International Book Giving Day is on Valentine’s day – here is a guide to donating multi-cultural books. Everyone named is on Instagram.
Many children do not see people who look like them in books and this creates problems. My own book A Fairy in the Family was created to represent black kids in London but one book can only do so much.
With International Book Donation Day coming up I wanted to list some of the people who are doing their bit for diversity in books by accepting donations and then finding an audience for the books.
There are quite a few options when it come to donating books with children of colour. One woman referred to herself as a “Book Fairy” so I will borrow that term for my list.
Book Fairy One – Marley Dias (@iammarleydias)
Marley Dias is the schoolgirl who was encouraged by her mother to DO SOMETHING when she complained about the shortage of books featuring black girls on the cover.
Marley Dias started her #1000BlackGirlBooks campaign in 2015 and has collected well over 1,000 books. She shares the books with children in Jamaica and has created her GrassROOTS resource that lists her donated books here.
Book Fairy Two – Olivia (@blackgirlbooksmatter)
Olivia is a little girl who does lively book reviews under the handle @blackgirlbooksmatter Her feed is full of books and other artworks showing black girls.
Book Fairies Three and Four – Madison and Barrington (@50tates50books)
With help from mum, this sister and brother team has the goal of donating boxes full of 50 books to each of the 50 US states.
Book Fairies Five and Six – Jeannie and Bianca (@ColorfulPagesProject)
With the Colorful Pages Project educators Jeannie and Bianca are getting picture books into schools in their area of North Carolina. They look for books “featuring characters of color”.
Book Fairy Seven – Devon (@isemeinc)
Devon Frazier wants to dismantle the ‘school to prison pipeline’ by addressing problems with literacy in vulnerable children.
Book Fairy Eight – Trinity (@theyouthwillbeallwrite)
Even after kids have wound up in detention centres 16 year old Trinity has not given up on them and she donates staple-free composition journals to kids so that they might have a place to write.
The End