World Wednesday

Want a bit of a challenge for the New Year? Since my job as a middle school librarian is to provide books to my students so they can ALL see themselves reflected in literature, I do try to find books about students of different ethnicity, socioeconomic background, and cultural identity. Books from other places around the world are good as well, since it is often the only exposure my students have to how other people live in other places.

The problem? These books can be hard to find. There are some great blogs out there that make it a point to review multicultural books (and thanks to Andi Sibley of A Wrung Sponge for many on this list) -- The Brown Bookshelf, Paper Tigers, Mitali Perkins' Fire Escape, Charlotte's Library (looking for multicultural sci fi/fantasy), Crazy QuiltEdi,  CBC Diversity,  Saffron Tree, and Zetta Elliott's Fledgling blog, as well as others I have not listed-- but I think it would be great if middle grade bloggers tried to pick up a few more books with a variety of characters.

I don't know yet what I will post next week, but my plan is to look for a character who doesn't look exactly like me (i.e. middle class, suburban white girl!) and post a review next Wednesday. I'll put up a Mr. Linky, and if you also have posted, you can add your review there. Then, like with the other memes, we can visit and see what great new books others have read.

I'm also thinking of adding a Mr. Linky to Guy Friday-- it can be so hard for us girls to find books that boys will like, so maybe we need to band together (and get help from the actual guys out there)!

Every day needs a plan. It's my life philosophy. It's even better if it's an EVIL plan, but that's something for another day!