Matt de la Peña Asks, “Where’s the African-American Harry Potter or the Mexican Katniss?”
“Even though young adult literature is enjoying a golden age and authors are working to diversify their stories, lead characters of color or characters who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender are still slow to appear in popular mainstream young adult fiction.
Without these characters, the landscape of young adult literature isn’t reflective of our society, author Sherman Alexie said. He’s one of many authors, teachers, librarians, publishers and editors have ideas of how to transform this persistent negative with positive changes.”
