Reading Stats - Tumblr Posts
StoryGraph does monthly stats now. Sometimes I can’t read much but I’ve been on a big reading kick the past few months. I usually set a goal of reading 12 books a year and sometimes don’t make it but this year so far I’m on number 31 and I’d like to keep it up. Only such a high number for me because I’m reading a lot of manga and YA graphic novels. When I can manage to focus, reading has always been one of my favorite hobbies and even more so since dealing with worsening chronic illness and pain. I love learning as well and it is exciting to read about my path and hobbies. So I’m going to share my stats and maybe comparing them will help me keep it up. What are y’all reading?
Keeping track of the fics I'm reading this year is so cool!
The increased number of fics denotes the plummet of my mental health 🥴
I'm doing fine
We need more diverse books in literature. More voices need to be represented.
The Cooperative Children’s Book Center has released the results of their 2019 survey on diversity in kidlit/YA.
We thank them for this invaluable work, note their commitment to adding Arabs/Arab Americans in future surveys, and present these graphs of their findings.
The 3,716 books surveyed have this many main characters total for the following groups:
Black/African: 11.9%
First/Native Nations: 1%
Asian/Asian American: 8.7%
Latinx: 5.3%
Pacific Islander: 0.05%
White: 41.8%
Animal/Other: 29.2%
LGBTQIAP+: 3.1%
Disability: 3.4%
“Taken together, books about white children, talking bears, trucks, monsters, potatoes, etc. represent nearly three quarters (71%) of children’s and young adult books published in 2019.” - librarian Madeline Tyner
When we looked at the breakdown for IPOC creatives who wrote and/or illustrated stories with characters of their own race, we found the following:
First/Native Nations: 68.2%
Pacific Islander: 80%
Latinx: 95.7%
Asian/Asian American: 100%*
*NOTE: these percentages include both authors and illustrators and, as pointed out by author Linda Sue Park for past surveys, Asians/Asian Americans are frequently illustrators but not necessarily authors of their own stories, meaning this is not fully reflective of #OwnVoices representation.
Black/African creatives wrote and/or illustrated only 46.4% of stories featuring Black/African characters.
This is the work that still needs to be done.