I was very fortunate to recently join the board of We Need Diverse Books (opens in a new window). And it’s an organization that is dedicated to broadly ensuring that everyone has the ability to see themselves reflected in a book, in the pages of a book. And they work with creatives, from authors and illustrators, to agents, editors, publishing professionals to ensure that the books that are available on the shelf reflect the people out there in the world.
And it’s been really meaningful to me. It’s an organization that started a while ago because there was a recognition of how not diverse the publishing industry was and the selection of books that were available. Like I said, when I was a child, I couldn’t see myself, I couldn’t find myself on the book shelves very easily, and most of the representations I did see were either like sidekicks or stereotypes, right?
So, and it’s unfortunate to, to have a bookshelf, which is supposed to encompass the human imagination, right, the human experience, and it to be so narrowly defined. So, I think for an organization to be like, we want to ensure that what is available to people is reflective of the fullness of humanity and then so readers can find what they’re looking for is a very noble goal and one that I’m happy to be a part of.
We need diverse books because we want tomorrow’s classics to reflect today’s society, right? When I was thinking about the mission of We Need Diverse Books at the onset, you get a lot of pushback saying well, it’s not part of the cannon. We have to read the classics. And I was like the reason the classics are the classics is because those were what were, the books that were available to be published, were allowed to be published.
And I want there to be enough books and a diversity of books published today so that we can find those classics within a broader array of books, and so that those classics will down the line reflect what we see now, and we’re not so limited to one particular type of experience.
