Why We Really Need Diverse Books

Almost 4 years ago, I wrote a post on how I wanted to see books that had teens struggling with chronic illness. It is a part of my story and I obviously want to read more close to mine or different. I have taken the advice of some of the people and began to write these books.

I am just one of the many stories in the world. We each experience life in such a different way. We all have different childhoods. We each think about school in a different way. Some of use are Caucasian, African American, Asian, Hispanic, mixed-race, or a completely different one that I am missing. Some of us were born female or male and some have a different gender identity then what they were  born with or don't have one. There are also variances in sexual preferences and many more aspects of a person. These all matter, because people matter.

Since studying English in a formal university setting, I have learned that the cannon is created by the books that are written. We are able to see aspects of Greek culture, because of the Plays and Epics that they left behind. The same goes to Beowulf and many more pieces of work. They show us a piece of history. Hopefully we can leave the same for our ancestors, but like those Greek plays, many marginalized groups are being left out. I think that it is important to represent everyone well. If they are unable to do this, we are failing them, not as just readers, but also as writers. People need to be able to find ourselves and the people that we love in the pages of books.