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| Anna’s contribution to #WeNeedDiverseBooks |
It’s been a crazy few weeks on my side of the (non) internet world, so my links of note post this week is a little shorter than normal. But since I didn’t do one a couple of weeks ago, I wanted to have a few things for this week to make up for it. If there’s been great reading around the web recently, I want to know about it, so feel free to link me in the comments to things I shouldn’t miss.
I guess, too, it’s worth mentioning that I got on Printz for 2016 (!!!). A huge, tremendous thank you goes out to everyone who helped me get on the ballot by petitioning for me, and a huge thank you goes out to everyone who voted for me. I’m so excited about this opportunity, and I’m excited because the other three people who were elected — Lali, Paige, and Frankie — are three excellent fellow committee members. I’ve known Lali and Paige for a couple of years, and Frankie served on Outstanding Books last year (though we never got to work together because we were on different subcommittees).
That said, here’s some worthwhile reading:
- From the picture above, this week, the #WeNeedDiverseBooks campaign took off. You can read a good recap of the campaign at Publishers Weekly. I’m also a huge fan of the interview at Book Riot (not mine!) with the creators of the campaign.
- A couple of other related pieces worth reading on the topic of diversity in publishing are Leonicka’s series of tweets about the reader’s role in making change happen and Bogi Takacs’s about who gets signal boosted when these conversations arise and what we should be doing to bolster additional voices.
- Nita Tyndall created a great reading list to LGBTQ YA titles that aren’t about coming out — these are stories where the characters just are who they are and love who they love.
- Are you a fan of Meg Cabot’s The Princess Diaries? To honor the series anniversary, which is coming up soon, Cabot announced that she’s publishing a middle grade and an adult novel to continue the story. Neat!
- Molly Wetta wrote a really nice reader’s advisory guide to books for fans of John Green. I had mentioned in my presentation in Connecticut this week that I think John Green might be the hardest contemporary author to find read alikes to because it’s not always easy for people to express what it is they like about Green’s books. Molly does an excellent job breaking down appeal factors and offering great ideas for next reads.
- YALSA members: I plan on writing about this in depth shortly, but I wanted to alert you to changes that were made about the petition process for those interested in getting on the election ballot for various committees.
- Speaking of diversity and diversifying one’s reading, here’s a nice list of 50 Latino/a books for children.
- I really love this post: “Boys, Reading, and Misogynistic Crap” for the obvious reasons.
- If you haven’t yet, it’s prime time to go catch up on the week-long celebration of all things verse novel at Clear Eyes, Full Shelves.
My work elsewhere:
- Over at Book Riot, I wrote about the “slut shelves” discussion Alexandra Duncan kicked off, and I dug into how we do disservice to girls and girl reading. This is a piece I’m pretty damn proud of. Good and thought-provoking comments, too!
- I’m teaching a webinar through the Ontario Library Association in June about going gender free in your library. If you’re interested, here’s more information about how to sign up and what the costs are — there’s a minimal difference for those who are members of OLA and those who aren’t.