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

I have not been as up-to-date as I might have been with posts about what is now last year’s Reading the World Challenge.   This is partly due to time generally running away with me, and also being unable to keep proper track of our three Challenges running at once… So did we manage it? Well, I have to admit that unless we put all our efforts together, we didn’t quite; and we also went over on the time… reading aloud time is sadly having to jostle with other evening activities, and Saturday morning Book Sessions are now relegated to the holidays for the same reason. But that’s okay – we certainly read a broad range of books that might not have got to the top of the to-be-read pile otherwise…

Here are details of the rest of the books we all read (you’ll have to go back to here, here and here to find out the first ones…)

Together we read Goodbye Buffalo Bay by Larry Loyie with Constance Brissenden (Theytus Books, 2008). Even though I’d read it before, it was very hard to keep my composure for some of this traumatic but ultimately uplifting story, all the more engaging because it is both autobiographical and narrated in “Lawrence’s” engaging teenage voice. The first half of the book deals with Lawrence’s last year at a Residential School for First Nation children in Canada; and the second part is about how Lawrence then sets about finding himself again after leaving. It was the first time my two had become aware of residential schools and it provoked a lot of discussion about the treatment of First Nation people both in Canada and elsewhere. And as well as the ethical discussion, there was also plenty to talk about as regards Lawrence’s actual, individual experience. We all loathed Sister and we loved Sister Theresa. Then later, Lawrence’s different itinerant jobs, such as firefighting and working at a sawmill, were heroic in the boys’ eyes, and they were delighted at the end that his ambition to become a writer had so obviously come to fruition. We all of us cannot recommend this beautifully written story highly enough – and I would say that it would be a perfect book for reluctant readers, boys especially, as it is fairly short and succinct.

We also read and enjoyed Golden Tales: Myths, Legends, and Folktales from Latin America by Lulu Delacre (Scholastic, 2006) and Myths and Legends of Aotearoa, which I blogged about recently; and Little Brother and I read together the powerful and moving Grandfather’s Story Cloth/ Yawg Daim Paj Ntaub Dab Neegwritten by Linda Gerdner and Sarah Langford, illustrated by Stuart Loughridge (Shen Books, 2008).

Older Brother and Little Brother both read Señor Cat’s Romance: and Other Favorite Stories from Latin America by Lucia Gonzalez and Lulu Delacre, as I mentioned here. Older Brother is just coming to the end of Where in the World by Simon French (Little Hare, 2002); Little Brother read American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang (First Second Books, 2006), filched from Older Brother, and he’s still quoting it; The Rabbits by John Marsden, illustrated by Shaun Tan; and Animal Poems of the Iguazu by Francisco X. Alarcón, illustrated by Maya Christina Gonzalez (Children’s Book Press, 2008).

So we were very nearly there in terms of reading – it was the time limit that really got us. Let’s see how we do this year. I’ll be posting details of the 2011 Reading the World Challenge soon…

And very well done to all of you who managed to complete it; I hope you’ll be joining us again – and it would also be great for readers to persuade the young people in their lives to take part. The 2010 Spirit of PaperTigers book set would definitely make a great springboard – and there’s still a chance for you to win one in our 1,000th Post Draw taking place next week. The deadline is Wednesday 19th January and you’ll find full details here.

Well, we’ve finally started this year’s Reading the World Challenge in our household!

As our together-read, we’re “doing” Europe at the moment. We’re about half way through Dickens’ Oliver Twist, which I’m really enjoying, since it’s a good few years since I read it, and the boys are revelling in. I suggested it because I was getting a bit fed up with continued allusions to Oliver via the musical Oliver! and felt (poor kids, purist that I am!) that they needed to get back to grass roots here… I did wonder if we were biting off a bit more than we could chew but in fact they are completely caught up by the narrative and Dickens would be happy with his effect on their social consiousness/consciences! It’s definitely proving to be one of those books that they wouldn’t read on their own but that, with frequent, unobtrusive asides to gloss the meanings of words, they are more than able to enjoy having read to them. It’s just very long and now that term-time is back in full swing, it’s hard getting the sustained reading time all together that we would like.

We have also read The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne (David Fickling Books, 2006). This is an extraordinarily powerful book about a nine-year-old German boy, Bruno, who becomes an unwitting witness of the Holocaust when his father becomes the Commandant of “Outwith” concentration camp (as Bruno mistakenly calls it), and who makes friends with a Jewish boy, Shmuel, on the other side of the perimeter fence. If you have read this breath-taking, punch-in-the-stomach book, do take a look at the discussion that Janet got underway here on PaperTigers on the Tigers Bookshelf. Although it says on the back cover that despite being a book about nine-year-olds, “this is not a book for nine-year-olds”, and I therefore, again, had some reservations of reading it with the boys, I was glad we did. Because we were reading it together (and not at bedtime – this is definitely not a book to read just before you go to sleep), we couldn’t read it in one sitting as has been recommended – but we all mulled over it deeply and all brought our own ages to it. I know that Little Brother’s nine-year-old perspective was very different to mine (as, indeed was Older Brother’s), but it was still valid; and I hope they will both read it again independently when they are older.

Little Brother’s own read was also focused on Europe with Starry Messenger: Galileo Galilei by Peter Sís – this is what he says about it:

I liked The Starry Messenger because you could always recognise Galileo in the pictures because there were always (more…)

… and if you haven’t checked it out yet, be sure to do so. The focus of this issue is Young Adult books, including interviews with YA authors Alan Gratz (Samurai Shortstop) and Hazel Edwards (Antarctica’s Frozen Chosen); and YA librarian Miranda Doyle. Our Illustrators’ Gallery focuses on two artists who have contributed greatly to making illustration relevant to Young Adults: Shaun Tan (The Arrival) and Gene Yang (American Born Chinese).

Book of the Month is Paul Yee‘s What Happened This Summer, a rich collection of short stories about different teenagers growing up in Toronto, with a focus on their Chinese Canadian backgrounds. If you’re looking for inspiration about which book to read next, try our Reviews section; and take a look at those mentioned by writers Susanne Gervay in her Personal View YA Books: Cutting Edge Literature and Mitali Perkins in hers, Teens Between Cultures: A Reading List.

I have also picked out a short list of only some of the wonderful YA books we have featured on PaperTigers: Open up and get reading: YA books you just can’t put down and I hope you will add some of your own suggestions – we would love to hear from you.

The Asian Art Museum in San Francisco just opened a big retrospective on the work of Tezuka, father of anime and manga, words which refer respectively to the Tezuka-inspired animation film and graphic books now so fabulously popular. Opening day at the museum last weekend, the show was packed with twenty-somethings and parents tagging along with their 10-year-olds. Nicole Harvey (who buys children’s books for the musuem shop, among her many other duties) and her colleagues at the museum have been working overtime to get the adventurous show and related activities up and running. There’s a Manga Lounge set up with a typical manga-fan kid’s bedroom and lots of manga-related products. The bookshop has a great collection of manga and books about anime and manga, including Gilles Poitras’ deconstructions of the magic for those of us who are a little more dependent on the written word. Gene Yang, author of the highly regarded American Born Chinese, is among the area artists who will demonstrate their comic art skills at weekly events through the summer.

If you’re the parent of a comic-lover and live nearby or if you plan to visit the Bay Area this summer with kids, the Tezuka show is a chance for you to learn something and earn some undying gratitude from the children as well. And if you can’t be here in person, the show’s website has links to everything from a Tezuka bio to essays on manga. Check out the blog, too! Help yourself to a virtual visit to a magical world.