Weekly Roundup: June 30 - July 6, 2013

• Multicultural Books for Children: 40+ Book Lists at Pragmatic Mom

• Whitewashing: The Disappearance of Race and Ethnicity from YA Covers  at Inside a Dog

• Sci Fi Fantasy Books for Kids That Have Disabled Characters  at Patheos

• Russian Book for Teens Tackles LGBT Prejudice, Growing Up  at The Moscow News

• Kolkata Schools Tweek Classics to Teach Gender Sensitivity  at Times of India

Double Dose: Weekly Roundup: June 16 - June 29, 2013

• Openly YA Tour Hits the Road at Publisher's Weekly

• Resources for Parents of Gender Variant Children  at Express Milwaukee

• As Demographics Shift, Kids' Books Stay Stubbornly White  at NPR's Code Switch

• Why Hasn't the Number of Multicultural Books Increased in Eighteen Years?  at Lee & Low's blog

• Shaikha Bodour Emphasises Importance of Providing More Books to Visually Impaired  at Gulf News

• How Young Adult Literature Challenges Gender Norms  at Thought Catalog

• Degrees of Difficulty: Writing the Other at Rich in Color

• When Every Culture Is a Foreign Culture: Writing on the Autism Spectrum  at Rich in Color

Did we miss anything? Let us know in the comments!

Weekly Roundup: June 9 - June 15, 2013

• Beyond 'Game of Thrones': Exploring Diversity in Speculative Fiction at the L.A. Times Hero Complex

• The Grey of Gender: Intersex and Gender Variant/Non-Binary Characters in YA  at Gay YA

• Book Shares Insights of Filipino Children  at Times of Oman

• Diversity in Literature and a Giveaway!  at Go Teen Writers

•  CGI Chicago: First Books Commits to Diversity in Children's Literature at allvoices

• YA Is Too Late: Gay Characters in Middle Grade Fiction  at Vikki VanSickle

• A New Definition of Fatherhood  at Colorlines

• Once Upon a Time  at Business Standard

• YA Books About Transgender Characters  at Diversity in YA

Weekly Roundup: June 2 - June 8, 2013

•  Children's Laureate Malorie Blackman: 'I'm Looking Forward to Redressing the Balance for Teenagers' at The Guardian

• New Book Details How to Teach Yoga to Autistic and Special-Needs Kids at SunSentinel

• The Worry-Free Vacation at Rich in Color

• A Short List of Great Resources for Racial Diversity in Young Adult Sci-Fi  at bitchmedia

•  Black Characters Put Parents Off Books, New Children's Laureate Says at the Telegraph

• What Is Authentic, And What Is Offensive?  at CBC Diversity

• Mermaids in America  at Diversity in YA

Weekly Roundup: May 26 - June 1, 2013

• Coverflip: What Now? at the HuffPost

• Searching for Our Jeremy Lin at CBC Diversity

• Five Wrong-Headed Reasons For Not Writing Diverse Characters in Science Fiction at Rich in Color

• World Should Help Children with Disabilites Unlock Their Potential  at Thomas Reuters Foundation

• Scene in the Background: Disability in Children's Books at Youtube

• Do You Want to Talk About Children's Books?  event in London

Weekly Roundup: May 12 - May 18, 2013

• Celebrate YA Books That Feature Haitian Culture at The Hub

• 10 YA Books About Southeast Asian Americans at Diversity in YA

Older but still good:

• Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Characters in YA Fiction at The Hub

Clarification on Two Previous Posts

It has come to my attention that at least one reader was offended by the post entitled Five YA Novels Featuring a Protagonist with Asperger's or Autism. First, I'd like to apologize for not making it clear that Asperger's Syndrome is a form of autism. I am aware of this fact and while I alluded to this in the post about middle grade novels in the same vein, I realize I did not explicitly state this in either post. The reason for the title was two-fold. First, I was misinformed that April is Asperger's Syndrome Awareness Month, as well being Autism Awareness Month, and wanted to make that distinction. It turns out this is not true: April is Autism Awareness Month. Second, the title seemed rather too long with everything explained. That said, Asperger's is autism, not an either/or situation, and I will change the posts and titles to reflect that.

​It ​

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 this same reader also took offense with the blurbs featured for the books. Those blurbs were taken from Goodreads and we would love to know exactly which ones​ any reader may find offensive​ and why. Once we have this information, we can decide what to do concerning the

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We have not made this clear in the past so we want to make sure it is clear now: if you ever read anything on this blog that you find offensive, please ​let us know​! We are not above making mistakes, and though we are a diverse bunch, we do not personally represent every diverse group we highlight on this blog. We would very much appreciate it if you would kindly bring it to our attention if we ever misstep, keeping in mind that we would never do such a thing maliciously, as our goal is to promote diversity, not create more problems through misrepresentation. We thank you in advance for your honesty​ and hope this apology and clarification helps any readers that were offended by previous posts​!

Five YA Novels Featuring Protagonists with Asperger's and Other Forms of Autism

To compliment our previous post about five middle grade novels with protagonists with Asperger's or another form of autism, here are five YA novels in the same vein. We were glad to find one with a POC protagonist (Marcelo in the Real World), but found less YA books with autistic protagonists than middle grade. Another interesting observation: four out of the five protagonists have Asperger's Syndrome--there is only one character with another form autism (as opposed to the middle grade books which had a broader range of representation of the autism spectrum). We don't know what this means, if anything, but thought it was noteworthy nonetheless. Blurbs from Goodreads.

The Half-Life of Planets(Asperger's)
written by Emily Franklin and Brendan Halprin

"Lianna is an aspiring planetary scientist and also a kissing addict. This summer, though, she plans to spend every kiss-worthy hour in the lab, studying stars. Hank has never been kissed. He's smart and funny and very socially awkward, because he's got Asperger's syndrome. Hank's plan for the summer is to work at a music store and save enough to buy his beloved Fender Jazzmaster. What neither Liana nor Hank plan for is their fateful meeting...in the women's bathroom at the hospital. But their star-crossed encounter could be the very best kind."

Marcelo in the Real World
written by Francisco X. Stork

"Marcelo Sandoval hears music no one else can hear--part of the autism-like impairment no doctor has been able to identify--and he's always attended a special school where his differences have been protected. But the summer after his junior year, his father demands that Marcelo work in his law firm's mailroom in order to experience "the real world." There Marcelo meets Jasmine, his beautiful and surprising coworker, and Wendell, the son of another partner in the firm. He learns about competition and jealousy, anger and desire. But it's a picture he finds in a file -- a picture of a girl with half a face -- that truly connects him with the real world: its suffering, its injustice, and what he can do to fight."

Five Middle Grade Novels with Protagonists with Asperger's or Another Form of Autism

In addition to being National Poetry Month in the U.S., April is Autism Awareness Month. It took us a while but here are five titles we found with protagonists who have autism. Not all texts explicitly state whether a character has Asperger's or is somewhere else on the autism spectrum, so please forgive us if we have miscategorized any titles (but do let us know!). The blurbs on each book come from Goodreads.

The Reinvention of Edison Thomas (Asperger's)
written by Jacqueline Houtman

"Eddy Thomas can read a college physics book, but he can't read the emotions on the faces of his classmates at Drayton Middle School. He can spend hours tinkering with an invention, but he can't stand more than a few minutes in a noisy crowd, like the crowd at the science fair, which Eddy fails to win. When the local school crossing guard is laid off, Eddy is haunted by thoughts of the potentially disastrous consequences and invents a traffic-calming device, using parts he has scavenged from discarded machines. Eddy also discovers new friends, who appreciate his abilities and respect his unique view of the world. They help Eddy realize that his "friend" Mitch is the person behind the progressively more distressing things that happed to Eddy. By trusting his real friends and accepting their help, Eddy uses his talents to help others and rethinks his purely mechanical definition of success in this Tofte/Wright Children's Literature Award Winner."

2013 Coretta Scott King, Pura Belpre, Schneider Family, and Stonewall Book Award Winners

Since we began this blog in February, and the ALA awards are announced in January, we decided not to post about the winners. However, there has been a lot of interest in the posts cataloging the Asian/Pacific Heritage Awards and The Rainbow List, so we thought we'd better go ahead and post the Coretta Scott King, Pura Belpre, Schneider Family, and Stonewall Book award winners here, even though we're a few months late!

2013 Coretta Scott King Book Awards

Illustrator

Winner:

Five Picture Books About Brave and Clever Girls

Beautiful Warrior: The Legend of the Nun's King Fu
written and illustrated by Emily Arnold McCully

During the reign of the last Ming Emperor, a girl was born who was named Jingyong, meaning "Quiet Courage." Scorning a future for his daughter as a lady-in-waiting, her father raised her as a son, having her tutored in the five pillars of learning, including martial arts. Jingyong excelled at Kung Fu and when her city was overtaken by enemies, she journeyed to study with the monks of the Shaolin Monastery. Seeing her incredible skill at Kung Fu, they renamed her Wu Mei, which means "Beautiful Warrior." When a local girl is bullied into accepting a marriage proposal from a thug and comes to her for help, Wu Mei teaches the girl Kung Fu so she can solve her own problems. This is an excellent retelling of the legend of Wu Mei and does a superb job of helping readers understand the principles behind Kung Fu. An Author's Note further expands readers understanding of the art, explaining that there is much more to Kung Fu than what we see in Western movies.