Artwork by Aixa Perez-Prado
I’ve been looking forward to this day with great excitement: today marks the debut post for our new series, We Need Diverse Middle Grade.
Our mission: We celebrate and promote diversity in middle-grade books, and we examine the issues preventing better equity and inclusion on the middle-grade bookshelf. We intend to amplify and honor all diverse voices.
We Need Diverse Middle Grade will post once a month, drawing on work from our own team of contributors as well as from guest authors, editors, agents, teachers, librarians, and booksellers. You can count on our presence here on Mixed-Up Files to shine a light on the stories, work, and truth of all those who are still underrepresented in this field. You’ll be able to recognize our monthly posts by seeing our WNDMG logo: the diverse world we envision. Our artwork is by contributor Aixa Perez-Prado.
Guest Posts for We Need Diverse Middle Grade
If you’re interested in being considered for a guest post slot on WNDMG, please feel free to email: mufcommunications@gmail.com. Please Note: We do not pay for guest blog posts.
And without further ado, I want to introduce our first WNDMG author, the talented Saadia Faruqi. Saadia is a former MUF contributor, and she is also the author of the YASMIN series, A PLACE AT THE TABLE (with author Laura Shovan) and A THOUSAND QUESTIONS.
WHAT IT MEANS TO WRITE DIVERSE BOOKS
By Saadia Faruqi
Every time I write a post on Instagram, I chose from a number of hashtags. One of these is #DiverseAuthors and I always chose it with an internal cringe. Why do I need to be called a diverse author? What’s so diverse about me?
I’m just a person writing books about my and my children’s experiences, and for all that to have a label – no matter how well meaning – is often a source of discomfort for me. At the same time, I realize that the work I do is important, and needed. My life experiences as an immigrant, as a mom of first-generation brown kids, inform everything I do, and every single word I write. I share our family’s journey in so many different ways. So many diverse ways.
A Series of Diverse Firsts
The good news is that books about marginalized communities and identities – diverse books – are becoming more popular. When I wrote the Yasmin series, it was the first traditionally published early reader series written by a Muslim American author. It was also the first series with a Muslim girl on the cover, wearing her traditional Pakistani dress and using Islamic words like “salaam”. Nobody knew what the reception of such a unicorn among books would be.
But the success of Yasmin and so many other “diverse” books has shown that there is definitely a huge market for them. “Diverse kids” are hungry for books that center them and their experiences. “Diverse parents” are eager to buy books like mine for their children. Teachers and librarians, even if they aren’t “diverse” themselves, are realizing the value of introducing a different culture and identity in their spaces.
Branching Out
Over the years, I’ve grown more daring. From Yasmin I progressed to writing middle-grade novels. With co-author Laura Shovan, I wrote A Place at the Table, a multi-diverse book about not one but several marginalized identities. Muslim. Jewish. Pakistani. British. Immigrant. Mentally ill. The response has been heartwarming. We’ve spoken with teachers and parents and students themselves. Everyone loves this story, because they can all see something of themselves in this book.
((Read our interview with Saadia and Laura about A PLACE AT THE TABLE here.))
Universal Diversity
Does that mean we are all “diverse”? This is an interesting question. If “diverse” means different from the norm, then most of us are diverse in some way or the other. If diverse means unique, we are definitely all so.
My most recent book A Thousand Questions is perhaps the most unlike my other work, because it’s set in another country. This is the story of Mimi, a Pakistani American girl who spends her summer vacation in Pakistan with her grandparents. It is also the story of Sakina, the Pakistani servant girl who works at Mimi’s grandparents’ home. Both are foreign to the other. Both look at the other and see DIVERSE.
I choose to set A Thousand Questions in Pakistan because I wanted to explore how we are all different, yet the same. How we tend to look for differences in others and forget the similarities. I wanted my readers to see how one can travel half-way across the world and still find people who are exactly like us in terms of their feelings and their dreams and their fears.
Diverse Books are Just Good Books
Although A Thousand Questions is a perfect example of a diverse book, it actually is the opposite in terms of what it hopes to achieve. It shows how we are similar, alike, comparable. It shows that maybe what we think of as “diverse books” are actually just good books. Amazing stories about amazingly diverse experiences that we can all learn from, whether we are adult or kid readers.
My stories are “diverse” only because they’re outwardly different. They may be set in a different country, or the characters may speak a different language, or eat foods you’ve never heard of. But under the skin, these stories are universal in nature. Similarly, I may have brown skin or wear a hijab or speak Urdu, but underneath all that I’m a human being just like you. I’m a writer just like any other.
I hope that my books – all diverse books – bring home this essential message to readers.
Saadia Faruqi is an interfaith activist and author. Visit her website at www.saadiafaruqi.com.
About that same time, I saw a photo of a Syrian refugee and her young son in my minister’s office. They held a sign that said WE ARE FROM SYRIA CAN YOU HELP US? I wrote a manuscript about a Christian girl whose church helps a Syrian refugee family, but then I started paying attention to #ownvoices. I wondered if my story was centered on the wrong character? I decided to seek a co-author and after reading Naheed’s book, 
Shannon: My minister introduced me to Janet Blair, the Community Liaison for Refugee Services, Suncoast Region. Janet answered my questions about the resettlement process and arranged for me to meet several Syrian girls. I also read non-fiction about the Syrian Civil War. Two books I highly recommend are A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea: One Refugee’s Incredible Story of Love, Loss, and Survival by Melissa Fleming and We Crossed A Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria by Wendy Pearlman. The Boston Globe series about Syrian refugees helped, too.
N.H. Senzai is the award-winning author of 
Shannon Hitchcock is the author of 
