Diversity in the News

March 7^th – March 14^th, 2013

ON OUR RADAR

• HarperCollins and Lee & Low create winning proposals for First Book’s Stories for All Project 
• The Diversity in YA Tumblr, managed by YA authors Cindy Pon and Malinda Lo, is back!
• On Goodreads: Best YA Books with Non-White Protagonist
• Lovely interview with Grace Lin for the Girl Scouts’ Storyteller Series
• The CBC’s visual Ode to Ezra Jack Keats, who would have been 97 on 3/11/13
• For Women’s History Month, Open Road Media spotlights Virginia Hamilton (author of 41 books, including M. C. Higgins, the Great): Virginia Hamilton, The Great 
• PW KidsCast: A Conversation with Alaya Dawn Johnson on the cultural, technological, and musical influences that helped shape the futuristic Brazilian setting of her new book. 
• Two Rappers’ daughters are working on a YA novel: Lil Wayne's daughter Reginae Carter and Birdman's daughter Bria Williams have teamed up to write, "Paparazzi Princesses" – set to be published in June by “Cash Money Content.
• An Interview with Harlem’s Little Blackbird Author Renée Watson on Watch. Connect. Read

OMG Books!

First Book, a nonprofit organization that provides new books to low-income children in need, has distributed over 100 million free or low-cost books to kids in thousands of communities across the nation. The First Book Marketplace is a First Book program that purchases new books from leading publishing houses and offers them at discounted prices exclusively to schools and programs serving children from low-income families.

Now, First Book has a new initiative called Offering More Great Books (OMG Books).

Through this initiative, the First Book Marketplace will make a one-time non-returnable special purchase of $500,000 from a selected publisher (or publishers). 

For all the publishing houses out there, First Book is now accepting purchase order proposals!

Here's what you need to know: