We Need Diverse Books…and Let’s Not Stop There

Yes, yes, we need diverse books. We need books with black kids and brown kids, trans kids and gay kids, poor kids and not-so-poor kids, able-bodied kids and kids with disabilities. Kids of all kinds. I’m there, I promise.

But. But.

What happens next? What happens when the art is created and the words are written? What happens when we’ve created the books that act as mirrors (so every kid can see him/her/theirself reflected in the pages) and windows (so every kid can experience what life is like for people who don’t look or sound or pray like him/her/them?)

I’m a little worried about this part.

When I tried talking with the principal of our local elementary school about the fact that my daughter will have been there six years and will graduate without learning a thing about the Civil Rights movement or the Underground Railroad or the suffragettes or Native American tribes in our state, he pointed me toward the school and classroom libraries and encouraged me to channel my activism into getting diverse books on those shelves. Okay, good, I can do that.

But. Are the books getting taken down? Are they getting read? If they are read, are they getting discussed? Are kids finding ways to apply what they read to their own lives?

When I ran a before-school books and breakfast club and we read and talked about Wonder, my kid could relate the way Auggie was treated to unkindness a classmate was suffering. When we read Marvin Redpost: Is He a Girl? and talked about stereotypes, another mom told me that her second grade daughter quickly got adept at spotting them.

But that was because we talked. We discussed. We engaged.

What happens without that context? What happens if you read Freedom Summer without talking more about the civil rights movement and its heroism and struggles and triumphs and ongoing challenges? What happens if you leave young readers knowing that a town would rather fill its swimming pool with concrete than let brown and black and white kids swim together–and that’s all that those kids end up learning?

Yes, we need diverse books. We need diverse curriculum too. (And diverse teachers in our classrooms!) And once we have the books, we need to talk about them. Discuss, argue, praise, weep, think. Think hard.

Diverse books can’t save the world. Diverse readers just might.

#WeNeedDiverseBooks

#WeNeedMoreThanDiverseBooks