“Many Stories Matter”: Diversifying Representations of Diversity in my YA Literature Curriculum by E. Sybil Durand

From time to time you have a student whose influence stays with you. Sybil was one of the first students encountered in a graduate class at LSU. I love that we keep in touch. I also love that she is making her way in the world. Her insight into diverse literature is always timely and helps me consider new ideas and reframe old ones. Indeed, stories matter. I know that you will find her post informative-- I know I did. Thanks Sybil.

“Many Stories Matter”: 
Diversifying Representations of Diversity in my YA Literature Curriculum
E. Sybil Durand

At the 2015 NCTE convention in Minneapolis, Dr. Bickmore and I were riding up the escalator from the exhibition hall, talking about civil rights and representations of cultural diversity in young adult literature. He asked me, “But have we made progress?” I considered his question for a few seconds and answered, “Yes, but not enough.” In the 5+ years since our conversation, discourse on race in the U.S. shifted away from talk about a “post-racial America” to reconsiderations of systemic racism and its consequences of inequitable education, health, and economic outcomes for people of color. The COVID-19 pandemic, the numerous protests against police brutality towards and killing of Black people, and the more recent rash of violence against Asian people have made it clear that these issues are deeply entrenched in our social and institutional systems. ​

As a scholar of young adult literature and teacher educator, and as a Black Haitian immigrant living in the U.S., I think about the kind of stories that facilitate the dehumanization and continued marginalization of certain cultural communities and the counterstories that are needed to challenge them. In her famous 2009 TED talk, “The Danger of a Single Story,” Nigerian author Chimamanda Adichie argued that, “to create a single story, show a people as one thing, as only one thing, over and over again, that is what they become” (09:23). This single storying requires power: “the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person” (10:09). According to Adichie, Western literature fostered a tradition of representing “sub-Saharan Africa as a place of negatives, of difference, of darkness” (7:02), and the way to challenge this single story, and other negative stories about people of color is by telling many stories about contemporary lived experiences.

Diverse literary representations of historically marginalized communities have the potential to disrupt single stories. Youth literature written by Indigenous, Black, and people of color has seen a noticeable increase in recent years (CCBC 2021). However, this increase in visibility has also fostered resistance: among the “Top 10 Most Challenged Books of 2020” compiled by the American Library Association, five were penned by Black authors. Two of these books--All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely and The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas--were challenged for “promoting anti-police views” and “divisive topics,” among other reasons. These justifications contrast sharply with the multiple awards, honors, and praise these bestselling books have received. And, these challenges come at a time when many more books on antiracism have been published, demonstrating a market demand for understanding and addressing racism in and out of classroom contexts (e.g. Tiffany Jewell’s This Book Is Antiracist).

I include both of the challenged titles on my YA book list for students in my courses to choose from because they function as counterstories by depicting the experiences of Black youth who navigate racial tensions across institutions such as school and law enforcement. For some students, stories such as these might very well serve as mirrors that reflect their lived experiences. As Rudine Sims Bishop wrote in her seminal 1990 essay “Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors,” “when children cannot find themselves reflected in the books they read, or when the images they see are distorted, negative, or laughable, they learn a powerful lesson about how they are devalued in the society of which they are a part.” For many others, these stories can also serve as windows into the lived realities of youth from cultural communities outside their own. Bishop explains that reading books with diverse characters is especially important for “children from dominant social groups…[who] need books that will help them understand the multicultural nature of the world they live in and their place as a member of just one group, as well as their connections to all other humans.” ​

Making stories like the ones from the challenged list available to readers is important for them to grapple with the contemporary issues and historical events that shape the current cultural moment. However, readers need to be exposed to “a balance of stories” (Adichie, 14:08) in order “to empower and to humanize” (17:35) historically marginalized communities. Curricula that overemphasize stories focused on the struggles of historically marginalized communities might reinforce stereotypes for readers from dominant groups. In addition, such stories might not reflect to readers from diverse backgrounds those aspects of their lives that are positive, including being part of a safe and supportive cultural community or family, or being in loving romantic relationships. Such portrayals are essential for mending the “imagination gap caused by the lack of diversity in childhood and teen life depicted in children’s books and media” (Thomas, 2016, p. 112). ​

Students of color in my university courses have requested stories that go beyond a single story of struggle and, instead, offer well-rounded representations of the varied lived experiences of youth from diverse backgrounds. In my courses, I make sure that the diverse texts on my book list feature characters of color from diverse socioeconomic and linguistic backgrounds, represent diversity across gender, sexuality, culture, citizenship status and, most importantly, also include stories in which the central conflict does not stem from the character’s identity. Here is a shortened thematic list from which students select one text each week: ​

Contemporary young adult:

• The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo (realistic, poetry, audiobook recommended)  
• Darius The Great is Not Okay by Adib Khorram (realistic)
• The Field Guide to the North American Teenager by Ben Philippe (realistic)
• Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds (realistic/fantasy, poetry, audiobook recommended)

Poverty & privilege

• Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel by Sara Farizan (realistic)
• The Distance Between Us (young readers edition) by Reyna Grande (memoir)
• Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass by Meg Medina (realistic)
• American Street by Ibi Zoboi (realistic/fantasy)

Gender & sexuality:

• Little & Lion by Brandy Colbert (realistic)
• You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson (realistic)
• Like a Love Story by Abdi Nazemian (realistic)
• Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz (realistic)

Race & ethnicity:

• If I Ever Get Out of Here by Jeff Gansworth (realistic)
• Darkroom: A Memoir in Black and White by Lila Quintero Weaver (graphic novel, memoir)
• Americanized: Rebel Without a Green Card by Sara Saedi (memoir)
• They Called Us Enemy by George Takei (graphic memoir)
• Piecing Me Together by Renée Watson (realistic)

International settings:

• Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings by Margarita Engle (US/Cuba, memoir in verse)
• It’s Trevor Noah: Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah (South Africa, memoir)
• ​Patron Saints of Nothing by Randi Ribay (US/Philippines, realistic)

I have also updated my courses to provide options beyond contemporary fiction, acknowledging the role that speculative fiction can play in helping readers re-imagine the lives of youth of color. In the past three years, students have shown the most excitement for the speculative YA literature module, which explores dystopian Indigenous texts, Black fantasy, Afrofuturist and Africanfuturist texts:

• The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline
• Binti, Akata Witch, and Akata Warrior by Nnedi Okorafor
• Shadowshaper by Daniel Jose Older
• Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky by Kwame Mbalia

Although students are only required to select one book from themed lists each week, many are inspired to add the books they did not select to their “to read” lists based on their classmates’ discussions. Collectively, these representations expand readers’ imagination of what it’s like to grow up in the world today through many stories about young adulthood that have the potential to humanize and to empower.

E. Sybil Durand is an assistant professor in the Department of English at Arizona State University where she teaches courses on young adult literature, teaching methods, and approaches to research in English Education. Her research examines representations of diversity in US and global YA literature and how teachers and their students engage these texts. ​

Until next week.