I was honored to be invited to the Children’s Book Council Diversity Kickoff event tonight!!! It’s such a wonderful and forward-thinking initiative that I asked CBC’s Executive Director, Robin Adelson, to share the vision and thoughts behind forming this committee.
“The newly formed CBC Diversity Committee is dedicated to increasing the diversity of voices and experiences contributing to children’s literature. The committee is charged with shaping an initiative that will focus on increasing diverse representation within the children’s book publishing industry, comprising those people who work in the industry and those authors and illustrators who create the content as well as the characters and stories they represent. To make a difference, we will focus on recruitment by visiting high schools and colleges, providing resources on the CBC Diversity blog and promoting discourse by hosting panel and roundtable discussions. At the kickoff event we will invite attendees to sign on as partners in this initiative and we will list action steps we expect our partners to take.” (Robin Adelson, CBC executive director)