I am still shocked that there are people who don’t want anyone other than themselves and people like them represented in books. The book titles that I see on the banned book lists honestly blow my mind. But I also know that these people are so set in their own way that there is nothing I can say to convince them to open their minds. But maybe I can convince someone who isn’t quite so closed off, or maybe I can reinforce for someone else why it is so important to fight for diverse books.

Personally, I would have benefitted from reading about myself as a child or teen. I might have figured out who I am a lot earlier than my 50’s. Unfortunately for me, books about people like me, Demi-Bi-sexual and neurodivergent, did not exist in the 70’s & 80’s when I was growing up. So I always felt like something was wrong with me, because I wasn’t anything like the people I was reading about, but I didn’t know what was different about me. Knowing I wasn’t alone might have helped me to avoid some of the major mistakes I’ve made throughout my life.

But it goes even further than just recognizing myself on the page. Reading about different cultures, communities, and lifestyles have helped me to understand others. I’ve always had empathy, but learning about others by experiencing their stories, whether true memoirs or fictional adventures, takes things to a completely different level. My eyes have opened more to the lives of the people around me, both within my own community and globally.

Everyone deserves to see themselves represented in stories, finding happy endings and being the heroes. And we should all want to read stories about people different than ourselves so that we can better understand the world. The situation we find ourselves in right now could have been solved by people opening their minds and learning about others. But as long as people can’t read diverse stories, society will never be open and fair for everyone.

Write diverse stories, publish diverse stories, read diverse stories. Only be recognizing the humanness in everyone, will we change the world.