Diverse Books and Superhero Librarians
by K. Allen McNamara
Thirty years ago, the need for diverse books was metaphorized as Windows, Mirrors, Sliding Doors by Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop, professor emerita at Ohio State. Bishop promoted literature as a tool of self-affirmation.
“Books,” she wrote, “are sometimes windows, offering views of worlds that may be real or imagined, familiar or strange.”
“These windows are also sliding glass doors, and readers have only to walk through in imagination to become part of whatever world has been created and recreated by the author.”
But if the light is right, the window becomes a mirror.
“Literature transforms human experience and reflects it back to us, and in that reflection we can see our own lives and experiences as part of the larger human experience.”
Recently, author Uma Krishnaswami made the argument that perhaps we need to add prism to the metaphor.
“What if, in addition to mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors, some books worked like prisms? A prism can slow and bend the light that passes through it, splitting that light into its component colors. It can refract light in as many directions as the prism’s shape and surface planes allow. Similarly, books can disrupt and challenge ideas about diversity through multifaceted and intersecting identities, settings, cultural contexts, and histories. They can place diverse characters at these crucial intersections and give them the power to reframe their stories. Through the fictional world, they can make us question the assumptions and practices of our own real world.” (Krishnaswami )
Krishnaswami’s proposed addition has merit particularly given the increase in identification as gender fluid (20% of millennials identify as other than cis per Time Magazine) or multiracial ( growing at a rate three times as the population as a whole Pew Research Center)
Librarians have long internalized the metaphor of Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop that books are windows, mirrors and sliding doors and now factor in the prism. They know well how the right book can reach a child when other books have failed and finding the right book means having more diverse books.
Diverse books have characters of color or who are members of the LGBTQ+ community, have different abilities physical or cerebral, and practice different religions. But librarians know that in order for diverse books to be windows, sliding doors and mirrors, means the Black character or Brown character or a lesbian couple in the story must be more than as the affable sidekick or the best friend. It means having Black, Brown, Gay or differently abled characters who are main characters, the protagonist, the one we follow on the journey, the star of the show.
In her article Can Diverse Books Save Us? Kathy Ishizuka wrote
“the majority of librarians, 81 percent, consider it “very important” to have a diverse book collection for kids and teens. (Diverse collections, in this context, were defined as books with protagonists and experiences that feature underrepresented ethnicities, disabilities, cultural or religious backgrounds, gender nonconformity, or LGBTQIA+ orientations.)”
Ishizuka’s article drew upon the research collected by the School Library Journal from a survey sent to school librarians and community librarians. But there was a quotient of the survey that surprised the collectors - often it was the individual librarians and their personal convictions that influenced the acquisition of diverse books.
“But a significant driver here is individual conviction—of the 1,156 survey respondents (school and public librarians serving children and teens in the United States and Canada), 72 percent told SLJ they consider it a personal goal to create a diverse collection.
“As a teen librarian in the whitest state in the union, I feel it is my duty to not have the collection reflect my community, but rather to reflect the wider world,” says Melissa Orth, a teen librarian at Curtis Memorial Library, in Brunswick, ME. “Books featuring characters with different cultural experiences from their own can educate teen readers and build empathy.” For Sandra Parks, broadening the collection of her library at Skyline Middle School in Harrisonburg, VA—an effort in which she has focused on acquiring more titles with LGBTQIA+, Muslim, and African American characters and themes—“may be the most important thing I have done in my career,” she says.” (Ishizuka)
Let that sink in, may be THE most important thing in her career. Wow!
The new superhero may be our school librarians and the librarians of our community libraries. Individual conviction is the librarians’ superpower and it stems from their love of books and their desire to reach minds. They know diversity is more than the book’s cover and they vet the books (they read the diverse books) and promote diverse books through displays, conversations and even create games to get them into the hands of their student: one librarian offers March Madness challenge of reading diverse books, and more. Getting students and children to find connection in diverse books is work.
Of the good work around diverse books, “it’s happening in pockets,” says Kim Parker. [team member at Disrupt Texts] “There are some incredible librarian activists, and maybe amplifying their voices, putting them at the center of conferences, and getting them to publish best practices with kids who need it the most,” she says, will help the movement scale. (Ishizuka)
As Ishizuka’s concludes: “For now, it may be a leap of faith on the part of librarians that kids will pick up these books and become passionate, lifelong readers; that doing so will engender empathy; and that tolerance and understanding will resonate through their respective communities and the nation.”
When books are windows that become sliding doors and then mirrors or [prisms] that is connection. And maybe because of that connection we will be able to see each other, hear each other, understand each other. Maybe.
Luckily for us, librarians keep trying.
***Diverse books often end up on the reported banned book list per ALA (American Library Association) ****
To see Prism books curated by Uma Krishnaswami click here
