We’re close to halfway on the official clock and I’ve been absolutely heart eyes emoji about the online #24in48 community today. Between Instagram, Litsy, Twitter, Facebook, and Booktube, you guys are really making this weekend a team sport. I love how inclusive and supportive everyone is and I am here for it. Keep going, guys, you’re doing great!
One of the best ways that the online readathon community works is by exposing your fellow 24in48-ers to books that they may not otherwise have heard of or thought they’d be interested in. Personally, I recommend using readathon to check out diverse titles and authors. We Need Diverse Books in particular is an organization that advocates for changes in the children’s publishing industry in order to promote and encourage greater diversity of authors, characters, and subject matter. Diverse books normalize, empower, and make visible people who otherwise feel invisible or forgotten.
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 for this hour’s challenge, I want you to recommend books by diverse/#ownvoices authors. Either leave a comment with your recommendations or take a photo of some of your favorite diverse books and drop the link/image in the comments. Give your fellow readers some suggestions for diverse books, and think about adding #ownvoices books to your TBR stack for the rest of the ‘thon.
Here’s a stack of our favorite diverse titles that would be perfect for readathoning:
You have until Hour 24 to enter this diversity challenge. And now to announce prize winners for the Hour 12 roadtrip challenge.
Veronica Éles (@vveronica96 on Twitter)
Jess (b-ookaddict.tumblr.com)
Austin R. (@aerobins13 on Litsy)
Stephanie (@realbooks4ever on Litsy)
Karina (@karina.reads on Litsy)
Julie (@den_siste_heksa on Instagram)
Michelle Sorensen (@hikingnugg on Twitter)
Allison Ivy (@msallisonivy on Twitter)
Michelle B. (@coffeecatsbooks on Litsy)
Britain Callen (@callemarie @ Litsy)
Head over to the Prize page and pick your poison in the form. And don’t forget you have six hours left to enter the Intro Challenge from Hour Zero.
24in48 Readathon 
Here’s a link to my recommendation! https://www.instagram.com/p/BW3cXfSFRYL/
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Everything I Never Told You
The Wangs Vs The World
The Fifth Season
The Association of Small Bombs
The Reactive
Between the World and Me
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Diverse horror recommendations and a TBR stack!
http://litsy.com/p/N0RaU0hTbjls
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I’m using my recent diverse recs post bc I stand by these choices!
https://www.instagram.com/p/BWp78KFD2GF/
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I built my readathon (print) TBR around books by women of color. I just finished WHAT WE LOSE by Zinzi Clemmons—SO GOOD. Also on my TBR: CHEMISTRY by Weike Wang, SORRY TO DISRUPT THE PEACE by Patty Yumi Cattrell, and NO ONE IS COMING TO SAVE US by Stephanie Powell Watts.
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I always have issue with realizing if a book is diverse or not. But the two books that come to mind also happen to be two of my all time favorite!
1. Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell
2. The Perks of Being a Wallflower
3. Everything, everything
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Anything and everything by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
This is more graphic novel, but the Lumberjane series by Noelle Stevenson, Shannon Watters, Grace Ellis, and Brooke Allen
Someone mentioned Weike Wang’s Chemistry already (on my TBR list)
Aziz Ansari’s Modern Romance is on my TBR list as well
Behold the Dreamers – Imbolo Mbue
The Association of Small Bombs – Karan Mahajan
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#WeNeedDiverseBooks
We Should All Be Feminists – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Between the World and Me – Ta-Nehesi Coates (reading now!)
Create Dangerously – Edwidge Danticat
Deep River – Shusaku Endo
Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal? – Jeanette Winterston
God Help the Child – Toni Morrison
A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
A Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World – Haruki Murakami
Obasan – Joy Kogawa
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven – Sherman Alexie
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Diverse I read growing up and still cherish to this day.
LibrarianJen’s post on Litsy http://litsy.com/p/TTFDWFJqVFRX
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Some of my favorite recent diverse reads:
1. My Favorite Thing is Monsters by Emil Ferris
2. My Brother;s Husband by Gengoroh Tagame
3. The In-Between World of Vikram Lall by M.G. Vassanji
4. Salt Houses by Hala Alywan
5. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
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I am loving the new approach of being thoughtful of my book choices, and reading more diversely this year.
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http://litsy.com/p/V2NQZ0ZLTTZ5
I have two diverse memoirs on the go right now, posted on Litsy
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The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by NK Jemisin is in my #24in48 stack! I love her Broken Earth series and would def recommend.
Also: The Hate You Give, Homegoing, The Mothers, Every Body Yoga, Another Brooklyn, Behold the Dreamers
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There are so many diverse books that I want to read!
Struck by Lightning by: Chris Colfer
The Pregnancy Project by: Gaby Rodriguez
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I found lots of #OwnVoices books from many Asian countries at ALA this year, but the Indian/Indian American titles really stuck out to me:
• Ahimsa by Supriya Kelkar
• When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon
• You Bring the Distant Near by Mitali Perkins
• Windfall by Diksha Basu
http://litsy.com/p/UEFuUVQ3S0RU
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When Dimple Met Rishi
We Should All be Feminists
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Here are some of my recommendations 🙂 Absolutely loved Americanah
http://litsy.com/p/ZUt2U09idmtF
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Some diverse books that I have read are:
1. Six of Crows -Leigh Bardugo
2. Heroes of Olympus/Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard/Trials of Apollo – Rick Riordan
3. Song of Achilles – Madeline Miller
4. Aristotel and Dante discover the secrets of the Univers – Benjamin Alire Saenz
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Some of my favorite diverse books I’ve recently read:
#ownvoices #diversebooks #weneeddiversebooks
Binti by Nnedi Okorafor (Sci-fi)
Stay with me by Ayobami Adebayo (Fiction)
Revenge by Yoko Ogawa (Short stories-Horror)
The Fith Season by N.K Jemisin (Fantasy)
Every Heart a Doorway and Down Among the Sticks and Bones by Seanan McGuire (Fantasy/YA)
We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Nonfiction)
Some of the books I would love to read this year:
A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki (Fiction)
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Fiction)
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (Historical)
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My choices for diverse must-reads. Love this readathon 100 times more than I thought possible! 🤓
•Letters to my Daughter by Maya Angelou
•Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
•The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
•Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
•Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
•Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay
bookloo’s post on Litsy
http://litsy.com/p/YnhPS05BeE0w
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I’m on a mission to diversify my reading. Here are just a few of the books on my TBR
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Boxers and Saints series by Gene Lien Yang
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Everything by NK Jemisin 😍
Litsy post:
JPeterson’s post on Litsy
http://litsy.com/p/Q256ZmdRTkRJ
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I’ve had some mahvelous diverse reads so far for this readathon! I’ve read The Education of Margot Sanchez and finally got around to one of Cassandra Khaw’s books (fantastic), AND I read a lovely collection of Caribbean SF stories. Next I am thinking of trying some more Cassandra Khaw — I’ve got Food for the Gods in my stack!
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Jas16’s post on Litsy
http://litsy.com/p/cGx0OGt1WW1K
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Here are my #ownvoices recommendations!
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This one was my favorite of this year
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I read a lot of thrillers, mostly horror so I don’t have that many diverse books. I tend to find one author who’s writing I’m comfortable with and stick with them, I need to spread out more though.
My recommendations:
1. Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
2. You Can’t Touch My Hair by Phoebe Robinson
3. Night by Eli Wiesel
4. American Gods by Neil Gaiman
5. Crazy Rich Asian by Kevin Kwan (haven’t read this one yet, I’ve been waiting to purchase a copy for a while)
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My current readathon book is The Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler–Highly recommend her work!! Other recent favorites by women of color include:
Hunger — Roxane Gay
You Can’t Touch My Hair — Phoebe Robinson
LaRose — Louise Erdrich
Behold the Dreamers — Imbolo Mbue
We Love You, Charlie Freeman — Kaitlyn Greenidge
The Vegetarian — Han Kang
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I *LOVED* ‘The Hate U Give’ – very important message! And ‘When Dimple Met Rishi’ was really good as well.
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My recommendations:
The Girl from Everywhere by Heidi Heilig
Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir
Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Cordova
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Some recent favorites are Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, When Dimple Met Rishi, and Queens of Geek! I’m also really looking forward to picking up an Adam Silvera book tomorrow for the Biannual Bibliothon!
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For the YA scifi fans, I recommend Empress of a Thousand Skies by Rhonda Belleza. It was a shorter read that gave me all the Star Wars vibes and made me need the sequel!
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Chasing-Pages’s post on Litsy
http://litsy.com/p/TEZMODlYZjMx
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charminggoats’s post on Litsy
http://litsy.com/p/WDlMTDVYOG92 Here’s my rec!
Lara Jean is dealing with her mother’s death, her sister going away to college… really just a complete change in her family and how things are done. She’s taken up the role of trying to keep family and cultural traditions alive while dealing with high school drama. As her family is cleaning out the house, some letters she wrote to boys she’s fallen in love with in the past have gone missing. Those letters were never meant to be seen, and some of them are from all the way back in middle school. Now they’ve been mailing to the guys and Lara Jean has to deal with the fallout. It’s incredibly awkward but makes for a good book. I highly recommend to the YA readers out there.
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Hello, hello! I uploaded a photo of my favorite diverse books: https://www.instagram.com/p/BW3tYorA1qG/
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Here’s a couple of my favorites.
Marked by p.c. cast
Eon
Heart of Honor- Warrior Code by Michael Mcnamara
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I had a hard time narrowing my faves down…
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A few of my fave diverse books:
I have so many more on my shelves that I have yet to read, though, and can’t wait to get to them.
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I have a diverse nonfiction list on my blog with some great books. http://www.spiritblog.net/diverse-nonfiction/
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You can find my Diverse recommendations here:
http://litsy.com/p/cFJ5S2tRYW85
And if ya want more, I recently did a round up of 90+ Asian American protagonists on Book Riot! http://bookriot.com/2017/07/20/a-round-up-of-awesome-asian-american-protagonists-in-ya-lit/
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My favorite #ownvoices books from this year are:
-The Underground Railroad (black American)
-Just Mercy (black American)
-The Bluest Eye (black American)
-Not My Father’s Son (bisexuality)
-Born a Crime (biracial)
-Born Both (intersex, nonbinary)
-The Bonesetter’s Daughter (Chinese American)
-Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl (anaphylactic allergy)
-Their Eyes Were Watching God (black American)
-Peter Darling (gay, transgender)
-Summer is My Favorite Season (refugee)
-Where Am I Now? (OCD)
-Fingersmith (lesbian)
-Reasons to Stay Alive (depression, anxiety, panic disorder)
-Purple Hibiscus (Nigerian)
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Twitter: @MeggGriffin/@JBCPodcast
Tis one was an easy pick for me — I grabbed my 2017 starter set of diversity picks. Thank you!
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I’ve recently read some great diverse books. All the boys I’ve loved before, if u was your girl by Russo, the love letters of abelard and Lily, miles away from you, and starfish! Christina at Ensconced in Lit @CAhnBooks
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I just read two wonderful diverse books:
You’re Welcome, Universe by Whitney Gardner (deaf Indian teen with two deaf moms one of whom is also Indian – hello intersectionality!!)
Allegedly by Tiffany D. Jackson (this ones a killer. In a good way. Also in a tough way.)
Oh and Goldie Vance!
@lizgotauco on Litsy!
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aloslibrary’s post on Litsy
http://litsy.com/p/VkoxTlgwWlZa
#diverse #weneeddiversebooks #lgtbq+ #representationmatters @24in48 #24in48 George by Alex Gino is my recommendation for diverse book. It’s touching, funny, and accessible. We need more children’s books that represent us all in our lovely uniqueness 😁✌️🌈 5/5 ⭐️ from both my son (10) and I. #ownvoices
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My Recommendations over at Instagram:
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