Many people responded to the recent call for diverse books. Lectura Books publishes books specifically for Hispanic families in a bilingual format. When a family sees a family like theirs, there is so much to talk about! The book all of a sudden comes to life and that makes reading so much more engaging and fun.

Where did the We Need Diverse Books campaign come from?
In a Twitter exchange on April 17th, 2014, Ellen Oh and Malinda Lo expressed their frustration with the lack of diversity in kidlit. This wasn’t a new conversation for Ellen or Malinda, just the latest, this time in response to the all-white, all-male panel of children’s authors assembled for BookCon’s May 31st reader event. In a series of tweets, Ellen started talking about taking action. Several other authors, bloggers, and industry folks piped up saying they would like to be involved as well.

We planned a three-day event for May 1-3 to raise awareness, brainstorm solutions, and take action (Diversify Your Shelves). Aisha Saeed primed the pump on April 24th with the first tweet including the #WeNeedDiverseBooks hashtag.

After Aisha’s post, the hashtag started taking off, officially trending for the first time on April 29th, around 9:30 pm EST.