Transcript

RUDINE SIMS BISHOP

We need diverse books because we need books in which children can find themselves, see reflections of themselves.

I wrote a piece, maybe 1990 it was published, which I called ‘Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors’. And I think that’s really why we– children need to see themselves reflected.

But books can also be windows. And so you can look through and see other worlds and see how they match up or don’t match up to your own.

But the sliding glass door allows you to enter that world as well. And so that’s the reason that the diversity needs to go both ways. I mean, it’s not just children who have been under-represented and marginalised who need these books. It’s also the children who always find their mirrors in the books, and therefore get an exaggerated sense of their own self-worth and a false sense of what the world is like, because it’s becoming more and more colourful and diverse as time goes on. So, I think that’s why.