815 Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Books

logo for episode 815

This is our season finale! It’s been so great to read with you all season – thanks for sharing this journey with us. As we always do, we will be on hiatus for the summer. But don’t worry about being left with no book discussion! We will be dropping a short Browsing Books episode every Tuesday here, with a fun fact about a Minnesota county, and six book suggestions to go with the fact. And we’ll be back with another season of Reading With Libraries in September!

Usually our final episode of the season looks at Minnesota books and authors, and of course we are always fans and supporters of these books! This season we are taking a different direction, and taking a closer look at DEI books – books that discuss diversity, equity, and inclusion. 

As library people, we of course recognize and celebrate the need and opportunity to add books to a collection to ensure everyone in the community will see themselves in a book. And books also give us a chance to reach beyond ourselves and our own experiences to learn more about other people. This should not be controversial – it’s a chance to enjoy new books, learn about new experiences, and build empathy for people’s lives. 

It is shameful that we are experiencing a time with so many book challenges. It is shameful that those challenges are consistently based on fear of people different from themselves and foolish bigotry. Looking at lists of any books challenged in school and public libraries and you see the consistent theme: the books all involve LGBTQ topics and authors, or bipoc authors and subjects. Not domestic violence, not rape, not suicide, not war – just a few things about people who are different from the book banner. It’s interesting to see what people find so scary they have to scream for it to be banned – a real insight into their own minds and fears. 

It is just a minority of people who undertake these hateful actions and try to take aways books from everyone – but they are a loud minority. Then book bans become an easy thing for a few foolish politicians, and others who need constant attention, to squall about in their public communications. They can’t fix roads, fund schools, or help people find jobs – but they can scream about how scary a few books are, and try to convince the simple-minded that they have actually done something. It’s embarrassing for them, and shameful for a community that lets their leaders behave like this.

So we are going to look at some of the issues in DEI books, and we are going to celebrate the range and choice and chances to learn about all sorts of interesting people! We are living in such a golden time for publishing! Yes, as we have discussed in many episodes: more can be done to share a broader perspective of the human condition. But, you can find more books told from more perspectives about more people’s lives than you ever could imagine – it’s fantastic!

And we have a special guest joining us this week: Zurya Anjum is a member of the CMLE Board of Trustees and also the Great River Regional Library System Board! She is a parent, concerned about bringing the best books to schools; and she is a fan of promoting wider reading opportunities for DEI books. Thanks so much for joining us, Zurya!