Diversity in literature matters. Under 10% of books for children and young adults feature characters of color. The issue does not stem from a lack of authors with tales to tell. As a whole, the publishing industry has not done enough to diversify our bookshelves. Instead, flavors of the same story grace our shelves again and again. This doesn't just impact the children and young adults who aren't represented in literature, this is problematic for everyone.

Consider this: books are one of the first places we learn about the world around us. If you only see one kind of story or person represented, will that impact your growth and development? Would you have a different opinion about a group, culture, or nation if you saw them represented in literature you read as a child or adolescent? Moreover, would your opinions about yourself change if you saw more people that look like, act like, think like, or pray like, you in literature?

What starts in print might later become a movie, a TV series, and an ad campaign. A lack of diversity in literature is impacts other mediums. Books become the images that our society devours. To diversify images, we need to take a long look at our bookshelves, and the industry that feeds our youth stories that largely exclude much of our nation and world.

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