2017 Diverse Reads Book Challenge

I love a great many different genres of books, and my natural reading inclination has me fairly well read most of the time, but I am sometimes unintentionally guilty of not having a representative spread of authors and characters that are diverse in terms of race, sex, and others, including disability. Given the fact that we have multiple people with disabilities here in this house I am likely doing better than average in that spread but still I could be better, and that's where the Diverse Reads Book Challenge comes in. Head over to Chasing Faerytales to sign up for this challenge.

The hosts clarify what they mean by diverse books in the following way:

HOW DO WE CLASSIFY A BOOK AS DIVERSE?

The main character - or one of the leads, who preferably has a POV - has to belong to a diverse group. According to the definition of We Need Diverse Books

"We recognize all diverse experiences, including (but not limited to) LGBTQIA, Native, 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."

This year they have created mini challenges for each month, highlighting different diverse groups. I don't think I'll follow all of the monthly prompts, but for January the prompt is stories based on/ inspired by diverse folktales/culture/mythology. One of the recommended titles for this prompt has been on my to be read list for way too long, so yesterday during my evening reading with Tobias and Linus, we started When the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin. We got 2 chapters in so far, and we all agreed that we can't wait to keep reading tonight. This challenge will overlap with the POC Reading Challenge but I figure the more diversity in my reading the better. I'm glad these challenges exist to act as education and reminders to keep me going.