Diversity

I love this quote from author Kirby Larson SO much, and not just because she references me (but, um, shucks, thanks), but because I so totally agree:

Thinking about the diversity in children's books conversation: So glad it is happening! But worried that it might get narrowed to certain criteria. As a kid who grew up without much, I know I would have died and gone to heaven to read Barbara O'Connor or Frances O'Roark Dowell or Watt Key or Lois Brandt (Maddi's Refrigerator, due out in the fall) to find kids like me who bathed in gas station restrooms or didn't have enough to eat or always wore hand me downs. So write your story. Tell it true. Because there's a child out there for whom that story will be a mirror and an escape. A very important escape. And perhaps, perhaps, even a ticket out. That is what diversity in literature is all about.