Announcing the Diverse Reads 2016 Book Challenge!

I’m so happy to be teaming up with Mishma to host a diverse reading challenge! Here are the rules and more info on signing up!

The Rules:

• Read books that are diverse.
• The MC must be part of a diverse group*

Defined by We Need Diverse Books: We recognize all diverse experiences, including (but not limited to) LGBTQIA, people of color, gender diversity, people with disabilities*, and ethnic, cultural, and religious minorities.

*We subscribe to a broad definition of disability, which includes but is not limited to physical, sensory, cognitive, intellectual, or developmental disabilities, chronic conditions, and mental illnesses (this may also include addiction). Furthermore, we subscribe to a social model of disability, which presents disability as created by barriers in the social environment, due to lack of equal access, stereotyping, and other forms of marginalization.

• The book can be set in a diverse setting, but not necessarily
• #Ownvoices stories (stories about marginalized groups written by a member of that marginalized group) are widely encouraged as well! Promoting diverse books by diverse authors is important.
• If the book is a fantasy it can be based on/inspired by a diverse mythology or folklore ( E.g. The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh)
• If the book is a sci fi or dystopia, it has to be based on a dystopian country that’s not USA. ( E.g. Cinder by Marissa Meyer)
• Intersectionality is encouraged.
• The novels don’t have to be YA, but as we are YA bloggers, those are probably the novels we are more likely to read

The Logistics:

• This challenge will run from the 1st of January 2016 to the 31st of December 2016.
• You can join in anytime you want.
• This challenge is meant to be a personal goal challenge to help find more diverse novels and to read more diversely.
• There are no levels/points! You can read as much or as little as you’d like, this is a personal goal and is mainly individualized
• To join the challenge, add your sign up post to the link up at the bottom of the post. You can include your TBR for the challenge if you want, but it’s not a requirement. Your sign up post can be a separate post or a part of a giant list of all your 2016 reading challenges. Anything is fine.

If you don’t have a blog, you may use a twitter handle or instagram profile and share this post with the hashtag #DiverseReads2016 that you’re participating! But add that link to the sign up link below

• If you want to share why you joined the challenge or why you want read more diverse books, you can tweet us using #Iwanttoreaddivesitybecause… and we can discuss there. This is optional, just adding your blog to the bottom of this post is enough for this requirement!
• There are themes for every couple of months, with different features and posts for each month:
  • January-March: Ethnic diversity
  • April-June: LGBTQIA+ diversity
  • July-September: Religious diversity
  • October-December: Mental and physical health and disabilities.                  

But this doesn’t mean that you have to only read books with the particular theme of the season. Your selection of books can be your choice. This is more of a fun way to help you categorize your reads, if you’d like.

We’ll have a link up on our blogs by the end of each season, where you can add your reviews of diverse books. We also welcome you to post non review posts on diversity and diverse books such as discussion posts, a list of recommendations, and you can add such posts on the link up as well.

• We have a list of diverse novels here on this google docs. It’s on Read Only mode so if you have recommendations, please tweet us!
• Spread the word! Share this challenge on twitter, instagram, pinterest or any social media you want. Grab the banner and add it to your sidebar!