by Black people and to purchase those books from independent booksellers. We strive to develop strategies that will make it easier for book buyers to support our mission. Join the #readingblack Movement.

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★ AALBC the Largest Site Dedicated to Books by or About People of African Descent

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AALBC is the largest and most popular online bookstore dedicated to African American Literature and Black literature from around the world. We publish reviews and biographical information on Black writers. We celebrate Black culture, through books, for readers of all backgrounds to enjoy. We also provide resources for authors.

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Dr. Bickmore's YA Wednesday & Weekend Picks

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Dr. Bickmore's YA Wednesday & Weekend Picks

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Blog created and maintained by Dr. Bickmore. Contains numerous reviews of YA books.

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This year's ALAN workshop was unique in that we all had to meet virtually. Nevertheless, it was a fantastic experience. Take a quick look at a few of the moments that some of the participants felt were worth remembering. Melanie Hundley Vanderbilt University I had the joy of sharing a presentation time slot with Shelly Shaffer.

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Teen Librarian Tool Box (School Library Journal)

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Teen Librarian Tool Box (School Library Journal)

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For teen librarians who are short on money, short on time, but not short on passion.

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So I received a message in my email asking my thoughts on 13 Reasons Why and programming. At the same time, Heather Booth was thinking about doing a book discussion and she tweeted out asking people their thoughts, so we called and talked about it. Here's what I'm currently thinking about 13 Reasons Why, libraries, teens and programming.

1. The Contagion Effect

In my previous post I alluded to the fact that for reasons that we don't quite understand, when a school had one suicide they will often have a few more. The term I was looking for at the time is the Contagion Effect. Alexandra Duncan wrote an amazing thread on the teenage brain, mental health and the contagion effect with links to good resources and I highly recommend that everyone read it. When we talk about teens and 13 Reasons Why I think it is important that we keep this information in mind.

Hey, folks. I need to talk to you for a minute about depression, #13ReasonsWhy, and something called the "contagion effect."

- Alexandra Duncan (@DuncanAlexandra) May 6, 2017

2. We Are Not Concerned with Teenage Intelligence, but with Mental Health

Some of the conversation I have seen regarding 13 Reasons Why suggests that this is adults once again not respecting the intelligence or depth of teens, and I think that is not what is happening here. This is about recognizing, as Alexandra Duncan mentions above, that mental health is different then intelligence. People who struggle with mental health issues, depending on what those issues are and where they are at in their treatment, can respond differently to the same input as a person who does not struggle with mental health issues. There are definite times when that mental illness works really hard to trick us into thinking things about ourselves, our worth, that are a skewed distortion of the truth and it's easy to see how people in vulnerable situations may react differently to the graphic conversations and depictions of suicide depicted in 13 Reasons Why. It's not about not respecting teens, it's about respecting teens who may be struggling with mental illness and understanding how triggering this can be to some of them. It's also about respecting experts who have dedicated their lives to learning about their field of study, remember it's not just random adults and parents who are concerned with the on screen depiction but mental health experts with knowledge and experience.

3. Speaking of Experts

I have no problem with the idea of having book discussions or programs on controversial materials or subjects, I just recommend thinking about how we approach those. For example, I have worked at libraries where we have had programs on teen dating violence and domestic violence. The difference is that I had an expert come in and do those programs, and I would recommend the same when talking about 13 Reasons Why which involves mental health and suicide. This isn't just a program, it's a program about a topic that is literally life and death and it's important that we acknowledge the weight of that and respect it. Having an expert on hand to facilitate your program/discussion and to answer any questions is important to make sure that teens are getting the most correct information available to them. If our goal is to serve teens and recognize this important discussion that they are having, then let's serve them well and make sure they are getting the best information out there on such an important and sensitive topic.

4. Remember, Programming is Opt In

The truth about any book discussion or program in a public library is that it is opt in. This means that our patrons make the choice to come. As long as our marketing is truthful and fully informs our audience of the content of the program and the sensitive nature of the topics, I do think if done well that we can talk about sensitive and controversial things. We put the program together and invite the public, each individual decides whether or not they want to come. Our library system is in its second year of hosting the Great Discussions program, which can in fact contain some controversial topics and discussions. The key is making sure in our marketing to fully inform our prospective audience of what those topics are.

5. What's the Very Least a Library Should Do Regarding 13 Reasons Why

The popularity of the Netflix series has brought the topics of sexual violence, bullying, mental health and suicide to the forefront of teen discussion. Not only are teens talking about it, but parents, teachers and community members are as well. So this is where we put on our information specialist hats and be pro-active rather than reactive. At the very least, take a moment to review your library policy and inform staff what they are legally and morally required to do if they have a conversation with a teen who they suspect is in some type of harm or danger or at risk for committing suicide. This is an important conversation for librarians to be having with their administration.

Second, think of having some type of resource ready should questions come up. Make sure you have access to a couple of articles regarding the book and show, have a list of some companion reads, and - MOST IMPORTANTLY - make sure you have a list of local and national resources available. There is a National Suicide Prevention Hotline (shown below) and you may want to put up signs in the library letting that information be known. Locally you may also have some resources that you want to know about to share with patrons.

And finally, a word about streaming the Netflix show in the library. Netflix contracts do not legally allow for the public sharing or streaming of Netflix content, with the exception of The 13th which has been given special permissions for public streaming. In addition, this show is rated M for mature, and if you haven't watched it yet you should know that is has graphic language, graphic rape scenes, and a graphic depiction of suicide.

And I want to reiterate my previous concern that while it may be great that this book and this show are out there getting teens to talk about very real and important topics that affect them, not all teens have someone to talk to about these topics. And I would caution librarians to think long and hard about what types of conversations they want to have about teens regarding these topics. Know the law, know what your administration will and won't support, know when and who to refer to, and remind teens that although we may be valued and trusted adults who are experts on the topic of librarianship, we are not experts on the topic of mental health but we will help them find the answer to their questions.

What about sharing our personal stories? I think that is a personal decision that each librarian has to make. And again, each library culture and admin is different so you'll want to keep in mind what type of boundaries your admin wants you to have with your teens.

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Teen Librarian Toolbox - @TLT16 Pprofessional development for teen librarians

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So I received a message in my email asking my thoughts on 13 Reasons Why and programming. At the same time, Heather Booth was thinking about doing a book discussion and she tweeted out asking people their thoughts, so we called and talked about it.

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It would be good to acknowledge upfront that an able bodied, white cishet neutral is assumed in
society and in publishing, and, for that reason, "diversity" is the imperfect umbrella term used to
bring perspectives other than that assumed neutral into focus. Our goal is to make our collections
as inclusive as possible. Diversity is the common term, but inclusive collections are our goal.

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Every teen should be able to see themselves reflected in the books they read. Unfortunately, many LGBTQIAP+ teens are not able to. YA Pride is dedicated to promoting and discussing LGBTQIAP+ Young Adult literature in order to change that.

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Happy Women's History Month, readers! This list is a celebration of the strength of women. Of all women. Women of color. Women of different sexual and romantic orientations. Trans women. Women with mental illnesses and disabilities.

Queer teen girls who are reading this list-this is a celebration of your strength.

Here are 20 LGBTQIAP+ YA books to celebrate Women's History Month with. Happy reading!

Out now:
We Set the Dark on Fire by Tehlor Kay Mejia
At the Medio School for Girls, distinguished young women are trained for one of two roles in their polarized society. Depending on her specialization, a graduate will one day run a husband's household or raise his children, but both are promised a life of comfort and luxury, far from the frequent political uprisings of the lower class. Daniela Vargas is the school's top student, but her bright future depends upon no one discovering her darkest secret-that her pedigree is a lie. Her parents sacrificed everything to obtain forged identification papers so Dani could rise above her station. Now that her marriage to an important politico's son is fast approaching, she must keep the truth hidden or be sent back to the fringes of society, where famine and poverty rule supreme.

On her graduation night, Dani seems to be in the clear, despite the surprises that unfold. But nothing prepares her for all the difficult choices she must make, especially when she is asked to spy for a resistance group desperately fighting to bring equality to Medio. Will Dani cling to the privilege her parents fought to win for her, or to give up everything she's strived for in pursuit of a free Medio-and a chance at a forbidden love?
Tell Me How You Really Feel by Aminah Mae Safi
Sana Khan is a cheerleader and a straight A student. She's the classic (somewhat obnoxious) overachiever determined to win.

Rachel Recht is a wannabe director who's obsesssed with movies and ready to make her own masterpiece. As she's casting her senior film project, she knows she's found the perfect lead - Sana.

There's only one problem. Rachel hates Sana. Rachel was the first girl Sana ever asked out, but Rachel thought it was a cruel prank and has detested Sana ever since.

Told in alternative viewpoints and inspired by classic romantic comedies, this engaging and edgy YA novel follows two strongwilled young women falling for each other despite themselves.
Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Córdova I was chosen by the Deos. Even gods make mistakes.
Alex is a bruja, the most powerful witch in a generation...and she hates magic. At her Deathday celebration, Alex performs a spell to rid herself of her power. But it backfires. Her whole family vanishes into thin air, leaving her alone with Nova, a brujo she can't trust, but who may be Alex's only chance at saving her family.
The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth
When Cameron Post's parents die suddenly in a car crash, her shocking first thought is relief. Relief they'll never know that, hours earlier, she had been kissing a girl.

But that relief doesn't last, and Cam is soon forced to move in with her conservative aunt Ruth and her well-intentioned but hopelessly old-fashioned grandmother. She knows that from this point on, her life will forever be different. Survival in Miles City, Montana, means blending in and leaving well enough alone (as her grandmother might say), and Cam becomes an expert at both.

Then Coley Taylor moves to town. Beautiful, pickup-driving Coley is a perfect cowgirl with the perfect boyfriend to match. She and Cam forge an unexpected and intense friendship-one that seems to leave room for something more to emerge. But just as that starts to seem like a real possibility, ultrareligious Aunt Ruth takes drastic action to "fix" her niece, bringing Cam face-to-face with the cost of denying her true self-even if she's not exactly sure who that is.
The Love & Lies of Rukhsana Ali by Sabina Khan
Seventeen-year-old Rukhsana Ali tries her hardest to live up to her conservative Muslim parents' expectations, but lately she's finding that harder and harder to do. She rolls her eyes instead of screaming when they blatantly favor her brother and she dresses conservatively at home, saving her crop tops and makeup for parties her parents don't know about. Luckily, only a few more months stand between her carefully monitored life in Seattle and her new life at Caltech, where she can pursue her dream of becoming an engineer.

But when her parents catch her kissing her girlfriend Ariana, all of Rukhsana's plans fall apart. Her parents are devastated; being gay may as well be a death sentence in the Bengali community. They immediately whisk Rukhsana off to Bangladesh, where she is thrown headfirst into a world of arranged marriages and tradition. Only through reading her grandmother's old diary is Rukhsana able to gain some much needed perspective.

Rukhsana realizes she must find the courage to fight for her love, but can she do so without losing everyone and everything in her life?
Wild Beauty Anna-Marie McLemore
Love grows such strange things.

For nearly a century, the Nomeolvides women have tended the grounds of La Pradera, the lush estate gardens that enchant guests from around the world. They've also hidden a tragic legacy: if they fall in love too deeply, their lovers vanish. But then, after generations of vanishings, a strange boy appears in the gardens.

The boy is a mystery to Estrella, the Nomeolvides girl who finds him, and to her family, but he's even more a mystery to himself; he knows nothing more about who he is or where he came from than his first name. As Estrella tries to help Fel piece together his unknown past, La Pradera leads them to secrets as dangerous as they are magical in this stunning exploration of love, loss, and family.
If I Was Your Girl by Meredith Russo
A new kind of big-hearted novel about being seen for who you really are.

Amanda Hardy is the new girl in school. Like anyone else, all she wants is to make friends and fit in. But Amanda is keeping a secret, and she's determined not to get too close to anyone.

But when she meets sweet, easygoing Grant, Amanda can't help but start to let him into her life. As they spend more time together, she realizes just how much she is losing by guarding her heart. She finds herself yearning to share with Grant everything about herself, including her past. But Amanda's terrified that once she tells him the truth, he won't be able to see past it.

Because the secret that Amanda's been keeping? It's that at her old school, she used to be Andrew. Will the truth cost Amanda her new life, and her new love?
The Summer of Jordi Perez by Amy Spalding
Seventeen, fashion-obsessed, and gay, Abby Ives has always been content playing the sidekick in other people's lives. While her friends and sister have plunged headfirst into the world of dating and romances, Abby has stayed focused on her plus-size style blog and her dreams of taking the fashion industry by storm. When she lands a prized internship at her favorite local boutique, she's thrilled to take her first step into her dream career. She doesn't expect to fall for her fellow intern, Jordi Perez. Abby knows it's a big no-no to fall for a colleague. She also knows that Jordi documents her whole life in photographs, while Abby would prefer to stay behind the scenes.

Then again, nothing is going as expected this summer. She's competing against the girl she's kissing to win a paid job at the boutique. She's somehow managed to befriend Jax, a lacrosse-playing bro type who needs help in a project that involves eating burgers across L.A.'s eastside. Suddenly, she doesn't feel like a sidekick. Is it possible Abby's finally in her own story?

But when Jordi's photography puts Abby in the spotlight, it feels like a betrayal, rather than a starring role. Can Abby find a way to reconcile her positive yet private sense of self with the image that other people have of her?

Is this just Abby's summer of fashion? Or will it truly be The Summer of Jordi Perez (and the Best Burger in Los Angeles)?
Girl Made of Stars by Ashley Herring Blake
Mara and Owen are about as close as twins can get. So when Mara's friend Hannah accuses Owen of rape, Mara doesn't know what to think. Can the brother she loves really be guilty of such a violent crime? Torn between the family she loves and her own sense of right and wrong, Mara is feeling lost, and it doesn't help that things have been strained with her ex-girlfriend and best friend since childhood, Charlie.

As Mara, Hannah, and Charlie navigate this new terrain, Mara must face a trauma from her own past and decide where Charlie fits in her future. With sensitivity and openness, this timely novel confronts the difficult questions surrounding consent, victim blaming, and sexual assault.
Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan
In this lush fantasy, Lei is a member of the Paper caste, the lowest and most oppressed class in Ikhara. She lives in a remote village with her father, where the decade-old trauma of watching her mother snatched by royal guards still haunts her. Now, the guards are back, and this time it's Lei they're after-the girl whose golden eyes have piqued the king's interest.

Over weeks of training in the opulent but stifling palace, Lei and eight other girls learn the skills and charm that befit being a king's consort. But Lei isn't content to watch her fate consume her. Instead, she does the unthinkable-she falls in love. Her forbidden romance becomes enmeshed with an explosive plot that threatens the very foundation of Ikhara, and Lei, still the wide-eyed country girl at heart, must decide just how far she's willing to go for justice and revenge.

TW: violence and sexual abuse.
Sawkill Girls by Claire Legrand Beware of the woods and the dark, dank deep.
He'll follow you home, and he won't let you sleep.

Who are the Sawkill Girls?

Marion: the new girl. Awkward and plain, steady and dependable. Weighed down by tragedy and hungry for love she's sure she'll never find.

Zoey: the pariah. Luckless and lonely, hurting but hiding it. Aching with grief and dreaming of vanished girls. Maybe she's broken-or maybe everyone else is.

Val: the queen bee. Gorgeous and privileged, ruthless and regal. Words like silk and eyes like knives, a heart made of secrets and a mouth full of lies.

Their stories come together on the island of Sawkill Rock, where gleaming horses graze in rolling pastures and cold waves crash against black cliffs. Where kids whisper the legend of an insidious monster at parties and around campfires.

Where girls have been disappearing for decades, stolen away by a ravenous evil no one has dared to fight... until now.
Dread Nation by Justina Ireland
Jane McKeene was born two days before the dead began to walk the battlefields of Gettysburg and Chancellorsville-derailing the War Between the States and changing America forever. In this new nation, safety for all depends on the work of a few, and laws like the Native and Negro Reeducation Act require certain children attend combat schools to learn to put down the dead. But there are also opportunities-and Jane is studying to become an Attendant, trained in both weaponry and etiquette to protect the well-to-do. It's a chance for a better life for Negro girls like Jane. After all, not even being the daughter of a wealthy white Southern woman could save her from society's expectations.

But that's not a life Jane wants. Almost finished with her education at Miss Preston's School of Combat in Baltimore, Jane is set on returning to her Kentucky home and doesn't pay much mind to the politics of the eastern cities, with their talk of returning America to the glory of its days before the dead rose. But when families around Baltimore County begin to go missing, Jane is caught in the middle of a conspiracy, one that finds her in a desperate fight for her life against some powerful enemies. And the restless dead, it would seem, are the least of her problems.
Not Your Sidekick by C.B. Lee
Welcome to Andover... where superpowers are common, but internships are complicated. Just ask high school nobody, Jessica Tran. Despite her heroic lineage, Jess is resigned to a life without superpowers and is merely looking to beef-up her college applications when she stumbles upon the perfect (paid!) internship-only it turns out to be for the town's most heinous supervillain. On the upside, she gets to work with her longtime secret crush, Abby, who Jess thinks may have a secret of her own. Then there's the budding attraction to her fellow intern, the mysterious "M," who never seems to be in the same place as Abby. But what starts as a fun way to spite her superhero parents takes a sudden and dangerous turn when she uncovers a plot larger than heroes and villains altogether.
We Are Okay by Nina LaCour You go through life thinking there's so much you need...
Until you leave with only your phone, your wallet, and a picture of your mother.

Marin hasn't spoken to anyone from her old life since the day she left everything behind. No one knows the truth about those final weeks. Not even her best friend, Mabel. But even thousands of miles away from the California coast, at college in New York, Marin still feels the pull of the life and tragedy she's tried to outrun. Now, months later, alone in an emptied dorm for winter break, Marin waits. Mabel is coming to visit, and Marin will be forced to face everything that's been left unsaid and finally confront the loneliness that has made a home in her heart.
The Gallery of Unfinished Girls by Lauren Karcz
A beautiful and evocative look at identity and creativity, The Gallery of Unfinished Girls is a stunning debut in magical realism. Perfect for fans of The Walls Around Us and Bone Gap.

Mercedes Moreno is an artist. At least, she thinks she could be, even though she hasn't been able to paint anything worthwhile in the past year.

Her lack of inspiration might be because her abuela is in a coma. Or the fact that Mercedes is in love with her best friend, Victoria, but is too afraid to admit her true feelings.

Despite Mercedes's creative block, art starts to show up in unexpected ways. A piano appears on her front lawn one morning, and a mysterious new neighbor invites Mercedes to paint with her at the Red Mangrove Estate.

At the Estate, Mercedes can create in ways she hasn't ever before. But Mercedes can't take anything out of the Estate, including her new-found clarity. Mercedes can't live both lives forever, and ultimately she must choose between this perfect world of art and truth and a much messier reality.
Far From You by Tess Sharpe Nine months. Two weeks. Six days.
That's how long recovering addict Sophie's been drug-free. Four months ago her best friend, Mina, died in what everyone believes was a drug deal gone wrong - a deal they think Sophie set up. Only Sophie knows the truth. She and Mina shared a secret, but there was no drug deal. Mina was deliberately murdered.

Forced into rehab for an addiction she'd already beaten, Sophie's finally out and on the trail of the killer-but can she track them down before they come for her?

Upcoming:
THE LAST 8 by Laura Pohl (March 5, 2019)
Clover Martinez has always been a survivor, which is the only reason she isn't among the dead when aliens invade and destroy Earth as she knows it.

When Clover hears an inexplicable radio message, she's shocked to learn there are other survivors-and that they're all at the former Area 51. When she arrives, she's greeted by a band of misfits who call themselves The Last Teenagers on Earth.

Only they aren't the ragtag group of heroes Clover was expecting. The group seems more interested in hiding than fighting back, and Clover starts to wonder if she was better off alone. But then she finds a hidden spaceship, and she doesn't know what to believe...or who to trust.
THE WEIGHT OF STARS by K. Ancrum (March 19, 2019)
Ryann Bird dreams of traveling across the stars. But a career in space isn't an option for a girl who lives in a trailer park on the wrong side of town. So Ryann becomes her circumstances and settles for acting out and skipping school to hang out with her delinquent friends.

One day she meets Alexandria: a furious loner who spurns Ryann's offer of friendship. After a horrific accident leaves Alexandria with a broken arm, the two misfits are brought together despite themselves-and Ryann learns her secret: Alexandria's mother is an astronaut who volunteered for a one-way trip to the edge of the solar system.

Every night without fail, Alexandria waits to catch radio signals from her mother. And its up to Ryann to lift her onto the roof day after day until the silence between them grows into friendship, and eventually something more . . .
BIRTHDAY by Meredith Russo (May 21, 2019)
Two kids, Morgan and Eric, are bonded for life after being born on the same day at the same time. We meet them once a year on their shared birthday as they grow and change: as Eric figures out who he is and how he fits into the world, and as Morgan makes the difficult choice to live as her true self. Over the years, they will drift apart, come together, fight, make up, and break up-and ultimately, realize how inextricably they are a part of each other.
THE GRIEF KEEPER by Alexandra Villasante (June 11, 2019)
Seventeen-year-old Marisol has always dreamed of being American, learning what Americans and the US are like from television and Mrs. Rosen, an elderly expat who had employed Marisol's mother as a maid. When she pictured an American life for herself, she dreamed of a life like Aimee and Amber's, the title characters of her favorite American TV show. She never pictured fleeing her home in El Salvador under threat of death and stealing across the US border as "an illegal", but after her brother is murdered and her younger sister, Gabi's, life is also placed in equal jeopardy, she has no choice, especially because she knows everything is her fault. If she had never fallen for the charms of a beautiful girl named Liliana, Pablo might still be alive, her mother wouldn't be in hiding and she and Gabi wouldn't have been caught crossing the border.

But they have been caught and their asylum request will most certainly be denied. With truly no options remaining, Marisol jumps at an unusual opportunity to stay in the United States. She's asked to become a grief keeper, taking the grief of another into her own body to save a life. It's a risky, experimental study, but if it means Marisol can keep her sister safe, she will risk anything. She just never imagined one of the risks would be falling in love, a love that may even be powerful enough to finally help her face her own crushing grief.

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Happy Women's History Month, readers! This list is a celebration of the strength of women. Of all women. Women of color. Women of different sexual and romantic orientations. Trans women. Women with mental illnesses and disabilities. Queer teen girls who are reading this list-this is a celebration of your strength.

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he We Are Kid Lit Collective works to create materials and opportunities to recognize the humanity of Indigenous and People of Color (IPOC) in youth literature. Our work is premised upon the principles of social justice, equity, and inclusion and centers IPOC voices in children’s literature in order to identify, challenge and dismantle white supremacy and both internalized and systematic racism.

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Because summer reading should be for ALL the people.

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We know educators are busy and often over-burdened and don’t have the time to sift through and search for resources.  We wanted to help. Our blog is an attempt to do ‘the leg-work’ for teachers—we compile lesson plans, research materials, resources, links to helpful blogs or author websites, and even write educator’s guides to accompany each book featured in our book group.

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SocialJusticeBooks.org is a project of Teaching for Change, a non-profit organization whose mission is to provide teachers and parents with the tools to create schools where students learn to read, write and change the world.

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More than 100 carefully selected lists of multicultural and social justice books for children, young adults, and educators. When you find a book at this site, please purchase it here. Our titles are linked to Bookshop. A portion of your book purchase helps sustain our work. New Releases Activism and Organizing Africa Afro-Latinx American Indians Arabs […]

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Oyate is a Native organization working to see that our lives and histories are portrayed with honesty and integrity, and that all people know that our stories belong to us.

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New book reviews are in!

book reviews

Review: Shi-shi-etko

Shi-shi-etko is one of the finest examples of an age-appropriate lesson to teach children about a dark chapter in Native history. In vivid, tender prose, Campbell conveys for children the true impact of residential school policies for Indian communities in the United States and Canada.

Read more...

Review: Darkness Under the Water

As it stands, Darkness Under the Water is a travesty, a melodrama marketed specifically to young people in Vermont-including Abenaki young people-who will probably be told this is how it was.

Read more...

Review: Chicora and the Little People

The first Lumbee legend to be told in a children's picture book, this story teaches children the importance of honoring the wisdom of children and other "small" voices, and of being courageous in the face of riducule.

Read more...

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featured book

A beautiful expression of the belief that all things in creation are sacred. The text is easy for very early readers.

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http://www.oyate.org/modules/mod_image_show_gk4/cache/judy_doris_cora_cropslider-wrapper.jpg link http://www.oyate.org/modules/mod_image_show_gk4/cache/shipping_cropslider-wrapper.jpg link http://www.oyate.org/modules/mod_image_show_gk4/cache/judy_doris_readingslider-wrapper.jpg link http://www.oyate.org/modules/mod_image_show_gk4/cache/robette_danielle_cropslider-wrapper.jpg link New book reviews are in! book reviews Review: Shi-shi-etko Shi-shi-etko is one of the finest examples of an age-appropriate lesson to teach children about a dark chapter in Native history. In vivid, tender prose, Campbell conveys for children the true impact of residential school policies for Indian communities in the United States and Canada.

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We Need Diverse Books™ is a 501(c)(3) non-profit and a grassroots organization of children’s book lovers that advocates essential changes in the publishing industry. Our aim is to help produce and promote literature that reflects and honors the lives of all young people.

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After WNDB was formed in 2014, our team traveled across the country to conferences and book festivals where they heard a common theme - diverse books can be hard to find. That's why we created OurStory to help address this problem.

The OurStory app is a tool that highlights books with diverse content and by content creators from marginalized communities. Both free and paid memberships are available. The free version will help all users find the perfect book and access cool content from authors. The paid version, called OurStory Pro, is a great tool for teachers, librarians and educators to access WNDB-themed curriculum and content.

For more details about the OurStory app, contact Dhonielle Clayton:dhonielleclayton@diversebooks.org.

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After WNDB was formed in 2014, our team traveled across the country to conferences and book festivals where they heard a common theme - diverse books can be hard to find. That's why we created OurStory to help address this problem.

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Indigo's Book Shelf: Voices of Native Youth

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Indigo's Book Shelf: Voices of Native Youth

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We are a group of Florida Natives--Miccosukee, Seminole, Black, Latinix, queer and disabled--from the ages 12-20, who are passionate about kidlit and yalit. We believe in the power of books to reflect, entertain and enrich our lives from the time we are young ones.

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We are a group of Florida Natives--Miccosukee, Seminole, Black, Latinix, queer and disabled--from the ages 12-20, who are passionate about kidlit and yalit.

We believe in the power of books to reflect, entertain and enrich our lives from the time we are young ones. We enjoy books in digital and bound copies, with texts and/or graphics.

We have experienced the bitter disappointment and danger of widespread Native misrepresentation, theft, cruelty and lies in books for all young readers.

This blog is dedicated to reviewing Native #ownvoices. To us, that means books written from an inside perspective by Native authors, with proper research, respect and authorization, first and foremost for young Native readers, but also to educate other young readers and their families.
We join our elders is calling to replace harmful, stereotypical texts in libraries, schools and homes.

This blog is named after our friend Indigo, a Q2S sixteen-year-old who took her own life in 2018
Her beauty, courag...

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Indigo's Bookshelf: Voices of Native Youth

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We are a group of Florida Natives--Miccosukee, Seminole, Black, Latinix, queer and disabled--from the ages 12-20, who are passionate about kidlit and yalit. We believe in the power of books to reflect, entertain and enrich our lives from the time we are young ones. We enjoy books in digital and bound copies, with texts and/or graphics.

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The Muslim librarians on the Hijabi Librarians blog review children’s and young adult literature featuring Muslims. We seek to give voice to Muslim Literature through the lens of OUR expertise as professionals and to give OUR opinions as Muslim Americans.

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This list represents some of our favorite Children's and Young Adult books that we read and were published in 2021. As with our previous lists, these choices are based on their thoughtful and nuanced treatment of Muslims and Islam, and the intersections of identity. We are pleased to see the steady growth of books by Muslim authors and with Muslim protagonists being published by mainstream publishers, and considered over 100 titles, children's, young adult, and adult titles with YA appeal when creating this list. This year, graphic novels are in their age associated categories. A PDF version of our list will be available soon.

Again, we have not included fantasy and sci-fi titles by Muslim authors whose worlds and characters do not reflect explicit Muslim identity in this list. As stated on our release calendar there is power in speculative fiction/fantasy/scifi world building in exploring issues related to the real world and adding to the canon. We are highlighting these works on the calendar and plan to add a future, separate list with many of these excellent and thought-provoking titles.

What were your favorites of 2021?
Picture Books
Amira's Picture Day. Reem Faruqi, Illus. Fahmida Azim. 2021. 40p. Holiday House, $17.99. (9780823440191). PreS-Gr. 3. Link to review by Ariana .

Bangladeshi Muslim Zubi Chowdhury is an absolute sweetheart of a girl - bold, friendly, and full of life. While preparing for her first day of school, Zubi witnesses her family and friends make comments about how they are either 'fat' or 'going on a diet,' and having her to question why, and ultimately making her feel that she may need to do the same. When Zubi announces her intention to go on a diet too, her family reflects on the effect of their words, and how "we can be mean to ourselves without even realizing it," resulting in an important conversation about the toxicity of negative self-talk, body acceptance and strength, and acceptance of oneself. Visual and textual references are made to Islamic practice and Bangladeshi culture, with Zubi's mother wearing a hijab and putting on a sari, Zubi's bangles, and food like laddoos and parathas mentioned on many of the pages. Zu bi's school is a diverse, multiracial community, and one child, wearing a dress, uses they/them pronouns. Backmatter includes a glossary and a photo of the author. This simple story tackles body image, body confidence, and self-acceptance, and can be used as a model to have conversations about body image with young children. Pair this with Laxmi's Mooch for conversations about body acceptance and a broader representation of South Asian countries and cultures.

. Fatima's Great Outdoors. Ambreen Tariq, illus. by Stevie Lewis. 2021. 40p. Kokila (PYR/PRH), $17.99. (9781984816955). Gr. K-3. Link to reviews/discussion by Ariana, Noureen and Amna

Halal Hot Dogs. Susannah Aziz, illus. by Parwinder Singh. 2021. 40p. Little Bee Books, $17.99. (9781499811575). Gr 2-4. Link to review by Mahasin .

Hannah and the Ramadan Gift. Qasim Rashid, illus. by Aaliya Jaleel. 2021. 40p. Viking Books for Young Readers (PRH), $17.99. (9780593114667). PreS-Gr. 2. Link to review by Ariana .
I Went for Hajj. Na'ima B. Robert, illus. by Paula Pang. 2021. 32p. The Islamic Foundation, $11.95. (9780860377528). PreS-Gr. 2.
This charming book, told in the rhyming style of By Bill Martin, Jr., describes the Hajj journey through the eyes of a young child. While some rhymes are more successful than others, the scheme helps to break down important parts of Hajj as easy to understand actions. The foreword includes an author's note explaining the use of rhyming text to appeal to children, but emphasizes that it is not prescriptive for the performance of the rituals of Hajj. There are, however, points of discussion to breakdown points and rituals of Hajj to readers. End papers include a glossary of terms. Illustrations feature female and male hajjis/hajjahs (pilgrims) dressed in white, in various skin tones, and some papers include illustrations of pilgrims in wheelchairs. On the spread that features the kaaba, building at the center of the Masjid al-Haram, readers will appreciate the detail of the gold-colored foil used for the kiswah, the black brocade cloth that adorns the building. Illustrations are done in a retro, simple style, but reflect the contemporary backdrop of Makkah. Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See?

. In My Mosque. M. O. Yuksel. illus. by Hatem Aly. 2021. 40p. Harper (Harpercollins), $17.99. (9780062978707). Pre-S-Gr. 3. Link to review by Noureen

Little Seeds of Promise. Sana Rafi, illus. by Renia Metallinou. 2021. 48p. The Innovation Press, $15.99. (ISBN‎ 9781943147939). Grades K-3. Link to reviews by Amna and Noureen .

This joyous, vibrant counting book follows Musa and his Dada (older sister) as they head to Nungwi beach on the daladala, a minibus common in Tanzania. Along the way they stop for a plethora of passengers and their wares. While Musa complains that there can't possibly be room for them all, Dada insists that they can make room for everyone. Unlike other counting tales where space capacity might lead to bursting, there is room indeed for everyone as they joyfully and inclusively make space for all with wiggles and giggles galore. And even Musa is convinced-Alhamdulillah-that the whole motley crew will make it to the beach together. The backmatter includes a brief glossary of terms and an author's note. Illustrations by Mercè López are rich in color, pattern, and texture, and readers familiar with Unguja (Zanzibar island) may recognize architectural elements of Stone Town including the minaret of the Malindi mosque on the cover. In Betsy Bird's interview with Naaz Khan , the author discussed her travels in Zanzibar, cultural consultation, and why it was important to have different shades of dark brown skin in representing Zanzibaris, and widening representation of Muslims in children's literature.

After losing her leg in an accident, Aria is finally returning to school, but finds that sitting on the floor all day with her prosthetic "helper-leg" is painful. With all the wooden furniture in the school used as fuel to keep houses warm during the war, Aria comes up with the idea to build a bench with discarded materials. Her classmates doubt she can do it, but Aria is determined to do "anything a boy can do" and barters a loaf of sweet bread with Kaka Najar, a carpenter, for instruction and use of his tools. Kaka Najar gifts her a can of blue paint to use for her project, sky-blue signifying courage, peace, and wisdom. Illustrations are beautifully vibrant and colorful, particularly in the markets of the Old City, and residents are dressed in a variety of styles, skin tones in various shades of brown, and facial expressions. Aria's actions not only inspire her classmates, she passes on her knowledge, skills, and hope to them and to her brother, knowing that they can "build everything we need together." End papers show Aria putting on her new red shoes on while the back end papers show Aria and her classmates planning and collecting materials together to improve their classroom. Though there is no specific time period specified in the text of the story, the author's note indicates that elements of the story reflect his own experiences growing up Afghanistan in the early 90s and the need to use wooden furniture as firewood and teaching children to be able to identify land mines, particularly "butterfly mines" that had a reputation for being attractive to children. A Sky-Blue Bench was a 2022 ALA Schneider Family Book Award Honor Book Winner.

Nonfiction

Written by Syrian child refugee and activist, Bana Alabed, this book opens with a young Bana asking her mother, depicted wearing a light green hijab, why she gave her the name "Bana." Her mother tells her that she is named after a tree that grows in Syria and like the tree, Bana's parents hoped that she would be "qawia," strong. Following up by asking what it means to be strong, Bana's mother explains different elements of strength, including the most important, "amal," hope. One of the spreads, shows Bana on a computer while her mother stands behind her, referring to Bana's initial use of Twitter to bring increased awareness to the Syrian Civil War and the siege of Aleppo. Bana reflects on how she embodied strength during the war while in Syria, in moving to a new place, and in using her voice to speak up for children's rights. Illustrations are simple and sensitive in their depiction of war, showing the mother and children turning away from a red-tinged sky with texts addressing bombing. An afterword from the author assures child readers that she is safe now, living in Turkey with her family and concludes that while she's encouraging children around the world living in war zones to be strong, her message to adults is that "kids shouldn't have to always be so strong. Every child deserves to live in peace."
Early Readers
Yasmin series. (Yasmin the Librarian, Recycler, Singer, Scientist). Saadia Faruqi. Illus. by Hatem Aly. 2021. 32p. Picture Window Books (Capstone), $5.95 (Paperback: 9781515883722, 9781515883746, 9781515883753, 9781515883739). K-Gr.3. Fountas & Pinnell Level K.

The newest additions to the series feature Pakistani American second-grader Yasmin helping in the library, encouraging her classmates to recycle, shyly singing in secret at a wedding party, and coming up with a project for the science fair. Yasmin's interactions with her multi-generational Pakistani American family are endearing and her everyday adventures recognize child agency and actions. Faruqi's sprinkling of Urdu words and Aly's beautiful and bold illustrations convey cultural details and insights into Yasmin's world. Some titles are available in Spanish and French.

Sadiq series (Sadiq and the Big Election, Gamers). Siman Nuurali, illus by. Christos Skaltsas. 2021. 64p. Picture Window Books (Capstone), $6.95. (9781663921901, 9781663921918). K-Gr. 3. Fountas & Pinnell Level M.

These followup voliumes about Somali American Muslim third-grader Sadiq continue to show the importance and value in involvement in community service and relationships. Each volume contains information around Somali culture, a glossary of words in Somali as well as terms that pertain to each story, and a reader/educator guide to asking questions about the story and related activities. In Sadiq and the Big Election, a class election for president, vice president, treasurer, and secretary has Sadiq coming up with big ideas to improve things in his school, but what will happen when one of his best friend's announces that he's running for the same position? In Sadiq and the Gamers, his gaming club is hosting a competition and trying to find a way to also serve the community. Could their gaming possibly engage the seniors in the local retirement community? Sadiq and his friends come up with ways to solve problems and make their community better than ever.
Middle Grade
Fiction

Ahmed Aziz's Epic Year. Nina Hamza. 2021. 320p. Quill Tree (HarperCollins), $16.99. (9780063024892). Gr 3-7. Link to review by Mahasin .

Amina's Song. Hena Khan. 2021. 288p. Salaam Reads (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers), $17.99. (9781534459885). Gr. 3-7. Fountas & Pinnell Level U. Amina's Song was the 2022 Winner of the Asian/Pacific American Award for Children's Literature.

In this sequel to the well-received Amina's Voice (2017), Pakistani-Muslim American Amina has traveled to Pakistan to visit her extended family. She returns home to the U.S. excited to teach her friends about the beauty of the country and its people. A school project promises that opportunity, but Amina finds that her task is more difficult than she anticipated, as she must confront her classmates' biases. A realistic narrative about identity formation and friendships in middle school.

This graphic novel iteration of Ms. Marvel, written by Nadia Shammas and ably illustrated by Nabi H. Ali, opens with Kamala Khan firmly established as Ms. Marvel. In fact she is so established as a superhero and next-gen member of the Avengers (alongside Spiderman/Miles Morales, Squirrel Girl/Doreen Green, and mentor Iron Man/Tony Stark), a website moderator, fanfic writer, and babysitter that she finds herself stretched a bit thin, sometimes literally. In keeping her superhero identity and powers a secret from her family, Kamala's relationship with them is a bit strained, and she appears to be neglecting them, her home life, and her Qur'an classes at the mosque. But even though her best friends white, Bruno and Turkish American, Nakia, know her secret, they also feel that Kamala is ignoring them and clearly needs help managing all her tasks. Everything comes to a head when a robot tries to take over Avengers Tower and Kamala must sort out her issues in order to fix this...and everything else. Though some more dedicated readers may feel like plot points are a little too on the nose (the villain will be obvious to all), this is clearly aimed towards younger readers, and works towards focusing on Ms. Marvel's relationships and her consistent humor. Easter eggs abound, with a nod to Pakistani actor Fawad Khan and his role in the upcoming Ms. Marvel television series

Omar's teacher has been abducted by aliens! Or at least that's what Omar believes happened. What else could possibly explain why their wonderful Mrs. Hutchinson has suddenly been replaced by the awful Mrs. Crankshaw and why all the teachers won't explain where she went? Though his best friends Charlie and Daniel don't quite believe the alien theory, their attempts to find any clues lead nowhere. And with Omar's family off to Pakistan for a wedding, their rescue plans are stalled. Where in the world could Mrs. Hutchinson be? A great addition to the Planet Omar series, this third volume is equally full of humor and heart and infused with Islamic terms and values.

Unsettled. Reem Faruqi. 2021. 352p. HarperCollins, $16.99 (9780063044708). Gr 4-6. Link to review by Mahasin .

Based on Trebinčević's own life as a Bosnian refugee, this story details three years of young Kenan's life, as an 11-year-old at the start of the Bosnian war and the breakup of the Yugoslav Federation. Though many Bosniaks are fleeing to other parts of Europe, Kenan cannot believe that his best friends would treat him any differently because his family is Muslim, especially when he sees his family as not being particularly religious. His father equally believes that because he is well-liked, respected, and keeps out of politics, that they will not be targeted. When it becomes evident that not only have their former friends turned on them, including Kenan's teacher, the family also realizes that they may have waited too long to flee. Kenan and his family face food deprivation, threats of violence and death, and constant fear for their lives as they struggle to survive and possibly flee. Somewhat miraculously, they are able to flee to Austria, even with Kenan's brother and father being taken to a concentration camp at one point where other Muslim men have faced death. Kenan's uncle Ahmet even remarks at one point that they are the luckiest Bosnian Muslim family having not lost any of their relatives. Through the narrative the reader sees psychological and emotional costs of war as they are betrayed by former friends and neighbors and Kenan is often skeptical of who to trust, if friendship is real or lasting. And even when they make their escape they never feel safe or settled, relocated several times in Austria and then again to the United States where, like many refugees, they are treated at times with compassion but also as unwanted, degraded guests. But despite the trauma and palpable, authentic anger, Kenan learns that there is good and bad amongst all people and that despite all of the loss he is grateful that he and his family can be together. Though the narrative sometimes falters in pacing and some concepts and historical events may need more context for younger readers, it is overall a poignant and important story. Text also alludes to violence and sexual assault, but is never overly explicit, and is well-suited for upper middle grade readers.

​​Yusuf Azeem Is Not a Hero. Saadia Faruqi. 2021. 368p. Quill Tree (HarperCollins), $16.99. (9780062943255). Gr 3-7. Link to review by Mahasin .

Nonfiction

New Yorker and Guinea American Adama Bah was a typical teenager when the September 11th terrorist attacks were carried out. Soon afterwards, however, her life changed forever when she and her father were falsely accused of terrorism and plans to become suicide bombers. Subsequently separated from her family and detained, she learns that she is not an American citizen, her father is deported, and she must work to support her large family in the U.S. and in Guinea. This well-paced narrative offers an informative and terrifying look at what it was like for many Muslims in the days and years following 9/11 and offers much needed representation about Muslims of African heritage.
Young Adult
The Awakening of Malcolm X. Ilyasah Shabazz and Tiffany D. Jackson. 2021. 336p. Farrar, Straus and Giroux (Macmillan), $17.99. (9780374313296). Gr. 7-12. Link to review by Nada .
Hani and Ishu's Guide to Fake Dating. Adiba Jaigirdar. 2021. 352p. Page Street Kids, $17.99. (9781645672579). Gr. 9-12.
Bangladeshi Irish and Muslim Hani, has just come out to her two best friends Aisling and Dee as being bisexual, but they don't believe that she can know for certain since she has never even kissed a girl. Bengali and Indian Irish (as well as atheist and closeted) Ishu is studious and serious, always wanting to please her parents, who only have eyes for their golden child, Ishu's older sister Nik. But Nik has recently fallen from grace, having left university to get married, and Ishu's parents are more on her than ever to succeed. When Hani proposes to Ishu that they should fake date Ishu, who normally would hate being pigeonholed into being THE two queer brown girls dating, agrees since Hani's popularity could help Ishu become Head Girl and convince her parents that Ishu is not like her sister. Jaigirdar navigates the fake dating trope with aplomb, bringing in multitudes of layers of identity, racism, homophobia and bierasure, with a delightful amount of romance and angst. Hani is out to her parents who are accepting of her sexuality. Hani also attends mosque, prays, reads Qur'an and does not drink alcohol, and faces disdain and confusion from her friends who signal that she doesn't seem like "one of those" Muslims (since she does not wear hijab) and further solidifies their continuous aggressions against her sexual identity.

Home Is Not a Country. Safia Elhillo. 2021. 224p. Make Me a World (PRH/RHCB), $17.99. (9780593177051). Gr. 8-12. Link to review by Nada . Home is Not a Country was a 2022 Coretta Scott King Book Award Author Honor Winner.
Huda F Are You? Huda Fahmy. 2021. 192p. Dial Books (PRH), $14.99. (9780593324318). Gr. 7-17.
to place her high school story in the present day with references to contemporary social media tools, but adult readers will see familiar references to discrimination and targeting of the Muslim communities in the immediate years following 9/11. Fahmy's humorous, laugh-out-loud work continues to entertain, educate, and resonate with all readers and is also an important work of self-reflection for Muslim readers. Huda Fahmy's fictionalized graphic memoir follows a high school-aged Huda who has moved with her family from a place where she was the only hijabi in her class to Dearborn, Michigan with a significantly higher Muslim and Arab population. Huda struggles to find her place in the high school hierarchy and realizes that not only has she made hijab her personality (harder to do when surrounded by other hijabis and cliques of hijabis), but that she has made herself small in order to be pleasing to others. Her humor, while witty, is often self-deprecating and her internalized self-loathing causes further harm to herself and the ones that she loves. Fahmy made the deliberate choice

Listen, Layla. Yassmin Abdel-Magied. 2021. 288p. Penguin Australia, $15.99. (9781760896065). Gr 7 and up. Link to review by Mahasin .

Misfit in Love. S.K. Ali. 2021. 320p. Salaam Reads (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers), $19.99. (9781534442757). Grades 9-12. Link to Review by Nada .

Perfectly Parvin. Olivia Abtahi. 2021. 320p. G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers (PRH), $17.99. (9780593109427). Gr. 7-12.

Fun-loving prankster Parvin Mohammadi is elated to start high school with her new boyfriend, Wesley, only to have him dump her at freshman orientation for being "loud" and "too much." Wallowing in romance movies, Parvin comes to the (false) realization that demure girls get the guy and plans to show up Wesley by getting bisexual sophomore Matty Fumero to be her Homecoming date. Parvin's attempt to 180 her personality and style has best friends pansexual, Korean American Ruth and gay, Mexican American Fabian doubtful and disapproving. Parvin's aunt Sara, who is viewing it all via Skype from Iran while waiting on her U.S. visa to arrive, also urges Parvin to be herself. Compounding this self-doubt is Parvin's internalized identity struggle and how much this affects her perception of beauty and romance. Despite their obvious affection, she is not able to glean much from her Iranian Shi'a father, does not look much like her white Episcopalian mother or any of the beautiful women in the media, nor does she feel Iranian enough to fit in with the other Iranians Americans, even as it becomes obvious that one of her classmates from Farsi school may want to be more than friends. But when her schemes and internalization lead her to ditch her friends when they need her most and her aunt Sara's plan to visit is threatened by the Muslim ban, Parvin must decide what is most important to her and what kind of person she truly is. Even in her most self-deprecating moments, Parvin is funny, witty, and lovable. And while some elements of representation might give readers pause, it is all in the cause of learning acceptance. A truly enjoyable read.

Piece by Piece: The Story of Nisrin's Hijab. Priya Huq. 2021. 224p. Abrams, $22.99. (9781419740169). Gr. 7 and up. Link to Review by Mahasin .

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This list represents some of our favorite Children's and Young Adult books that we read and were published in 2021. As with our previous lists, these choices are based on their thoughtful and nuanced treatment of Muslims and Islam, and the intersections of identity.

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Blog by Edi Campbell. Has great booklists. Crazy quilts are unique and innovative quilts created from scraps of material. They're crafted from odd pieces that don't always match or fit together without the work of an artist. My hope is for a world that values this unique artwork. I blog to make IPOC authors and their works more accessible, to make all the pieces fit together.

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title: Seven Pablos Author: Jorge Luján Illustrator: Chiara Carrer Translator: Mara Faye Lethem Date: Enchanted Lion Books; 2018 picture book 'Pablo' is a name that can mostly be found in Portugal, Spain and the countries they colonized around the world. In Seven Pablos, Jorge Luján and Chiara Carrer provide a brief glimpse into the lives [...]

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Crazy quilts are unique and innovative quilts created from scraps of materials. My hope is for a world that uses all the scraps, rough cut diamonds and hidden treasures. I blog to make IPOC authors and their works more accessible.

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Cuatrogatos Foundation conceives and implements projects that, through literature, art and the different means for the acquisition of knowledge, develop the creative, critical and civic capacities of the Spanish-speaking community of Miami.

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The Brown Bookshelf is designed to push awareness of the myriad Black voices writing for young readers

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About the Brown Bookshelf - The Brown Bookshelf

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The Brown Bookshelf is designed to push awareness of the myriad Black voices writing for young readers. Our flagship initiative is 28 Days Later, a month-long showcase of the best in Picture Books, Middle Grade, and Young Adult novels written and illustrated by Black creators. You can read more abou…

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Book blog by literacy scholar Laura Jimenez. Contains lists of graphic novels to keep and those to toss.

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Anansesem is an online magazine devoted to Caribbean children's and young adult literature written by both new and established writers. I

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It's carnival season! Carnival, along with steel pan music, the traditional music of carnival, is one of the things our region is famous for. Although different islands have different carnival origin stories, carnival is a festival with both African and European origins.

Both during slavery and after Emancipation, black Africans who had been forced into slavery in the Caribbean preserved their cultural traditions. The slaves used African masquerade, music, dance and calinda (stick fighting) to celebrate the sugarcane harvest, poke fun at the European slave-holding class, portray their suffering, and even mock the institution of slavery. Slaves were allowed to leave the plantations at Christmastime to spend time with their families in the barrack yards. They used this time to practice their cultural traditions of dance, drumming and chanting. Slaves would dress up in costumes, parodying the elaborate masquerade balls (from which they were banned) staged by the slaveowners at Christmas or to mark the Catholic Lenten season. They would irreverently mimick their owners' mannerisms and strange (strange to the Africans, that is) European dances. The slaves performed these parades both for good luck and to propitiate angry ancestors.

At various points, the white colonial elites tried in vain to suppress all of these rituals believing (rightly) that they stirred rebellion in the spirits of Africans. After Emancipation, these festivities and rituals developed into full-fledged, large, annual street parades which brought together both African and European masquerade traditions. From the African traditions, other uniquely Caribbean traditions developed, such as calypso music and steel pan music. Calypso (and its derivative, soca music) and the steel pan are still the official music of modern carnival, but in recent decades, the two art forms have taken on a life of their own, and are now not exclusive to carnival. Steel pan music, in particular, is played all around the world, is used to perform Western classical repertoires, and has made its way into many other genres of music.

Nowadays, due to the festival's origins, many (not all) Caribbean carnivals occur around Chistmastime, or before Lent and end on Ash Wednesday. During carnival parades, which can last anywhere from two days to a week, the streets are filled with masqueraders in colorful and strikingly creative costumes. Masqueraders frolic, perform African-derived and European-derived dances and rituals, and exuberantly enjoy "playing mas." There are numerous cultural events in the run-up to the major street parades, such as outdoor fetes, calypso competitions and steel pan competitions. For many, the carnival season is the highlight of the year and during the season, the islands are filled with a palpable atmosphere of celebration. On the other hand, there are many people who, while appreciating the festival's cultural significance, nevertheless dislike carnival, objecting to it on religious grounds, or just finding it too noisy and chaotic.

Although carnival started with enslaved Africans, over the course of centuries, it has become a unifying tradition embraced by Caribbean people of all races. A sub-genre of calypso, called chutney music, was developed by Indo-Caribbean people; chutney blends Indian styles of music with African-derived calypso. Carnival is also a major tourist attraction. Trinidad and Tobago Carnival is the biggest and best known Caribbean carnival, but almost all of the Caribbean islands have their own version of carnival. There's Junkanoo in The Bahamas; the Independence Festival in Jamaica; the St. Kitts and Nevis National Carnival in St. Kitts and Nevis; Carnaval Ponceño in Puerto Rico; Crop Over in Barbados; Vincy Mas in St Vincent & the Grenadines; Spicemas in Grenada; Martinique Carnival in Martinique; Defile Kanaval in Haiti; and Batabano in the Cayman Islands, to name a few.

Growing up in Trinidad, my family was never really into playing mas. I did attend annual "jump ups" in primary school. I remember one year I played a "Spanish Girl." My mother had the seamstress in our neighborhood sew me a yellow and red lambada costume that I loved. In some countries, it's seen as politically incorrect and offensive to dress up "like a Mexican" or "like an Indian." In the Caribbean, there is a long tradition of dressing up as the "cultural other" during carnival. It has become an acceptable way of both negotiating and celebrating difference in the Caribbean's highly multicultural societies, and reflects the cosmopolitan outlook of Caribbean people.

What you've just read is just a small window into a much more complex, deeply storied tradition. It's impossible to do justice to the many elements of carnival in a blog post. Whole books have been written on the topic, most of them for adult readers, but there are quite a few books for children that center Caribbean carnival as well. It's important for Caribbean children to grow up understanding the rich history of the festival, and why it continues to be an important form of cultural and political expression. In their origins, carnival rituals were powerful emancipatory acts for enslaved, oppressed Africans, and a way for them to preserve their cultural practices...practices which survive in the Caribbean today. Below is a list of books that children everywhere can read to better understand and appreciate the phenomenon that is carnival. A few of the pieces we've published in Anansesem focus on carnival or use carnival as a backdrop; I've listed those below as well.*All synopses are adapted from the publisher's website or the book's back cover. Inclusion in the list does not constitute an endorsement by Anansesem or its staff. The orange "Own" sticker is used to indicate the book is an #ownvoices one written by a Caribbean author.

From Anansesem* Helen Williams' book review of Malaika's Costume* Summer Edward's review of Drummer Boy of John John* "Dancing Bomba", a short story by Carmen Milagros Torres-Rivera* "The Vejigantes are Coming", children's nonfiction by Carmen Milagros Torres-Rivera* "Wings", a short story by Irma Rambaran

Picturebooks

Malaika's Costume by Nadia L. Hohn

It's Carnival time. The first Carnival since Malaika's mother moved to Canada to find a good job and provide for Malaika and her grandmother. Her mother promised she would send money for a costume, but when the money doesn't arrive, will Malaika still be able to dance in the parade? A heartwarming story about family, community and the celebration of Carnival. Illustrated by Irene Luxbacher.

Jump Up Time by Lynn Joseph

Carnival is supposed to be a happy time, but Lily wishes it were over. Her family has been working on the gorgeous hummingbird costume for months, but it's Lily's big sister, Christine, who will wear it at the Children's Carnival. Lily doesn't want to wait till next year for her chance to jump up in costume. She wants to play mas now! How Christine's big day turns out to be a big day for Lily as well makes a satisfying story, with lilting dialogue and pastel illustrations that capture the tropical colors and vibrant energy of Carnival in Trinidad. Illustrated by Linda Saport.

Sky Dancing by Ellen Erwin Here come the mocko jumbies! Children and adults alike love these colorfully clad Caribbean stilt dancers who move like graceful giants. Ruby and Jamal want to learn how to be stilt walkers, but only boys can join the local mocko jumbie troupe. Follow their adventures in this wryly sweet story of perseverance, friendship, and fun. Illustrated by Renata Fryshara.

Vejigante Masquerader by Lulu Delacre

Determined to look his best for the upcoming celebration, a young Puerto Rican boy makes a special costume so that he can be a vejigante, or masquerader, in a book that includes a Spanish-English glossary, chants, and instructions for making a vejigante mask. In this touching, vibrantly illustrated bilingual story, Lulu Delacre tells the story of a warm, close-knit family and community who help a very determined young boy find the key to his dreams. Illustrated by Lulu Delacre.

Nini at Carnival by Errol Lloyd

When Carnival arrives everyone is happy dancing and singing in the procession...except Nini. She wants to wear something special at the carnival, but unlike the other children she doesn't have a costume. Then suddenly a mysterious fairy godmother appears, making Nini Queen of the Carnival. Illustrated by Errol Lloyd.

Sofi and the Magic, Musical Mural by R. M. Ortiz

When Sofi walks through her barrio to the local store, she always passes a huge mural with images from Puerto Rico: musicians, dancers, tropical flowers and her least favorite a vejigante, a character from carnival that wears a scary mask. One day on her way home from the bodega, she stops in front of the mural. Is one of the dancers inviting her to be his partner? "Okay, lets dance," Sofi giggles, and suddenly shes in Old San Juan, surrounded by dancers and musicians playing bongos, tambourines and güiros. This story about an imaginative girl and a magical mural is an engaging exploration of Puerto Rico s cultural traditions as well as an ode to public art and the community it depicts. Illustrated by Maria Dominguez.

Caribbean Carnival by Jillian Powell Wear a bright costume, bang a drum, dance and sing. Come and join the carnival as the Caribbean islands celebrate in style!

Janine and the Carnival by Iolette Thomas

Janine is excited about going to her first Notting Hill Carnival, but when she gets lost it turns out to be not quite so fun. How will she find the rest of the family in the crowd? Illustrated by Jennifer Northway.

Play Mas'! A Carnival ABC by Dirk Mclean

Join us to jump up on J'ouvert morning! You are invited to Play Mas' and enjoy a Caribbean Carnival. Whether you are taking part in Trinidad or Toronto, Barbados or Brooklyn, Carnival is a joyous chance to sing, dance, and celebrate life. Carnival is rooted in the French tradition of the Masquerade (Mas'), transformed by African, East Indian, and Spanish culture. Originally, Carnival took place just before the season of Lent. Now, Carnivals are held in places around the world at different times of the year. In this book, each vibrant painting presents a different aspect of Carnival. Detailed information about the celebrations makes it a useful resource as well as an opportunity to share in the fun. There is even a hidden letter to find in each painting. Illustrated by Ras Stone.

Intermediate The Moko Jumbi Majorette Trilogy by Alscess Lewis-Brown

Lexi dreams about being a majorette in the carnival parade, and not just the usual majorette. She'll kick up her feet and twirl her baton on stilts. But it takes practice and concentration. How can she focus on becoming a moko jumbi majorette when her best friend moves away, a new family moves into the house next door. Where are they from and what sort of people are they anyway? Her mother has other ideas about Lexi s plan, and so does Nordica, a bully at school who will stop at nothing to twist her dreams. And if that weren't enough, a hurricane's on its way! Lexi's so busy coping with loss, worry, and impending disaster, is there room in her life for a dream? This trilogy follows the struggles and triumphs of a Virgin Islander girl who must face the ultimate challenge of believing in herself even when not everyone else does. Illustrated by Cynthia Hatfield.

Rafi and Rosi Carnival! by Lulu Delacre

It's time for Carnival! Puerto Rico s joyous holiday is full of sights and sounds to explore. Rosi is determined to show Rafi the best way to enjoy the parade, while Rafi has a plan to make his sister queen for a day. But when Rafi scares Rosi with his terrible vejigante mask, Rosi decides it s time to teach her brother a lesson. This little sister has a few tricks up her sleeve too! Illustrated by Lulu Delacre.

Carnival by Grace Hallworth

The story is set in the lively world of the Trinidad carnival. It tells the story of Georgie who is desperate to join the masquerade and dance with the steel bands. In great excitement, he puts on his costume and goes with his father to join the crowds. But when Georgie gets separated from his father, the world of carnival becomes scary and confusing. But through his own resourcefulness, Georgie overcomes his fears and can enjoy carnival to the full. Illustrator unknown.

Steel Pan Music in Books for Children As mentioned, steel pan music is one of the staples of carnival celebrations in the Caribbean. The steel pan, also known as the steel drum, was invented in Trinidad and Tobago during World War II. As the story goes, Winston "Spree" Simon, a young Trinidadian boy from the working class community of John John, Laventille, hit upon the idea when he tried to straighten out a dent in his garbage can (an old oil barrel) and realized that each blow of his hammer produced a different pitch. Hearing music in the beating of the oil barrels, Simon began heating the bottom of old oil barrels and biscuit tins, and hammering them into shape. In this way, he created an 8-note ping-pong (tenor pan) which he developed into a 14-note pan a few years later.

The instrument began to be played in outdoor venues known as steel pan yards and groups of steel pan players formed the first steel pan bands. The steel bands appeared in the streets during Carnival, wearing the instrument from straps hanging around their necks, and providing the popular music of the day to accompany revelers. In 1945, when Nazi Germany surrendered to the Allied Forces, Trinidadians poured into the streets to celebrate the victory with the American and British forces that were stationed on the island. The steel pan bands took to the street as well. Simon was among them, leading his band, the John John Band. In the decades that followed, as the instrument evolved, different types of steel pan were invented, leading to the development of today's highly sophisticated steel orchestra

Actually, the origins of steel pan music can be traced back to the indigenous drumming brought to the islands by the African slaves as well as the East Indian indentured servants who worked on the sugar plantations as far back as the 16th century. The beating of animal skin drums was an integral part of the Africans' religious and cultural observances, and the slaves also used drumming to communicate messages to each other when planning or staging revolts. When skinned instruments were banned, the slaves invented the tamboo bamboo (from tambour, the French word for drum) by cutting bamboo stalks into different lengths to produce different sounds. The tamboo bamboo bands formed by the slaves were a precursor to the steel bands.

Early tamboo bamboo and steel drum music was the music of the poor and not considered respectable. Rivalry and turf wars between bands was not uncommon, with players using their tamboo bamboo sticks, and even their pans, as weapons. Because of the violence, steel band members were rounded up and thrown into jail. Young members of a steel band group were labeled potential criminals. Tamboo bamboo was banned for a while. Today, tamboo bamboo music is still a feature of carnival celebrations in Trinidad and Tobago, and tamboo bamboo players are know for their great dexterity and virtuoso technique in playing these deceptively simple instruments. From its humble (and sometimes violent) origins, steel pan music has become a highly respected and illustrious musical form that is valued and taught the world over.

Although steel band music has become mainstream and is now played all year-round all over the world, because of its history, it is strongly associated with Caribbean carnival. Steel bands in Trinidad have a tradition of re-interpreting the current year's calypsos. During the mas parades, steel bands cruise the streets on the back of huge trucks, playing their own renditions of the season's biggest soca hits. Numerous steel band competitions are also held throughout the Carnival season, but the largest and most exciting one is the national Panorama steel band competition. Panorama is a fierce competition involving virtually all the steel bands in Trinidad and Tobago. The Panorama Finals, which take place each year on the Saturday night prior to Carnival Monday, is a dazzling, culminating spectacle held in the evening at the Grand Stand, Queens Park Savannah, in the capital city of Port-of-Spain. Although Trinidad and Tobago is the home of the steel pan, over time, steel pan music has become associated with the Caribbean in general, and is the instrument is played in various islands.

Below are children's books that engage with the Caribbean's rich steel pan lore and heritage. Reading them might even encourage some young person to start learning this unique musical instrument!
The History of the Steel Band
The steel pan is the only musical instrument to have been invented in the 20th century. The story begins in Trinidad, where the people first begin to use all kinds of metal objects to make music. They collected a wide variety of assorted tins and shaped them and tuned them until they were turned into musical instruments. From Trinidad, the mighty steel orchestra has spread across the world. Includes a CD of Sterling's Angels (children's steel band led by Pan Maestro Sterling Betancourt) playing a range of music. Written by Verna Wilkins and Michael La Rose. Illustrated by Lynne Willey.
My Two Grandads
Aston's Grandad Roy played in a steel band and Grandad Harry played the trumpet in a brass band. Aston always enjoyed going to visit them and listen to them practise. But soon he wanted to join in. So he asked Grandad Roy to teach him to play the steel drums and then he asked Grandad Harry to teach him to play the trumpet. He loved practising both instruments. Then the school needs a band to play at the school fair, and both grandads want their own band to play. Finaly Aston had an idea - both bands join together to make one big band, and Aston joins in first on steel drums and then on trumpet. This delightful story of a mixed-race family reconciling their very different cultures is a wonderful celebration of diverse cultures. Written by Floella Benjamin. Illustrated by Margaret Chamberlain.
Boy Boy and the Magic Drum
One day Boy Boy is wandering about at a garbage site in Trinidad when he stumbles across an old man making music on a discarded oil drum from The Factory, and he marvels at the incredible sounds emanating from this piece of steel! Trinidad and Tobago provides the backdrop for this warm and engaging tale of recycling and a child's dream of making music on his magic drum, a steelpan. Written by Machel Montano. Illustrated by Kenneth Scott.

Drummer Boy of John John Carnival is coming, and the villagers of John John, Trinidad, are getting ready to jump up and celebrate with music, dancing, and a parade. Best of all, the Roti King has promised free rotis-tasty fried pancakes filled with chicken, herbs, and spices-for the best band in the parade.Young Winston dreams of feasting on those delicious rotis. But there's a problem: he's not in a band! Pondering his predicament as he wanders through the village junkyard, Winston makes a curious musical discovery that may be just the ticket to realizing his dream. With ingenuity and the help of his friends, Winston takes on the Carnival bands, drumming his way to victory-and to the Roti King's prized treat. Musical text and sun-drenched paintings joyously transport readers to the Caribbean, and to this exuberant story inspired by the early life of Winston "Spree" Simon, a pioneer in the development of the steel drum. Written by Mark Greenwood. Illustrated by Frané Lessac.

Pan Man Presents "The Sweet Sound of Steel"

Inspired by the life of Winston "Spree" Simon, a Trinidadian who is considered the father of the steel pan, the story begins in the 1930s on the twin sister Caribbean islands known as Trinidad and Tobago. In the city of Port of Spain, a ten-year-old boy named Winston loves beating his biscuit tin, but his mother doesn't like all the noise. Find out what Winston discovers about the soul of carnival. Includs a free colouring book which can be downloaded . Written by Tarquin Lougheide. Illustrated by Craig George. *Self-published book.

The Steel Pan Man of Harlem

A mysterious man appears in Harlem and promises to rid the city of its rats by playing the steel pan drum, in a retelling of The Pied Piper of Hamelin set during the Harlem Renaissance. By the illustrator of the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Book, Almost to Freedom. Written and illustrated by Colin Bootman.

The Steel Band Biff, Chip and Kipper learn about a musical instrument when a Caribbean steel band visits their school. Written by Roderick Hunt. Illustrated by Alex Brychta.

Intermediate

The Adventures of the Magic Steelpan

Nathan and Natasha are fun-loving twins living in the beautiful Caribbean island of Trinidad. On a visit to their grandmother's house, Grandma's stories turn an ordinary day into an extraordinary day into an extraordinary adventure as she uncovers the mystery of their grandfather's special nickname. Curiosity gives way to wonder as the magical secret of a very special steel pan is revealed. Written by Leeanna Williams. Illustrated by Valerie Belgrave.

Ping Pong P-Pan

Mysterious sounds come from the shed where the school's steel band pans are stored. Is someone playing pan? Is it burglars? Or ghosts? Written by Barbara Applin. Illustrator Unknown.

Fire and Steel

Melissa and her parents lived in a long, narrow white house next door to the Buccaneer's panyard. So Melissa grew up to the sound of steel pan. Melissa, the only girl and the youngest member of the Bamboo Buccaneers steel band of Trinidad and Tobago, shows her know-it-all cousin Darren, who is visiting from Grenada, a thing or two about being a "pan player" and a courageous person. When an external conflict of nature arises, Melissa is unable to play the pans because she has injured her hands as the result of a decision she made based upon an internal conflict. However, Melissa feels like a winner after playing "Feel the Steel" when she gets a standing ovation, with Darren applauding the loudest of all. Written by Judy Stone. Illustrator Unknown.

The Steel Band

The head teacher finds Vernon playing drums on an empty waste paper bin, and before long there is a flourishing steel band in the school. Written by Wendy Green. Illustrated by Jennifer Northway.

Summer Edward is the Editor-in-Chief here at Anansesem. Her writing and art have been published in various literary magazines and anthologies. Her home on the web is www.summeredward.com.

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anansesem - the caribbean children's literature ezine

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It's carnival season! Carnival, along with steel pan music, the traditional music of carnival, is one of the things our region is famous for. Although different islands have different carnival origin stories, carnival is a festival with both African and European origins.

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American Indians in Children's Literature

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American Indians in Children's Literature

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American Indians in Children's Literature is used by Native and non-Native parents, librarians, teachers, editors, professors, and students. It is assigned reading in courses in English, Library Science, and Education in the United States and Canada.

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American Indians in Children's Literature (AICL)

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Designed to help readers develop a critical eye about representations of American Indians in children's and young adult books

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Rich in Color is dedicated to reading, reviewing, talking about, and otherwise promoting young adult fiction starring or written by Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC). We believe that teens should be able to find themselves in the kinds of books they love to read.

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Rich in Color - Reading & Reviewing Diverse YA Books

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blackgirlmagic #Common Core #groupdiscussion #WeNeedDiverseBooks Anthology asian ya author interview authors banned books week blacklivesmatter black love book lists book reviews contemporary debut author diverse worlds diversity evaluating literature fantasy group discussion horror julie kagawa lgbtq lgbtqia new releases ownvoices queer comics queer ya racism recommendation: borrow it someday recommendation: get it now recommendation: get it soon recommendation: just skip it recruiting retelling retellings reviews romance summer reads superhero tu books Women's History Month year in review Zetta Elliott Zettasbooks

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Engages with works about, for, and/or by Latinxs and offers a broad forum on Latinx children’s, MG, and YA books.

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From the organization's press release:

The 24th International Latino Book Awards Ceremony showcased the flourishing talent of the fastest-growing group in the U.S., with four ceremonies held on August 19th and 20th at Los Angeles City College. These Awards are by far the largest Latino cultural distinction in the country, honoring 249 winners in 105 categories this year. The grand total of authors and publishers honored over the last two decades now stands at 3,719, proof that books by and about Latinos are in high demand in both English and Spanish. Gold, Silver, and Bronze-place winners in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, children's books, translation, and many more were announced over the two-day event.

Here are the winners-gold, silver, and bronze medals-in the children's books categories. Click on the book covers for more information:

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The Alma Flor Ada Best Latino Focused Children's Picture Book Award - English
GOLD MEDAL Child of the Flower-Song People: Luz Jiménez, Daughter of the Nahua, Gloria Amescua, Illustrated by Duncan Tonatiuh SILVER MEDAL Tía Fortuna's New Home, Ruth Behar, Illustrated by Devon Holzwarth BRONZE MEDAL Bisa's Carnaval, Joana Pastro, Illustrated by Carolina Coroa
The Alma Flor Ada Best Latino Focused Children's Picture Book Award - Spanish
GOLD MEDAL ¡Corre, pequeño Chaski! Una aventura en el camino Inka, Mariana Llanos, Illustrated by Mariana Ruiz Johnson SILVER MEDAL Pura's Cuentos: How Pura Belpré Libraries Reshaped Libraries with Her Stories, Annete Bay Pimentel, Illustrated by Magaly Morales
Best Children's Fiction Picture Book - Bilingual
GOLD MEDAL Let's Be Friends / Seamos Amigos, René Colato Laínez; Illustrated by Nomar Perez SILVER MEDAL Isabel and Her Colores Go to School, Alexandra Alessandri, Illustrated by Courtney Dawson
Best Children's Fiction Picture Book - English
GOLD MEDAL Abuelita and Me, Leonarda Carranza, illustrated by Rafael Mayani SILVER MEDAL Tía Fortuna's New Home, Ruth Behar, Illustrated by Devon Holzwarth BRONZE MEDAL May Your Life Be Deliciosa, Michael Genhart, Illustrated by Loris Lora
Mejor libro ilustrado de ficción para niños
GOLD MEDAL Pitu le Baila al Mar, Gama Valle; Illustrated by Yamel Figueroa SILVER MEDAL La Jirafa que no Cabía en su Cuento, Haydée Zayas Ramos BRONZE MEDAL El monstruo más feo del mundo, Luis Amavisca, Illustrated by Erica Salcedo
Best Children's Nonfiction Picture Book - English
GOLD MEDAL One Whole Me, Dia Mixon, Illustrated by Natalia Jiménez Osorio

SILVER MEDAL In the Spirit of a Dream: 13 Stories of American Immigrants of Color, Aida Salazar, Illustrated by Alina Chau BRONZE MEDAL Alphabet & Affirmations with The Black Unicorn, Sandra Elaine Scott
Best Children's Nonfiction Picture Book - Spanish or Bilingual
GOLD MEDAL Pura's Cuentos: How Pura Belpré Libraries Reshaped Libraries with Her Stories, Annete Bay Pimentel, Illustrated by Magaly Morales
Best Educational Children's Picture Book - Bilingual
GOLD MEDAL Pura's Cuentos: How Pura Belpré Libraries Reshaped Libraries with Her Stories, Annete Bay Pimentel, Illustrated by Magaly Morales SILVER MEDAL Popol Vuh Stories for Children, Denis O'Leary BRONZE MEDAL Lala and the Pond by the Rock / Lala y el Charco de la Piedra, Susana Illera Martínez
Best Educational Children's Picture Book - English
GOLD MEDAL Child of the Flower-Song People: Luz Jiménez, Daughter of the Nahua, Gloria Amescua, Illustrated by Duncan Tonatiuh SILVER MEDAL We Move Together, Kelly Fritsch, Anne McGuire, Illustrated by Eduardo Trejos
Best Educational Children's Picture Book - Spanish
GOLD MEDAL Morderse las uñas, Paula Merlán, Illustrated by Brenda Figueroa
Most Inspirational Children's Picture Book - Bilingual
GOLD MEDAL Pura's Cuentos: How Pura Belpré Libraries Reshaped Libraries with Her Stories, Annete Bay Pimentel, Illustrated by Magaly Morales SILVER MEDAL The Last Butter!y / La última mariposa, Regina Moya & Carmen Tafolla
Most Inspirational Children's Picture Book - English
GOLD MEDAL Courageous Camila: A story about finding your inner warrior, Naibe Reynoso & Giselle Carrillo; Illustrated by María Tuti SILVER MEDAL The Voices of the Trees, Elisa Guerra y Fernando Reimers; Illustrated by Ana RoGu

BRONZE MEDAL Child of the Flower-Song People: Luz Jiménez, Daughter of the Nahua, Gloria Amescua, Illustrated by Duncan Tonatiuh

Most Inspirational Children's Picture Book - Spanish
GOLD MEDAL Tienes un color especial, Lorena Sierco Espino; Mr. Momo, Lantia Publishing Group

SILVER MEDAL Memoria de un abedul, Daniel Cañas, Illustrated by Blanca Millán BRONZE MEDAL Peque y yo, Alicia Acosta, Illustrated by Mercé Galí
Best Learn to Read Book
GOLD MEDAL The Awesome Reading Adventures of Super Sammy and Marvelous Megan, Vanessa Caraveo
Best Youth Latino Focused Chapter Book
GOLD MEDAL Falling Short, Ernesto Cisneros SILVER MEDAL Sofía Acosta Makes a Scene, Emma Otheguy
Best Youth Chapter Fiction Book
GOLD MEDAL Falling Short, Ernesto Cisneros SILVER MEDAL Catalina Incognito, Jennifer Torres BRONZE MEDAL Julia y el mar, Olvido Guzman Pons

Most Inspirational Youth Chapter Book
GOLD MEDAL Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna, Alda P. Dobbs SILVER MEDAL Efren Divided, Ernesto Cisneros SILVER MEDAL Raulito: The First Latino Governor of Arizona, Roni Capin Rivera-Ashford
Best Young Adult Latino Focused Book
GOLD MEDAL On the Hook, Francisco X. Stork SILVER MEDAL Lifetime Passes, Terry Blas, Illustrated by Claudia Aguirre
Best Young Adult Fiction Book
GOLD MEDAL The Immortal Boy / El Inmortal, Francisco Montaña Ibáñez SILVER MEDAL Encarnación Castro's Journey in the Anza Expedition
1775-1776, Linda Castro Martinez SILVER MEDAL Three, Brenda Nicole Peña BRONZE MEDAL Fat Angie: Homecoming, e.E. Charlton Trujillo
Best Young Adult Fantasy & Adventure - English
GOLD MEDAL The Grimrose Girls, Laura Pohl SILVER MEDAL The Ghost Tracks, Celso Hurtado
Best Young Adult Fantasy & Adventure - Spanish
GOLD MEDAL El Último Dragón: Las espadas del legado, José del Real Antiquera SILVER MEDAL Catarina Freytas y el anillo perdido, Raymond Vollmond BRONZE MEDAL El Mundo del Olvido, Cristian Otárola Jiménez
Best Young Adult Romance Book
GOLD MEDAL Monstrua, NLa Contreras SILVER MEDAL La descendiente, Marie D.
Best Educational Young Adult Book
GOLD MEDAL No te creas todo lo que leas, Didi Whitefalcon, Illustrated by Verónica Rodríguez
SILVER MEDAL Voices of Diversity, Vanessa Caraveo
Most Inspirational Young Adult Book
GOLD MEDAL Harvesting Dreams, Erica Alfaro; Barker & Jules SILVER MEDAL Your Heart, My Sky, Margarita Engle; Simon & Schuster

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Exploring the world of Latinx YA, MG, & children's literature

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We are white library workers organizing to confront and dismantle racism in the field of children’s and young adult literature. We are committed to working for authenticity and visibility in books, and to supporting opportunities for Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) in all aspects of the children’s and young adult book world.

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A note about the following: I wrote this post several months ago. It was originally scheduled to publish Thursday March 12; we decided not to post it then because the night before, COVID-19 news swept the nation and all attention was focused there.

I know that some of our readers, like me, have time and mental space to read this right now; some do not. Our email and DMs are open; please get in touch if there is any support we can provide, and take care.

On January 31, we published a Links Roundup post. While we published it under the group account, I (Allie) organized and posted it, so I'm primarily responsible for the mistakes therein-namely, that in promoting Lee and Low's writeup of the 2019 Diversity Baseline Survey, I failed to name and credit Dr. Laura M. Jiménez, as well as Betsy Beckert, as co-authors of the survey. My mistake was part of a pattern in this specific instance ( the Guardian also failed to credit Dr. Jiménez and Ms. Beckert for their work on this survey), but it is also part of a larger pattern of White erasure of BIPOC people and work. So with a healthy dose of humility that comes with recognizing myself as a big part of the problem, and with my (and our) sincere apologies to Dr. Jiménez and Ms. Beckert, that pattern of erasure is the subject of this post.

With full credit to the People's Institute for Survival and Beyond, we here at Reading While White define racism as "Race-based prejudice coupled with access to systemic, structural power." It is impossible to exist in the world without having internalized race-based prejudice, and Whiteness necessarily confers a privileged relationship to systemic and structural power upon White people. Therefore, under this definition, all White people are racist. And all White people working on anti-racist activism necessarily bring their racism into their anti-racist work.

It is an inescapable truth that I will bring my own Whiteness and my own racism into anti-racist spaces, and that I will often reproduce racism in those spaces. I can always work to do better, but part of doing better is accepting and sitting with the inherent contradiction of my being in these spaces at all, trying to do anti-racist work while not denying the fact that I am racist.

In a study on how White activists contribute to severe burnout among BIPOC activists, Paul C. Gorski and Noura Erakat identified patterns of White activists "undermining or invalidating the racial justice work of activists of color" and "taking credit for participants' racial justice work and ideas" as major contributors to BIPOC burnout (among others). According to Gorski and Erakat, "white activists derived benefits from their involvement in racial justice activism at the expense of activists of color who, in turn, were silenced, undermined, disrespected, and eventually burned out."

Specifically, in Gorski's and Erakat's study, BIPOC activists reported that White activists:

"appropriate antiracist organizations by usurping power from activists of color"

"Need... the spotlight, [which] led some to exploit activists of color either to acquire benefits-leadership positions or speaking invitations, for example-or to win validation from activists of color."

"take credit for ideas they previously dismissed from [BIPOC activists]"

"accept benefits, such as credit and recognition, for ideas and work produced by activists of color." (One interviewee offered, as an example, White Academics "who just want to get their name published with someone who is recognized for doing racial justice.")

"take the work developed by marginalized people and 'put their name on it.' [One interviewee] explained, 'I have white racial justice workers who ... even record me or photograph something I post and use it as if it's theirs, without giving me credit ... as they coopt it and reappropriate it in a way that is dangerous.'"

BIPOC activists in Gorski's and Erakat's study described these White-rooted, within-community conditions as more intense and potent than external causes of burnout: "The racism that propelled participants into racial justice movements was reproduced within those movements. For many participants, this was a particularly disappointing and stress-inducing condition because they had entered movements hoping for a reprieve from the racism with which they coped outside their movements...." It stands to reason that White activists (including us at RWW) have done as much to undermine the anti-racist movement as any external force, and we (White people, including us at RWW) inevitably continue to do so.
There are different levels of White erasure of BIPOC work, from just ignoring it to actively appropriating it. Failing to acknowledge or credit BIPOC people for their work and ideas also erases their very existence and presence in activist spaces, a particularly noxious form of racism.

Big names in the White Anti-racist movement necessarily play a role in this problem. Tim Wise has been rightly criticised for how he dominates, profits from, and moves in general through anti-racist spaces; Leslie Mac, creator of the Ferguson Response Network and much more, wrote: "From Tim Wise to Dixon White - our pain is used for profit. And repeating concepts created by Black folks thru a white lens will always sell." While I myself have learned deeply from, and am grateful for, the work of White Fragility author Robin DiAngelo, I recognize that she also benefits from White privilege within the anti-racist movement; the BIPOC people with whom she's collaborated don't have nearly the same level of national name-recognition, at least among White people (I saw Dr. DiAngelo present at a conference with Darlene Flynn in 2017; both were excellent, and I've been bothered ever since that Robin DiAngelo is a household name among White activists and Flynn is not).

We here at Reading While White fall into this category as well. Although we do not have the same level of mainstream attention nationally as Wise or DiAngelo, we do have a disproportionate degree of clout within the fields of librarianship and children's literature, given that some of our BIPOC colleagues have done this work for more than twenty years (and we turn five this Fall). Ironically, given how I subsequently erased her work, Dr. Laura Jiménez pointed this out to me when I interviewed her three years ago:

The one thing that frustrates me the most--and I'm glad that Reading While White is doing what it does--is that if I say something about a book, if Debbie or Edi says something, we're all told that we're not giving the author a chance. That they tried. We are not believed. If you look at the traffic RWW get vs the traffic I get or Edi gets, even though we've been doing this for longer, you get more, and the only difference is that you're White. To be honest, part of me resents that. And, I am glad that there are people willing to amplify our voices. If I write something, and you pick it up, that means so many more people will be willing to hear it. And that is paramount to my work. You get a lot of crap, the same criticism, but at the end of the day, you are heard and you are believed. Without White voices, our message can't be heard. We are not believed. It's good that your team realizes it.

I am glad that Dr. Jiménez was honest here, although she was much more generous with us than we deserve, i.e., we do NOT get the same crap; what we get is much smaller, and benign by comparison. I imagine there are many BIPOC people within the children's literature field who feel similarly-or more strongly-and for good, valid reasons aren't inclined to tell us that they feel that way (see: Gorski's and Erakat's study about burnout above).

You've probably heard that Black people-especially women-need to work "twice as hard for half as much" (mainstream White America can thank Scandal for bringing that maxim into our consciousness). Think about what this means for us as White people: We work half as hard, for twice as much.

How does this show up in children's literature? For one, the bar to be published is infinitely higher for BIPOC creators; and even if you are published, the level of attention and spotlight from the vast majority of bookstores and libraries is disproportionately higher for White creators. While perusing my local Barnes & Noble the other night, I was angered by the number of mediocre books by White people, mostly men, prominently on display in the children's section. There were several that I'd hazard would never have been published, let alone given the best display space, had a Black woman submitted the same text. This itself is a form of erasure-our insistence upon highlighting the same White men, over and over, causes and allows them to take up space that should belong to BIPOC creators, and by extension, BIPOC readers.

SCBWI Minnesota recently quite literally erased-that is, deleted-the work of Dr. Sarah Park Dahlen when she pointed out that the image they'd set as their banner was a stereotypical, racist image (link included with permission). They also erased the voices of many people who'd commented in agreement with Dr. Dahlen. Deletion of harmful posts is a common form of White erasure; in one fell swoop, the original poster can erase, rather than take ownership of, their mistakes, and can also erase the voices of any BIPOC critiquing racism. In this case, SCBWI Minnesota also decided not to clarify who was responsible for the deletions (link included with permission), thereby erasing their responsibility for that act of erasure and diffusing the blame for this act of racism. Such deletions gaslight the targets of racism (which compounds the initial racism). As Dr. Ebony Elizabeth Thomas noted in a thread about patterns of White erasure she noticed last year, "oppression justifies its violence and power by arguing that the oppressed's receipts are invalid" (quote included with permission).

(A point of clarification here: SCBWI Minnesota later posted screenshots of the deleted content. Another point of clarification: Screenshots that are not transcribed are not accessible to those who use screen readers.)

Erasure also shows up in children's literature when White creators steal ideas from creators of color and present them as their own. This ranges from the constant entitlement White authors feel to tell BIPOC stories to outright theft and plagiarism. (If you haven't read Jacqueline Woodson's Who Can Tell My Story in a while, pause and re-read it now, and also make time for a re-read of Debbie Reese's An oft-posed question: "Who can tell your stories?"-and actually, also read Maya Gonzalez' My Story, Your Story, Their Story, Who Gets To Tell It before you read any more of my work). You may also have read David Bowles' recent, expert pieces on the "harmful, appropriating, inaccurate, trauma-porn melodrama" that is Jeanine Cummins' American Dirt, or Maya Gonzalez' careful documentation of how White authors Brook Pessin-Whedbee and Kelly Storck, as well as their publishers (Jessica Kingsley Publishers and Instant Help Books/imprint of New Harbinger Publications, Inc.) plagiarized her work. Recently, Tangerine Jones wrote about how authors Katherine Alford and Kathy Gunst, plus their publisher Simon and Schuster, coopted and profit from her work-and the White aggression Alford and Gunst brought against her. White plundering of Native stories and cultural content for profit also echoes the history of colonial invasion. As Professor Rebecca Tsosie says:

Indigenous peoples have property interests, even if they don't fall within the narrow definitions of Western law. This was a problem in the sixteenth century when the Doctrine of Discovery was applied as an international doctrine to validate the interests of European sovereigns in claiming property in the lands that were described as the "New World." They said that indigenous peoples don't really have property rights, they just kind of roam around on the land, and so it's okay for Europeans to go and appropriate the land and say that they have title. Now that's what we don't want to do with intellectual property rights in the modern era... [P]eople can go and basically steal indigenous songs and stories, and then they can copyright them... the harm's not merely economic, but it can be a cultural form of harm that could be very devastating.

(Many thanks to Dr. Debbie Reese for answering my questions on this subject, and for sending me that link.) All of the above are examples of the different forms that White appropriation and erasure of BIPOC work can take in the world of literature.

[CONTENT WARNING FOR THIS PARAGRAPH - discusses police killings of Black people]

But perhaps the most dangerous, destructive aspect of this erasure is the flipside. If White people leap to take credit and rewards for BIPOC work and ideas-and if we make those White names household staples, while erasing the names and existence of robbed BIPOC people-we also do the reverse, when it comes to blaming BIPOC people for their own murders while simultaneously erasing the White-owned guilt for those murders. I'm talking to White readers, now. You likely can name a slew of Black people murdered by police: Michael Brown. Eric Garner. Tamir Rice. Philando Castile. Alton Sterling. How many of their killers can you name, off the top of your head? They are: Darren Wilson. Daniel Pantaleo. Timothy Loehmann. Jeronimo Yanez. Howie Lake. Blane Salamoni. Yes, I had to look up most of those. No, they aren't all White, but their lack of mainstream name recognition still protects a White-dominant police force. None were held legally responsible for killing the above human beings. Why were their victims put on trial, their private lives plundered and exposed, by a White-dominant media and public desperate to find a reason to blame them for their own murders? Why have we (White people) done our best to malign their names and their legacies, exonerate their killers', and erase those of women and nonbinary BIPCOC victims? In the interest of Saying Her Name: Meagan Hockaday. Tanisha Anderson. Mya Hall. Alexia Christian. There are too many more. We should know them.

All of the credit for anti-racist gains, none of the blame for racism... this is still the dominant narrative in every sector of the White community, from open bigots with sheets and torches to the wokest of the woke.

At the White Privilege Conference in 2017, Darlene Flynn and Robin DiAngelo said that "getting educated just makes White folks better racists." BIPOC activists have raised concerns about White anti-racist activism for a long time; I recently re-read the famous excerpt from The Autiobiography of Malcolm X in which he advises "sincere" White people to "...find all other white people they can who feel as they do-and let them form their own all-white groups, to work trying to convert other white people who are thinking and acting so racist." This passage, among many other things, helped inform our thinking when we first launched Reading While White. I'd remembered the above words perfectly, but had conveniently managed to forget the following:

I have these very deep feelings that white people who want to join black organizations are really just taking the escapist way to salve their consciences. By visibly hovering near us, they are 'proving' that they are 'with us' ... generally whites' very presence subtly renders the black organization automatically less effective... I know that every time that whites join a black organization, you watch, pretty soon... a black may be up front with a title, but the whites, because of their money, are the real controllers.

What can we White people do, to be and do better? It's possible to get stuck in guilt, when we reflect on how we can aid and abet racism despite our best intentions. It's also tempting, while reflecting on this, to outright disengage from anti-racist efforts; and at times, we White people do need to step back, since our very presence can (as Malcolm X reminds us) automatically render BIPOC-led efforts less effective. And we should definitely remove ourselves when we're told that we're actively harming BIPOC activists.

White activists won't, however, help matters by completely and permanently disengaging from the movement. We also won't help by self-flagellating-especially publicly, which puts a lot of pressure on the injured people to provide forgiveness and absolution. There is no perfect science to knowing when to step up and step back, but we have a responsibility to keep trying to show up when it's helpful to the movement, and to step back when it's not.

The study I cited above from Gorski and Erakat suggests that White activists can improve by "policing one another around concerns related to credit- and spotlight-grabbing behaviors (such as coopting the ideas of activists of color) so activists of color do not need to expend energy doing so." We must hold each other accountable to this, and we must fight the kneejerk defensiveness that so often comes when anyone-fellow White people included-try to hold us accountable. Inviting others to give us direct feedback (and sharing how they can do that easily) is a good first step here, and in that spirit, please always feel free to email us, readingwhilewhite@gmail.com. We must remember, also, that asking fellow White people to hold us accountable should not be an excuse to ignore or dismiss BIPOC people when they do choose to expend energy to hold us accountable, feedback to which we are not entitled but for which we should be grateful.

We can also correct ourselves and each other when we start to subtly usurp and take control of BIPOC-led organizations, as Malcolm X warns is our default. Making finances, funding, and decision-making processes in organizations transparent, and making transparency the norm, can help; we also must listen and act when BIPOC people voice concerns about White leadership or processes. Patterns of BIPOC leaving organizations are almost always a signal that something is rotten in the White culture of that organization, and when we notice such patterns, we must self-examine and ask for help and education from our White friends and community. And above all, when we're made aware that we're impeding anti-racist efforts, we must remove ourselves, and commit to change and accountability, before we continue to inflict harm on BIPOC activists and weaken the movement overall.

Gorski and Erakat also advise White activists to "prioritize movement goals over their needs for recognition and validation." Putting this into practice is easier said than done. Many White people are drawn to anti-racist work entirely for ego- or profit-based reasons; maybe a few are drawn to the work for entirely pure reasons and don't care about recognition at all. But most of us fall somewhere in between (I include myself in that group). I need to learn, and practice, checking my ego (and letting others check my ego). We White people need to help each other actually do that work of prioritizing movement goals over egos-and this involves having very clear goals, as well as people we trust to hold us accountable.
(A quick N.B.: This language-"prioritize movement goals over your need for recognition and validation"-should never be used as an excuse to give men credit for the work of women and nonbinary people, to give cisgender or heterosexual people credit for LGBTQIA+ work, to give nondisabled people credit for disabled work, or to justify oppression of any other intersecting identity.)

We must also work on doing the flipside of all this. In addition to giving full credit to BIPOC people for BIPOC ideas and work, we need to work to take responsibility for White-owned and White-originated mistakes, harm, and damage. This means making apologies that don't ring hollow, taking action to correct the damage we've done, and working to prevent similar mistakes in the future. This means we openly and eagerly educate fellow White people about our own mistakes, rather than covering them up from each other in an effort to be the best White person in the group.

Dr. Jiménez told us, three years ago, that one of the most useful things we can do at Reading While White is to pass the mic. We have to do a better job of passing that mic, and talk internally often about how we can do better (we're always open to criticism and suggestions on this subject, as well). Our White readers can also play a role in this, by making sure that you hear what our BIPOC colleagues have to say when we do pass the mic. Read our kindred spirits, and read them before you read us. We make it a point to link to BIPOC articles, essays, and blog posts as often as we can-click through those and read them. If it means you have to stop reading us so you can read them, please read them. Like them more than you like us on social media. Amplify them more than you amplify us. And when they call upon you to take action, listen to them. Don't wait for us to say "don't promote books with anthropomorphic monkeys"-believe Edi Campbell when she says it herself.

I'm sorry to Dr. Jiménez-I shouldn't have erased your work. All of us at RWW are grateful that Dr. Jiménez encouraged us to acknowledge and examine that act; it's given us a chance to reflect and learn. And in the spirit of this work, we hope that these reflections are useful to you, too.

-Allie Jane Bruce

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A note about the following: I wrote this post several months ago. It was originally scheduled to publish Thursday March 12; we decided not to post it then because the night before, COVID-19 news swept the nation and all attention was focused there.