Paula Yoo: Advice for Creating Diverse Booklists

As Korean-American, as an Asian-American, I do want to address how librarians and educators and teachers can choose strong book examples about Asian American, Pacific Islander history, literature, fiction, characters, and voices in a way that is equitable and also authentic. I think the only answer I can think of is do the homework and be accountable.

When I say be accountable and do the homework in terms of trying to find the most authentic and proper books to teach that feature Asian American, Pacific Islander characters, themes, and historical events, it’s not just about going to the award list. Oh, what made all the state lists, what made all the awards lists, you know, let me just do that because I was that kind of reader.

Every time the National Book Awards came out or the Pulitzers, I’m like I would just go and get all the books and read them. But that’s not enough. You need to dig beneath that because there are a lot of books that go missing that should have been on those award lists but didn’t have the distribution, you know. Because a lot of these books are being published by more smaller, independent bookstores, they don’t have the access or the money to get them on all the bookshelves at the major bookstores. So that’s one thing.

I also think there are a bunch of websites now that are devoted to helping teachers and librarians know how to just get through this mass of this forest of books, like how do you focus in. There’s We Need Diverse Books.

Linda Sue Park, award-winning Korean American author, she just started a specific resource for Korean and Korean-American and Koreans in the diaspora list of books with interviews and vetting of “here are some really authentic books you should be reading.”