Important essay

Please go and read Zetta Elliott's blog post: "Something like an open letter to the children's publishing industry." It is an impassioned and powerful plea to those who work in publishing to open the doors to author of color (in England, somewhat equivalent terms are black and minority ethnic - BME - or non-white).

Zetta pulls from a recent article to make the point that this is potentially a matter of life and death for children today. This issue feels so pressing right now, that there must be something we can do immediately to make a change. How can we help to ensure that more books are published by and about people of color, reflecting all sorts of life experiences and in the whole range of genres. We need fantasies, mysteries, thrillers, historical fiction, romance, science fiction... Everyone deserves to read books that show their faces reflected, as well as delving into difference and otherness. Literature is uniquely able to allow this immersion of experience, to create deep empathy and understanding for an experience that is not ones own.

Does anyone have any ideas about what we can do to make a difference?