We Need Diverse Books Blog

4 weeks ago | diversebooks.org | Caroline Richmond

Join us to celebrate the inaugural We Need Diverse Books Day on April 3, 2025! This new holiday was exclusively announced in USA TODAY, which you can check out here. We Need Diverse Books Day was created to commemorate a decade of WNDB’s efforts to diversify the publishing industry. This holiday is intended to highlight the importance of reading books that reflect our beautifully diverse world. To celebrate, we invite you to read and share a diverse book on social media.

Nov 2, 2023 | diversebooks.org | Caroline Richmond

Here is the amazing cover of Clack, Clack! Smack! A Cherokee Stickball Story by Traci Sorell and illustrated by Joseph Erb! The book will release from Charlesbridge on August 6, 2024. Award-winning author Traci Sorell and debut picture-book illustrator Joseph Erb come together to create a book about a game important to Cherokee people—stickball. Can the Eagles clack, clack their sticks together to smack the pole in time to win? Vann isn’t a good player.

Oct 12, 2023 | diversebooks.org | Caroline Richmond

Ariel and Tomah have lived in the city’s intertribal housing complex all their lives. But for both of them, this Dagwaagin (Autumn) season is different than any before. From his bench outside the front door of his building, Tomah watches his community move around him. He is better at making people laugh than he is at schoolwork, but often it feels like his neighbor Ariel is the only one who really sees him, even in her sadness.

Oct 11, 2023 | diversebooks.org | Caroline Richmond

On September 27, 2023, WNDB CEO Ellen Oh joined Congressman Jamie Raskin (MD-08) at a press conference in Washington, DC, in support of a resolution denouncing censorship and the pervasive spread of book bans in the US. Read Ellen’s full statement below and watch a clip of the conference here, via WBAL-TV 11. “In 2014, when We Need Diverse Books was first launched, only 8 percent of children’s books published that year were written by authors who are Black, Indigenous, and People of Color.

Oct 8, 2023 | diversebooks.org | Caroline Richmond

Today we’re thrilled to reveal the cover for I Am Osage: How Clarence Tinker Became the First Native American Major General by Kim Rogers and illustrated by Bobby Van Martin! The jacket art is also by Bobby Van Martin, and the jacket design is by Tom Starace. The book will be released on February 6, 2024 by Heartdrum. Preorder it here.