9 Young Adult Books About Latinx Youth
September 25, 2018Diverse literature for young adults is essential. Young Afro Caribbean-American activist Marley Dias started the campaign #1000BlackGirlBooks in 2015 because she was “tired of reading was books about white boys and dogs and felt there wasn’t really any freedom for me to read what I wanted.” Her mission sparked international conversations about the need to diversify Young Adult literature to reflect the diversity of people that read.
According to Diversity in YA, in 2014 the Young Adult Library Association’s Best for Young Adults List only had 4% of books about characters with disabilities; only 3% of the books on the list had Latino characters, and authors of color only made up 10% of the list. Although these numbers look abysmal there are books available with young Latina protagonist that are worth putting on your reading list and the reading list of young Latinxs in your family.