Adding Our Voices…

As the woman says, “Ya gotta play to win.” Blogger Paula Chase Hyman at The Brown Bookshelf brought up a point the other day that we have to underscore: if you don’t throw your hat in the ring for a thing, you won’t be involved.

There’s a huge, massive, horrific, monolithic imbalance in diverse children’s books. There aren’t nearly as many stories of characters of color having adventures, meeting werewolves, fighting evil, rescuing the baby hedgehogs, or otherwise having romances or emotions, or actions that don’t involve standing around and being the felon/henchman/victim or the jive-talking sidekick. There’s just not.

Further, there are fewer bloggers of color blogging children’s books.

And, ever year, we get to the Cybils, and some people have a lot to say about that. “Why don’t we ever see any ___? Why didn’t ___ get nominated? How could ____ not have won?! How come ____ and ____ aren’t involved in the judging?”

Ya gotta play to win, guys.

Also: the books with diverse characters by authors of color have to be nominated to be read by the panels and perhaps win.

So, PLEASE, please, please nominate as many books as you’ve loved, in as many categories as you’ve enjoyed. If the book you love is already nominated, do a little digging. Find a book which sounds interesting – and nominate. If it has diverse characters and setting, so much the better.

If you’ve already used up all your nominations, call your mother.

And just like you get a little sticker and a cookie when you give blood, after you nominate for the Cybils you’ll have a little happy glimmer that says, “I PARTICIPATED!” and know that you’re doing a good thing, and giving excellent books for a diverse children’s and young adult audience a chance to shine.

Do it now.

Thank you.