The #WeNeedDiverseBooks campaign as well as publishers in general need to take into account the lack of diversity among diverse books, writes Matthew Salesses on Literary Hub.

“My problem is not with the lack of books about people who look like me. Publishing has come that far. I can find a few. My problem is with the lack of books about people who look like me but aren’t like me. For a bookish white kid, there are stories about daredevils or magicians or even animals who look and act like him, in any style, in any genre.”

“Imagine, though, how different a kid’s sense of the world, and of herself in it, would be if she had diverse diverse choices? ... Surely that power of imagination, to see oneself and others in a variety of different stories, gives an Asian kid in a white family the power to see himself as worth imagining.”

Luis Javier Guerrero, founder of the Young Warriors Reading Project and probation officer at a juvenile detention center, hopes to accomplish precisely this for juveniles in detention and for other at-risk-youth; in an interview with Daniel Olivas at La Bloga, he emphasized the lack of culturally relevant books available for the youth he serves.

Guerrero says, “In trying to establish this reading project my goal is to get these young adults interested in reading. At first, I want to captivate them with memoirs from individuals that have come from or have experienced similar situations as them so they can relate to the topic. In time, I want to move them away from the memoirs and begin having them read books about their culture and cultural/political leaders and what makes their culture different and unique. As we move on in the program, I will have them read books about other cultures and cultural/political readers so they can expand their awareness.”

Related reading: #WeNeedDiverseBooks recommends active sites that provide diverse books, and in the Guardian, a teen book blogger laments the lack of YA books featuring disabled protagonists.