All white world of children's books question continues with the 2019 Diversity Baseline Survey

Recently Lee and Low published their 2019 Diversity Baseline Survey results on diversity in the publishing industry. The Diversity Baseline Survey (DBS 2.0) was created by Lee & Low Books with co-authors Laura M. Jiménez, PhD, Boston University Wheelock College of Education & Human Development and Betsy Beckert, graduate student in the Language and Literacy Department of Wheelock College of Education & Human Development.

They first created a baseline study in 2015.This study was authored by Sarah Park Dahlen, PhD, St.  Catherine University and Nicole Catlin, graduate student, St. Catherine University.

Unfortunately,even with a bigger response rate, the survey results' numbers reveal an industry, sales force, and book review staff that is overwhelmingly White, Cisgender, Straight and Non-Disabled.  The issue of the All White World of Children's Books remains.

See also 
https://educationservicesnews.blogspot.com/2014/05/all-white-world-of-childrens-books.html
http://educationservicesnews.blogspot.com/2014/04/all-white-world-of-childrens-books.html
http://educationservicesnews.blogspot.com/2014/03/all-white-world-of-childrens-books.html
http://educationservicesnews.blogspot.com/2013/06/all-white-world-of-childrens-books.html

YA Authors in Jersey City and 7th Black Comic Book Festival

Two young adult authors Gayle Forman and Jennifer Gilmore will be appearing Thursday, 1/17/19 at Word Bookstore, 123 Newark Avenue in Jersey City. They will engage in a conversation about young adult literature. Forman is  the author of If I Stay (soon to be a motion picture).

 More about their visit and their woks can be found at https://www.wordbookstores.com/event/word-jc-presents-jennifer-gilmore-and-gayle-forman-if-only

The 7th Annual Black Comic Book Festival takes place this weekend at the Schomburg Center in New York City at 515 Malcolm X Boulevard (135th St and Malcolm X Blvd)

New York, NY, 10037.  The festival will be held on Friday, January 18 from 12 PM - 7:30PM and on Saturday, January 19 from 10 AM to 7:30PM. The event is FREE. To register and get program information go to https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-schomburg-centers-7th-annual-black-comic-book-festival-tickets-53316870194

African American Children's Book Fair- Philadelphia -2/7/15-1-3pm

The 23rd Annual African American Children's Book Fair takes place in Philadelphia on February 7, 2015
Author and illustrators will make presentations from their books; also games, prizes, promotional give-aways and reading resources will be available. A wide selection of African American books to purchase will be featured at the event.

Authors and illustrators in attendance include Tonya Bolden, Eric Velasquez, E.B. Lewis and Zetta Elliott, Floyd Cooper and Sharon Dennis Wyeth

Location:  Community College of Philadelphia, Gymnasium, 17th and Spring Garden Street, Philadelphia
Time: 1-3pm
Date: Saturday, February 7, 2015
Admission: Free
Website: http://theafricanamericanchildrensbookproject.org

More info- Call 215-878-BOOK

Why should you attend?
Because  We Need Diverse Books!
See also http://educationservicesnews.blogspot.com/2014/05/all-white-world-of-childrens-books.html

All white world of children's books question continues with the BookCon controversy-UPDATE

Update

Results

 A conversation about the whitewashed lineup of BookCon guests sparked 22 writers, publishers and bloggers to begin the #WeNeedDiverseBooks campaign on May 1st. Since then, they’ve reached out to a community of readers, teachers, librarians, authors, booksellers and publishers who want to see more diversity within the publishing industry. Their message has been received: As of May 6th, 2014, the #WeNeedDiverseBooks hashtag on Twitter has garnered 87,520 posts from 23,275 unique users, with over 162 million timeline deliveries.

#WeNeedDiverseBooks campaign took the Internet by storm with more than 160 million impressions in a week’s time, but soon its reach will spread even further—into the conference halls of BookCon on May 31, 2014 in New York City.

New Panels
 The Blockbuster Kids Panel has been enlarged.

A new Blockbuster Kids  Panel includes Rachel Renee Russell author of the Dork Diaries

Here is a picture of the old panel

Publishers Weekly has announced that the campaign members, in conjunction with Lee & Low Books, have secured a diverse panel of acclaimed children’s authors, including Grace Lin, Matt de la Peña and Jacqueline Woodson for

The World Agrees: #WeNeedDiverseBooks panel featuringAisha Saeed, Ellen Oh, Grace Lin, I.W. Gregorio, Jacqueline Woodson, Lamar Giles, Marieke Nijkamp, Matt de la Peña, Mike Jung.

After taking the Internet by storm, the #WeNeedDiverseBooks campaign is moving forward with brand new initiatives to continue the call for diversity in children's literature. Join the WNDB team as they share highlights of their campaign, discuss the success of grassroots activism, highlight diverse books and how everyone can diversify their shelves and talk next steps for the campaign. Ellen Oh (PROPHECY Series), Aisha Saeed (Written in the Stars, 2015), Marieke Nijkamp, founder of DiversifYA, Lamar Giles (Fake ID) and Mike Jung (Geeks, Girls, and Secret Identities). Special Guests include acclaimed Authors Grace Lin (Where the Mountain Meets the Moon), Matt de la Peña (The Living) and Jacqueline Woodson (Beneath a Meth Moon). Moderated by I.W. Gregorio (None of the Above, 2015).

 More to Come
The #WeNeedDiverseBooks campaign will reveal further news and action plans at 10:00 a.m. during the BookCon diversity panel in room 1E02 at the Javits Center, 655 West 34th Street in Midtown Manhattan.

View the Campaign Archive
To see the submissions for the we need diverse books campaign, Check out the archive
http://weneeddiversebooks.tumblr.com/archive

and some of the submissions below
#WeNeedDiverseBooks because everyone should be able to find a book and say look that’s me!
http://tmblr.co/ZWNYhn1Eg5SmX

#WeNeedDiverseBooks because we have to tell our stories and hear the stories of others!
http://tmblr.co/ZWNYhn1Eg55oc

#WeNeedDiverseBooks because  we need to share our collective truth!
http://tmblr.co/ZWNYhn1Eg4sU-

We are all in this together! We > Me
http://tmblr.co/ZWNYhn1EiaYrp

#Weneeddiversebooks because people from all parts of the world need a story or character to relate to!
http://tmblr.co/ZWNYhn1FUOFoy

#WeNeedDiverseBooks because we are not one color!!!

http://tmblr.co/ZWNYhn1F8ZyZh

#WeNeedDiverseBooks because they speak to us!!

http://tmblr.co/ZWNYhn1EhDpO8

See also these posts on this blog
http://educationservicesnews.blogspot.com/2014/04/all-white-world-of-childrens-books.html
http://educationservicesnews.blogspot.com/2014/03/all-white-world-of-childrens-books.html
http://educationservicesnews.blogspot.com/2013/06/all-white-world-of-childrens-books.html

All white world of children's books question continues with the BookCon controversy

The continuing concern over the "all white world of children's books"  continues with the recent announcement of an all white, all male panel of top children's authors authors at BookCon.

BookCon is a production of ReedPop which is behind the very successful ComicCon.

Reaction has included varied blog posts summarized here

http://bookriot.com/2014/04/23/readers-bookcon-diversity-book-expo-america/

The reaction to this has cumulated in a group called We Need DiverseBooks,  online participation/events on May 1 to 3 to show that we need diverse books and that this is something that readers do indeed want! 

WHAT YOU CAN DO!-

On May 1^st at 1pm (EST), there will be a public call for action that will spread over 3 days. We’re starting with a visual social media campaign using the hashtag #WeNeedDiverseBooks. We want people to tweet, Tumblr, Instagram, Facebook, blog, and post anywhere they can to help make the hashtag go viral.

VISUAL CAMPAIGN - TAKE A PICTURE

• Take a photo holding a sign that says “We need diverse books because ___________________________.” Fill in the blank with an important, poignant, funny, and/or personal reason why this campaign is important to you. 
• The photo can be of you or a friend or anyone who wants to support diversity in kids’ lit. It can be a photo of the sign without you if you would prefer not to be in a picture. Be as creative as you want! Pose the sign with your favorite stuffed animal or at your favorite library. Get a bunch of friends to hold a bunch of signs. 

SHARE IT

• However you want to do it, we want to share it! There will be a Tumblr at http://weneeddiversebooks.tumblr.com/ that will host all of the photos and messages for the campaign. Please submit your visual component by May 1^st to weneeddiversebooks@yahoo.com with the subject line “photo” or submit it right on our Tumblr page here and it will be posted throughout the first day. 
• Starting at 1:00PM (EST) the Tumblr will start posting and it will be your job to reblog, tweet, Facebook, or share wherever you think will help get the word out. 
• The intent is that from 1pm EST to 3pm EST, there will be a nonstop hashtag party to spread the word. We hope that we’ll get enough people to participate to make the hashtag trend and grab the notice of more media outlets.
• The Tumblr will continue to be active throughout the length of the campaign, and for however long we need to keep this discussion going, so we welcome everyone to keep emailing or sending in submissions even after May 1^st.

TWEET IT!

On May 2^nd, the second part of our campaign will roll out with a Twitter chat scheduled for 2pm (EST) using the same hashtag. Please use #WeNeedDiverseBooks at 2pm on May 2nd and share your thoughts on the issues with diversity in literature and why diversity matters to you.

BUY DIVERSE BOOKS! 

TAKE PHOTOS!

On May 3^rd, 2pm (EST), the third portion of our campaign will begin. There will be a Diversify Your Shelves initiative to encourage people to put their money where their mouth is and buy diverse books and take photos of them. Diversify Your Shelves is all about actively seeking out diverse literature in bookstores and libraries, and there will be some fantastic giveaways for people who participate in the campaign! More details to come!

For some lists of diverse books see:

http://www.njcu.edu/guarini/department/EdServiceBib/GlobalJuvenileLiterature.pdf

 http://www.njcu.edu/guarini/department/EdServiceBib/GLOBALSECONDARYBOOKS.pdf

http://www.njcu.edu/guarini/department/EdServiceBib/GLOBALSECONDARYBOOKS.pdf

http://www.njcu.edu/guarini/department/EdServiceBib/MULTICULTURALSECONDARYBOOKS.pdf

http://www.njcu.edu/guarini/department/EdServiceBib/LGBTQBooks.pdf

THE RESULTS-

We hope that you will take part in this in any way you can. We need to spread the word far and wide so that it will trend on Twitter. So that media outlets will pick it up as a news item. So that the organizers of BEA and every big conference and festival out there gets the message that diversity is important to everyone. We hope you will help us by being a part of this movement.