(![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rachelmanija Aug. 23rd, 2012 12:32 pm)
rachelmanija Aug. 23rd, 2012 12:32 pm)I am holding an online book drive to benefit a middle school/high school in Compton. If you have any young adult or middle grade (children's) books in good condition, you can help create a school library by mailing them to the address at the bottom of this post.
If you don't have any books, please consider linking to this post.
Books with Latino/Latina or African-American protagonists would probably be especially appreciated, as that describes most of the students. The students also love manga and other comics, and were hugely excited when I donated some. Many students can read Spanish, and some primarily read Spanish. Other than that, send anything - fiction or nonfiction.
Lifeline Education Charter School is in a low income area, and textbooks are so expensive that they can't afford to buy other books. Mr. Obed Nartey, with whom I had a lovely talk at the school the other day, is creating a new library/computer lab for the students. He is also starting a book club.
Students are already excited about this... but they need something to read. Please help them out, if you can. I will put up some photos of the library which you helped create, when it launches.
Please send books here. Media mail is the cheapest way to mail books.
Attn: Mr. Obed Nartey
Lifeline Education Charter School
225 South Santa Fe
Compton, CA 90221
If you think you'll send something, please comment, so I can give Mr. Nartey a heads-up to expect some packages.
ETA: If you're thinking of ordering something specifically for the school, Reading in Color has a bunch of book reviews here which might give you some ideas: http://blackteensread2.blogspot.com/p/reviews-by-title.html
She also has several book lists: http://blackteensread2.blogspot.com/p/booklists.html
If you don't have any books, please consider linking to this post.
Books with Latino/Latina or African-American protagonists would probably be especially appreciated, as that describes most of the students. The students also love manga and other comics, and were hugely excited when I donated some. Many students can read Spanish, and some primarily read Spanish. Other than that, send anything - fiction or nonfiction.
Lifeline Education Charter School is in a low income area, and textbooks are so expensive that they can't afford to buy other books. Mr. Obed Nartey, with whom I had a lovely talk at the school the other day, is creating a new library/computer lab for the students. He is also starting a book club.
Students are already excited about this... but they need something to read. Please help them out, if you can. I will put up some photos of the library which you helped create, when it launches.
Please send books here. Media mail is the cheapest way to mail books.
Attn: Mr. Obed Nartey
Lifeline Education Charter School
225 South Santa Fe
Compton, CA 90221
If you think you'll send something, please comment, so I can give Mr. Nartey a heads-up to expect some packages.
ETA: If you're thinking of ordering something specifically for the school, Reading in Color has a bunch of book reviews here which might give you some ideas: http://blackteensread2.blogspot.com/p/reviews-by-title.html
She also has several book lists: http://blackteensread2.blogspot.com/p/booklists.html
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
From:
no subject
A very nice employee at Half-Price Books helped me scour the YA section for books with Latino and black protagonists. Or, after fifteen minutes of that, just books with characters listed who might not be white. And she was saying, by that point, "This is kinda disturbing. Where are all the books with non-white protagonists?"
Of course, this is a used bookstore, which makes for rather odd inventory patterns. But it was kinda depressing.
From:
no subject
I don't think it's about inventory patterns. There really are very few American YA novels with non-white protagonists, as a proportion of all the YA novels published.
You may recall during Yes Gay YA that a number of authors mentioned pressure from agents and editors to make their protagonists of color white, and one writer whose novel was edited without her consent to remove all mentions of her character's (non-white) race.
From:
no subject
I tried to find some books that weren't Problem Books, which is a little harder in contemporary; there are a few about adoption and slavery and culture clash, but I remembered that it's nice to be able to read about Someone Like Me where the whole damn book isn't about how being Someone Like Me is full of hardship on account of that aspect. (I love Breadcrumbs to pieces for having a protagonist who's in a mixed-race adoption, and while that's clearly an important part of her life, the book isn't about that. At all.)
I ended up mostly with biographies on the non-fiction side of things, because everything else either looked to be aimed too young, or was too much a glossy picture Fun Facts guide rather than a book to read through. I gather that in non-fiction, YA isn't nearly so much of a marketing category, compared to children's non-fic.
From:
no subject