I have *spreadsheets*.

[owlectomy]

Is it just me, or is the Printz discussion (for the best YA book of the year) pretty white and straight, even more so than usual?

Because I am on the library's YA books committee, which does the Mock Printz, I am keeping *spreadsheets* (you can imagine that in glitter and sparkly letters if you like. I really like spreadsheets) of the YA books that get multiple starred reviews, and which ones I've read, and which ones I'm waiting to get in. (Because I am weird, I often use a random number generator to pick a book from the list and see which one I will read next. It's actually a good way of sniping books that might otherwise fall through the cracks.)

So today I was idly browsing through my spreadsheet and feeling nervous about not having read enough sufficiently diverse books yet, and I realized... my spreadsheet's not giving me a lot to pick from.

YA FICTION ON MY SPREADSHEET READ THUS FAR, tagged for characters of color, LGBT characters, characters with disabilities as the main characters.
---

ANYA'S GHOST by Vera Brosgol
BETWEEN SHADES OF GRAY by Ruth Sepetys
BLINK & CAUTION by Tim Wynne-Jones
CHIME by Franny Billingsley
DAUGHTER OF SMOKE & BONE by Laini Taylor
I AM J by Chris Beam -- main character is trans and multiracial
THE QUEEN OF HEARTS by Martha Brooks
THE QUEEN OF WATER by Laura Resau -- main character is Quechua
SIDEKICKS by Jack Ferraiolo
PAPER COVERS ROCK by Jenny Hubbard
KARMA by Cathy Ostlere -- main character is Indian-Canadian.
JASPER JONES by Craig Silvey
SILHOUETTED BY THE BLUE by Traci Jones -- main character is black.

So, it's a few.

But, here's the rest of my spreadsheet:

THE GIRL OF FIRE AND THORNS by Rae Carson
ANGRY YOUNG MAN by Chris Lynch
FLY TRAP by Frances Hardinge
FALL FOR ANYTHING by Courtney Summers
THE BERLIN BOXING CLUB by Robert Sharenow
LIE by Caroline Bock
BROOKLYN BURNING by Steve Brezenoff
A MONSTER CALLS by Patrick Ness
SCORPIO RACES by Maggie Stiefvater
STEAMPUNK edited by Kelly Link and Gavin Grant
PREGNANT PAUSE by Han Nolan
ADDIE ON THE INSIDE by James Howe
PICK-UP GAME edited by Marc Aronson and Charles Smith
THEN by Morris Gleitzman
RECOVERY ROAD by Blake Nelson
FIVE 4THS OF JULY by Pat Hughes
FLIP by Martyn Bedford
YOU KILLED WESLEY PAYNE by Sean Beaudoin
OKAY FOR NOW by Gary Schmidt
THE GIRL IS MURDER by Kathryn Miller Haines
IMAGINARY GIRLS by Nova Ren Suma
STRINGS ATTACHED by Judy Blundell
THE PIPER'S SON by Melina Marchetta
I'LL BE THERE by Holly Goldberg Sloan
TEXAS GOTHIC by Rosemary Clement-Moore
ACROSS THE UNIVERSE by Beth Revis
BEAUTY QUEENS by Libba Bray
DIVERGENT by Veronica Roth
DELIRIUM by Lauren Oliver
WELCOME TO BORDERTOWN edited by Holly Black
OUT OF SHADOWS by Jason Wallace
YOU AGAINST ME by Jenny Downham
INKBLOT by Margaret Peot
ISLAND'S END by Padma Venkatraman
NOW PLAYING by Ron Koertge
STAY WITH ME by Paul Griffin
THE ISLE OF BLOOD by Rick Yancey
THE SILVER BOWL by Diane Stanley
THIS DARK ENDEAVOR by Kenneth Oppel


I don't know all of the ones that have diverse characters, obviously, not having read them yet. From the cover and what I know of Paul Griffin's work, I think the main characters in Stay With Me are characters of color. Island's End is based on the native tribes of the Andaman islands. Brooklyn, Burning has a main character whose gender is never specified, which is a neat trick and I'm looking forward to reading it though I'm not sure if it counts from a diversity perspective. Three of those are short story anthologies. And, well, I really hope that I'm just missing a bunch that I haven't heard too much buzz about, because that is a really low number.

Comments

[rachelmanija]

Divergent is not diverse. (One supporting character of color, nobody is LGBTQ or disabled.)

I haven't read Across the Universe, but I know that it's got two POV characters. The heroine is white, the hero is POC. That being said, people I know who read it seemed not so thrilled with how race was handled.

The heroine of Delirium is a straight, white, non-disabled girl.

The other books I know nothing about.

How did you like the ones you read?

[owlectomy]

My favorites of the year are Chime, Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Jasper Jones, and Queen of Hearts... none of which are really as diverse as would be nice, though Queen of Hearts is probably as diverse as is realistic for a novel set around World War II on the Manitoba prairies, and the protagonist of Jasper Jones has a Vietnamese-Australian best friend. I just finished Fly Trap by Frances Hardinge and loved it, but it's so far afield from the mainstream of YA fantasy that I don't quite know what to make of it. (That's a good thing.)

I really liked Karen Healey's The Shattering, more than a lot of the multiply-starred books I've read this year, but unfortunately the rest of my personal shortlist is pretty white and straight.