The Diversity in YA Fiction website was founded by authors Malinda Lo and Cindy Pon, to celebrate diverse stories in YA fiction. An exciting spin-off from the website, the Diversity in YA Fiction Tour is set to take place May 7 – 14 across the USA and will feature 25 authors of middle-grade and young adult fiction who just happen to have written books featuring characters who are of color or LGBT.

The idea for the tour came about last summer when the children’s literature blogosphere erupted with discussions of whitewashing book covers. In her article written for School Library Journal Malinda says:

Cindy and I are both Asian Americans, and we have never been disinterested parties in this debate. Last summer, Cindy’s first novel, Silver Phoenix, was repackaged in a way that disappointed many readers because they thought it downplayed the book’s Asian elements. At the same time, I was seeing early cover concepts from my publisher for my second novel, Huntress, which is an Asian-inspired fantasy. Believe me, it was a stressful time for both of us.

From the beginning, we shared a vision for “Diversity in YA” that emphasized celebration. Yes, the number of books published about people of color is fewer than those about white people, but there is no reason to not celebrate the books that already exist. There are so many writers telling stories about unique communities and cultures, from Jacqueline Woodson, who has been writing wonderful books about African-American and queer teens for years, to newcomer Dia Reeves, who is turning YA paranormal on its head with her quirky, bloody escapades featuring multiracial teens in Texas.

Everyone is welcome to attend this celebration of diversity, where there will be the opportunity to hail favorite books and authors, as well as to discover new ones to love. Here’s the tour schedule:

San Francisco | May 7, 2011 at 3 p.m.
Focus on Asian American YA with Cindy Pon, Gene Luen Yang, and J.A. Yang at the  San Francisco Public Library (Main Library), Latino-Hispanic Room

Austin | May 9, 2011 at 7:30 p.m.
With Bethany Hegedus, Guadalupe Garcia McCall, Cindy Pon, Dia Reeves, and Jo Whittemore, and moderated by Varian Johnson at BookPeople

Chicago | May 10, 2011 from 5:30-6:45 p.m.
With Claudia Guadalupe Martinez, Nnedi Okorafor, and Cindy Pon at Barbara’s Books

Boston | May 12, 2011 at 7 p.m.
With Holly Black, Sarah Rees Brennan, Deva Fagan, Cindy Pon, and Francisco X. Stork, and moderated by Roger Sutton
at the Cambridge Public Library (Main Library)

New York | May 13, 2011 at 6:30 p.m.
Focus on LGBT YA with Cris Beam, David Levithan, and Jacqueline Woodson at The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center

New York | May 14, 2011 at 1 p.m.
With Matt de la Peña, Kekla Magoon, Neesha Meminger, Cindy Pon, Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich, Rita Williams-Garcia, and Jacqueline Woodson, and moderated by Cheryl Klein at Books of Wonder

As we approach the end of one year and the beginning of the next, we tend to face two directions, reflecting on events past and looking forward to the future. The Roman god Janus comes to mind! In the past few months discussion about ethnic diversity in books has come to the fore, with a certain amount of scrutiny of the publishing world and what could be done to ensure that more books are made available by writers of color. If you haven’t already done so, take some time to read Laura Atkins’ paper on “white privilege in children’s publishing” from this summer’s IRSCL conference, as well as the many in-depth comments attached to it. It may have been written three months ago but these are issues that are not going to go away – yet!

Some writers have blogged about it more recently – Zetta Elliott (who also followed up on her post with an insightful interview of Laura, entitled From the Other Side: An Editor Speaks Out!) and Neesha Meminger have both contributed to what will no doubt be an on-going discussion. Uma Krishnaswami also commented on this (since withdrawn…) blogpost and these words really resonated with me:

there are some of us now who are trying to write beyond the boxes, beyond the simple classifications or the books that are *about* culture or race. In this time of economic stress it’s even more important to make sure we don’t slide back to old insularities!

I think we all need to make a New Year’s resolution that we won’t allow these issues to be conveniently side-tracked. On a recent visit to San Francisco I came away laden from several independent and second-hand bookshops with books that I have got to know through PaperTigers – but I found it very unsettling to say the least that in the large children’s section of an enormous chain bookshop I also visited, I could only find two books – two books!!! So there are not just issues of publishing to be contended with, but also marketing and distribution. And in these times of “economic stress” , we take our hats off to those publishers who are producing a consistently wonderful array of multicultural titles. We do need to keep the voices for diversity heard, written by a diversity of voices, which includes more writers of colour; and we need to ensure that readers from all backgrounds have access to a diverse range of reading material – because that is the only way that kids will be able to fit their own stitches into the vast multicultural tapestry of life.