Finally, there is awareness and more initiatives to promote diversity in the US book industry. But will diversity address mistrust and misconceptions? Or will “diverse” people read “diverse” books that look like them, tell them about their lives, while “non-diverse” people will go on reading “non-diverse” books? And they will become books apart, having fewer and fewer stories in common?
What if children read books about similarity? Books where people mix, books where people don’t define themselves between diverse and non-diverse, books where people realise how humanly similar we are, when we laugh, when we cry, when we get hurt, when we smile at a good book, printed by publishers that don't segregate between white mainstream books and diversity satellite imprints. Isn’t that the way we make friends? Isn’t that that the way our brain works, by creating connections with similar things, making strange things become familiar, parts of our family? Books that make us look at ourselves in the others and at the others in ourselves.
The day when books will reflect our similar human lot, turning it into familiarity, maybe we will be able to read further… how the animals that we treat as low class citizens care for their children, communicate, have feelings and empathy… how trees feel. And we will overcome our selfishness and become better neighbours and attentive carers and blossom into humans, finally.
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