Today is the start of #Diverseathon, a week-long readathon that encourages you to read books by…you guessed it…diverse authors, particularly focusing on #ownvoice. If you’re not familiar with it, #ownvoices describes books written by authors that identify with the same marginalized group as the protagonists that they’re writing. This could include authors that identify as and are writing characters that are POCs, disabled, LGBTQ+, non-cisgender, etc.
The intention is two-fold: 1) reading #ownvoices books sends a message to the publishing community (which is traditionally, white, able-bodied, straight, and cisgender) that these books have audiences and encourage them to publish more of them, and 2) reading about characters from marginalized groups expands your own awareness of diversity and empathy, something I think we can all benefit from.
So this hour’s challenge is to post a comment with your favorite #ownvoices recommendations, or if you have a photo of your recommendations, post a comment with a link to that photo. Give your fellow readers some suggestions for diverse books, and think about joining #diverseathon this week.
Here are a selection of diverse and #ownvoices titles from my shelves:
What’s on your list? Let me know below!
The winner of our Hour 30 challenge (who not only posted a photo of rainbow books, but all books featuring LGBTQ characters too!) is:
rezgirlreads
Thanks to your amazing rainbow photos, I’m donating $78 to the Human Rights Campaign. And Jenna and Rachel are matching that amount! So the campaign will be getting $234 total. Great job, everyone!
Here are three more door prize winners, just to say thanks:
Gayan Hutchinson
Nikki Yager
Sammantha Harvey
I’ll be in Hour 39 as we start the home stretch.
24in48 Readathon 
I really love the new graphic novels about superheroes with diverse backgrounds. Batgirl by Cameron Stewart and Ms. Marvel are two I can think of that I have read recently.
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I got an arc of Swing Time by Zadie Smith last year (Novemberish?) and I still vividly remember the amazing experience of reading it. Absolutely recommend it!
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Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo: in the acknowledgements, she talks about how living with osteonecrosis and sometimes needing a cane influenced Kaz’s character, who uses a cane because of an old injury.
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My two most favorite diverse reads from last year:
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
& Here Comes The Sun by Nicole Dennis-Benn
Such powerful, extraordinary reads! (And both debuts! That floored me).
This year I read The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon and that was also a great read dealing with immigration issues, differences in cultures and racism.
I highly recommend all of these. Happy #Diverseathon everyone!
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http://lithub.com/10-contemporary-novels-by-and-about-muslims-you-should-read/# – Here’s a list of novels by Muslims about Muslims that I plan on reading this week.
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Thank you! A few of these sound interesting!
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And also, I’ve read Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson and it was pretty fantastic. I’d suggest it and the new Ms Marvel comics she does!
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I think my favorite right now is If I Was Your Girl. The author, a transgender woman, uses the YA format to explain some of the challenges and struggles of trans teens in a way that is accessible for people who may have no experience with them. I loved it and have been encouraging everyone to read it!
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Last year I made a conscious decision to read more diversely and as a result found some new favourites. Some of the best books I read were:
The Color Purple
On Beauty
As I Descended
The Sun is Also a Star
Wide Sargasso Sea
Eleanor and Park
Will Grayson, Will Grayson
Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda
Coinman: An Untold Conspiracy
More Than This
The Crown’s Game
Soundless
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Also, here is a link to a video of All About Mia, featuring a mixed race protagonist. I finished it yesterday and it is phenomenal
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I’m looking forward to reading My Heart and Other Big Black Holes, along with Wonder and George. #DiverseBooks
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Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng is a fantastic novel. Also loved Brown Girl Dreaming and Homegoing.
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I’m very passionate about diversity! As a latina, I know how important it is to have representation in books. I recently read a book with a Puerto Rican MC and I was so happy with it, I cried! So I definitely recommend “The Education of Margot Sanchez” to everyone, specially those who are latinos and want to see themselves represented. ♥
I also run an instagram page dedicated to promote diverse books! We’re getting close to 1k followers in just 1 month, which is AMAZING!
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Reading Swing Time right not and it is SO GOOD. Last year I was blown away by Heidi Heilig’s The Girl from Everywhere (altho I don’t know how Heilig identifies, so maybe not an #ownvoices read!). I read Robin Coste Lewis, Voyage of the Sable Venus and Other Poems, a staggeringly stunning poetry collection that includes the long poem, ‘Voyage of the Sable Venus’, composed of titles and descriptions Western museums use to describe works of art featuring women of color. Uh-mah-zing and sobering.
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Recent reads:
Everything, Everything
Another Brooklyn
This is Where it Ends
We love you Charlie Freeman (current read)
On my tbr pile:
Home going
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Underground Railroad
When Breath Becomes Air
On my tbr list:
The Sun is Also a Star
The Hate U Give
Brown Girl Dreaming
Six of Crows
There are others in my tbr piles too but I need to get back to reading 😬
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I’m in the middle of a four hour drive, but I have Between the World and Me on audio keeping me company! My post is on Litsy!
@StephBengtson
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I really enjoyed reading Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue and Soundless by Richelle Mead. I also read a fair amount of historical fiction based around marginalised groups. Ruta Sepetys’ books are a favorite.
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Three #ownvoices books that I just read this year:
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz (YA Bildungsroman about life and sexuality)
El Deafo by Cece Bell (all-ages graphic novel about growing up deaf)
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Some of my recent #ownvoices favorites are Americanah & Purple Hibiscus, both by Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie. Also, Dreadnought by April Daniels is a great own voices story about a transgender superhero.
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I am reading The Underground Rairoad right now! It is emotionally hard to read, but a must read.
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One of my recent favorites is The Mothers by Brit Bennett – she writes beautifully and powerfully. Another amazing one (and a modern classic) is The House On Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros.
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I second the Jacqueline Woodson recommendations above. Right now I’m reading her book Hush.
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I hope you don’t mind a little education before I share. There’s no such term as ‘non-cisgendered.’ You would just use transgender but never ‘transgendered.’
As for your question and in honor of that quick lesson, some wonderful books from transgender authors with trans MCs:
George by Alex Gino (Middle Grade)
If I was Your Girl by Meredith Russo (YA)
Spy Stuff by Matthew Metzger (YA)
A Boy Called Cin by Cecil Wilde (Adult Romance)
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You’re totally right, my mistake. Fixing that now.
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I absolutely love “The Brief and Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao” by Junot Díaz. A great story about a Dominican guy written by a Dominican guy.
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https://www.instagram.com/p/BPk2-J3DiBz/
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My favourite diverse book has to be We should all be feminists. It hits the nail on the head. Loved it.
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Matti Aikio – a sami (a indigenous group for Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia) writer who wrote about the sami comunity.
Baldwin is gay and black and was told when he wrote Giovanni’s Room about white gay/bi that he would lose his black readers if he started writing about queer topics.
Lewis was queer and in The Monk we have queer undertones with one of the couples.
Dumas (The Count of Monte Cristo guy) was mixed (half black half white) and Georges is one of the few books he wrote with a mixed protagonist.
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I just started Redefining Realness by Janet Mock as part of my resolution to read more diverse books this year. My favorite (so far) is Persepolis by Marianne Satrapi about her earlier years living in Iran during the revolution.
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I highly recommend Viramma: Life of an Untouchable by Viramma and Josiane Racine and Untouchables by Narendra Jadhav. Both of those are firsthand accounts of being at the “bottom” of the Indian caste system. Link on Litsy
LeahBergen’s post on Litsy
http://litsy.com/p/ODJaZWRVazR6
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https://twitter.com/TriniMangoHater/status/823239718158667776
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I’m reading The Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz and I would recommend any book by this author, he is an amazing story teller.
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Here is my recommendations for own voices books 👍 Kalalalatja’s post on Litsy
http://litsy.com/p/RkVmdnlXRnpa
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I’m just starting Brown Girl Dreaming. I’ve heard great things about it, and can’t wait to dive in.
One of my favorite authors is NK Jemisin. I love how her books are considered fantasy, but deal with issues of race, sexism, oppression and power.
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Small great things by Jodi Picoult. I posted my picture on Litsy(GraciousWarriorPrincess).
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Small Great Things is not a diverse title. One of the main characters is black, but the author is a white woman.
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I have so many #ownvoices recommendations, but a few choice ones are posted here https://instagram.com/p/BPk9KfBgrD-/
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My current picks: https://instagram.com/p/BPk9JcHALbM/
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I haven’t read these yet but these are on my TBR:
Through Black Spruce by Joseph Boyden
Talking to the Diaspora by Lee Maracle
When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon
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I’m currently listening to Born a Crime by Trevor Noah (Anazing!) and have Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson checked out from the library because I loved Another Brooklyn. I adored Aristotle & Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe (read by Lin Manuel Miranda) and also Underground Railroad in audio and I have If I Was Your Girl, Bad Feminist & Hidden Figures working their way to the top of my e-book TBR list.
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I really love Bad Feminist by Roxane Hay. I’m planning to read Teju Cole’s essay collection Known and Strange Things.
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Louise Erdrich and Sherman Alexie (Native American)
Amy Tan and Lisa See (Chinese American)
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reading bad feminist by roxane gay…i’m at 17.5 total hours!
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The Boy in the Moon by Ian Brown (about parenting a child with a disability)
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Coates’ work is modest in length but vastly important in content and, one hopes, in influence. The book is invaluable in terms of consciousness-raising, and I doubt that I will ever be able to look at race and power in society in the same way that I did before. Each generation should have a definitive text about the state of racism. This is our generation’s definitive text.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BPgcpkbjjV9/?taken-by=timguillan
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I’m just about to start March: Volume 1. I’m looking forward to seeing other posts so I can add more #ownvoices reads to my TBR
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Khaled Hosseini! I read The Kite Runner several years ago and if I wasn’t moved to actual physical tears, then I was certainly close. I’ve also got And the Mountains Echoed and A Thousand Splendid Suns on my TBR. I’ve also got Octavia Butler’s Fledgling and her Adulthood Rites trilogy, The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok, Say You’re One of Them by Uwem Akpan, Maya’s Notebook and Of Love and Shadows by Isabel Allende, Unbowed by Wangari Maathai, N. K. Jemison’s Inheritance trilogy, and a collection of Maya Angelou books. Don’t forget about Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly, either.
I’ve been working to diversify the selection of books on my shelves and so far I think it’s starting to work. Now I need to actually read them. So many amazing books to read, ahhhh
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I just remembered I have a bunch of Toni Morrison, too! I read Beloved in college and, while it wasn’t my favorite story, I loooved her writing style.
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So many great posts already! I would suggest Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow and Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy. Both speak to incarceration of black men and both are incredible, compelling reads.
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My recommendation is Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi. I loved this book when I read it last year and have recommended it to everyone. I can’t wait to see what she writes next.
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Read yesterday: “The Dear Remote Nearness of You” by Danielle Legros Georges
TBR today: Martin Espada’s “Republic of Poetry”, Frederico Garcia Lorca’s “Book of Poems (Selections)” Dual-Language edition, “Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings” by Joy Harjo, Kahlil Gibran’s “The Prophet”, and “The Homeless Year” by LB Lee (which is a reread for me).
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I’ve just finished Born Confused by Tanuja Desai Hidier for #diverseathon and loved it and now on to El Deafo by Cece Bell. Just 3 hours left to complete 24in48 🎉
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Here are a few of my own voices picks for Diverseathon.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BPlJrZVDGzN/
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