We want diverse books

The Loft asked me for a blog post about diversity in kidlit:

“It’s so easy as an adult to fall into rigid and boring habits of mind about what young people “need” from us—as if all we had to offer was medicine—but a great thing about teaching a class for teens about fisticuffs and fornication is that conventional notions of what young people today “need” are pretty much out the window from the start. This was a class about wanting…”

The rest is at The Loft’s Writers’ Block blog.