Female-Led Graphic Novels Your Library Needs. You Know Comics Aren’t Just for Boys…Right? | CCGC in Libraries
History shows that superheroes have been primarily white males, and the comics in which they are featured are primarily written for a male audience. Now that geek culture is becoming increasingly more acceptable, let’s admit something obvious: girls like comics too! It seems kind of silly to feel the necessity to release a statement like that, but it is possible that not everyone in your library is aware of the growing audience of comics and graphic novels.

Why We Need Diverse Libraries | BOOKRIOT
Public librarians fight the good fight: we’re champions of literacy and intellectual freedom, we oppose book bannings, and we’re pro-education and public service. We’ve had a bit of a public image problem what with our shushing and our late fees, but we’ve been hard at work reinventing our image as welcoming, affirming professionals who are here to spread the love of books and information. We even have literary tattoos and bookish roller derby names. All of this makes it harder to say this next thing: Public librarians need to do better with race.

9 Books to Add to the Modern Brown Girl Literary Canon  | Elle.com
Women—particularly women of color—are coming for the old guard in literary writing circles and have been for some time now.

Back This Kickstarter: A Feminist Indian Comic Anthology | BOOKRIOT
Every once in awhile, I like to jump over to Book Riot from Panels (HI have you met us over at Panels? We talk about comics the way Book Riot talks about books!) to talk about comics that are really resonating with me, and today that’s Drawing the Line: Indian Women Fight Back, a comics anthology that’s currently 1/3 funded on Kickstarter with 18 days to go.

The Case for Reading Books that Offend You | BOOKRIOT
Recent news that several students at Duke University chose to abstain from reading Alison Bechdel’s graphic novel Fun Home, part of the school’s summer reading program, comes in the wake of a slew of lengthy think-pieces attempting to analyze Millennial views on offensive language. The students’ stance is relatively straightforward – Fun Home, specifically the images, contradicts their religious beliefs.

Ten Must-Read YA Novels You’ve Probably Never Heard Of | The Guardian
Just like adult fiction, popular YA books such as The Hunger Games or Divergent are not representative of the sheer diversity of titles and authors out there. John Hansen, creator of #VeryRealisticYA, explores some of the totally unique YA books you’ve probably not come across but really ought to look up…

2015 Partner for Pride Reading List | 3M | Scribd
At the 2015 American Library Association’s Annual Conference, 3M Library Systems asked librarians to share their favorite titles that support diversity, resulting in the librarian-recommended reading list below.

100 Best Novels: One in Five Doesn’t Represent Over 300 Years of Women in Literature | The Guardian
“Best of” lists are strange and silly things, particularly in the realm of books: as prize shortlists prove time and time again, fiction is a most subjective art. But still, what fun they can be, and how unwittingly revealing. Of Robert McCrum’s 100 Greatest Novels, just 21 are by women. Even allowing for the fact that his list takes in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, when women writers were relatively rare, this seems extraordinary to me.

Diversity Matters: Lee and Low Push for Transparency in the Publishing World | BOOKRIOT
Diversity has been the topic of discussion in the bookish world, and for good reason. The Children’s Book Council estimates only about 10% of children’s books featured main characters of color in 2014, and only about half of those were written by authors of color. In a world where nearly half of children in American elementary schools are children of color and where children of color are predicted to outnumber white children by 2024 in classrooms in the United States, publishing is not keeping pace with reality.

Here’s How New Texas Public School Textbooks Write About Slavery | Jezebel
In 2010, the Texas Board of Education approved a revised social studies curriculum that, wrote The New York Times that year, would “put a conservative stamp on history” once going into effect in 2015. In advance of their debut in Texas classrooms last week, it was widely reported that the new textbooks, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Pearson, “whitewashed” slavery by downplaying the brutality of the facts and treating it as a “side issue.”

Why Diversity in Children’s Literature Really Matters | HuffPost Books
Fortunately, an enormous push to increase diversity in children’s literature has emerged, thanks to campaigns like We Need Diverse Books. However, this push hasn’t always been prevalent among writers and readers.

How to Tackle Graphic Novel Collection Development for the Adult Department | CCGC in Libraries
Graphic novels have become an essential part of a library’s collection. Their popularity has grown due to literary and art awards, librarian and education societies, and librarian research. But including these publications in a library’s collection can be difficult for some, especially those who work in the adult department.

Women Authors Need Your Support. Here’s Why | HuffPost Books
According to a recent poll, male writers are the ones doling out inspiration.

All Our Worlds: Diverse Fantastic Fiction | DoubleDiamond
The conversation about diversity and representation is unavoidable. People are constantly clamoring for diverse media and denouncing what they see as harmful or not good enough. Fantastic fiction is a big target of this criticism. There is that stereotype: the idea that fantasy is all Arthurian white guys waving swords around and winning the helpless girl, and that science fiction is all white guys on spaceships waging wars against bug-eyed aliens. But that conception never felt right to me. Yes, there was plenty of that, but I had seen so much more!