Diverse Themes in Kids' Lit


As part of the recent National Education Summit (Diverse Learners Symposium) held in Brisbane, Queensland's own award-winning children's author, Aleesah Darlison was invited to discuss diversity in Kids' Lit via the 'Portrayal of ADHD, Mental Health, Anxiety, & The Spectrums in Children’s & Young Adult Literature'.
The role of a children's author is vast and varied but for me involves sharing and caring. To create stories that elicit emotional connections with young readers while still fascinating and entertaining them is a challenging mix to perfect. Luckily, these are just the sort of tales I love to tackle; ones often embracing difficult subject matter, that speak to different people from multiple levels and in so doing, echo and normalize real life situations. 


Many of my titles reflect this premise, including Oswald Messweather,  a picture book that focuses on the emotional aspects associated with the debilitating condition of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). Mental health disorders, social issues awareness, neurodiversity, inclusion, anxiety, and wellness are just some of the themes that comprise the diversity umbrella. There are dozens more, which is why Aleesah invited us (kids' lit authors) to share their stories for this especially curated list: Diverse Themes in Children's and YA Literature. You'll find Ozzie nestled among some other great titles.

If you're looking for diverse books that appeal to preschoolers, primary students and young adults, you can download the full list along with a resources guide, free of charge simply by clicking on the images below. Attribution: Aleesah Darlison.
 

Attribution: Aleesah Darlison




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: The Goldfish Boy

Image
Twelve-year-old Matthew Corbin is your regular pre-teen boy living in an unspectacular cul-de-sac deep in British suburbia. The major difference between him and the other inhabitants of Chestnut Close however is the state of his red-raw hands and tortured mind and the fact that he barely steps outside his terraced-home second story bedroom. Matthew is afflicted with severe Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, OCD and can barely function as a result. From his fishbowl vantage point, Matthew keeps track of his neighbours, dutifully recording their every movement, their comings and goings, and their habitual rituals in his notebooks. In this way we are introduced to the residents and their characteristic irks and quirks from the get go in a way that is both intriguing and comical. Matthew’s observations allude to his condition; he is both analytical and detailed in his approach. The orderliness of his notations suggest a mind used to repetition and accuracy, an intense desire to ‘get things r...
Read more

Review: Detention

Image
Tristan Bancks signed my copy of Detention with a note hoping it kept me turning pages . This book lived up to that promise and then some. Packed with page-turning tension and relentless drama, this is one middle grade novel that may cause a few kids to miss their dinner call. Yet despite the raw gritty urgency that suffuses nearly every page and the elevated sense of dread and desperation that keeps your heart in top gear, the pace is never too manic nor too hectic to enjoy the energising mix of edgy excitement and sincere emotion Bancks does so well. Dan is an inner suburban boy living on the outer perimeters of life. He’s classified as trailer park trash because of his permanent residence at the social-economically deprived Midgenba caravan park. It’s a title that comes with an ineradicable smear of hopeless. Deep down though, Dan’s a good kid, a caring kid. The type of kid who’ll risk his own face to save a vicious dying dog, which he does one day after finding Rosco tied ...
Read more

I've got a dream

Image
Almost a decade of moons ago, I made a serendipitous discovery that forever altered the spin of my world. Falling pregnant after so many years of waiting and yearning was nothing short of miraculous (for me) and a life event definitely worth waxing lyrical about. But did I? Sadly, not as much I as wanted to. There are those who find it hard to exist without sharing the contents of their dinner plates with the rest of  the world, then there are others who worry that a beautifully executed birthday cake photo shared on social media will somehow demean the starving populations of the world. I oscillate between the two but tend towards the latter, always fretting over how others will take good news in light of their own current situations and struggles, thus resorting to a severe downplaying of my own good fortune. The pregnancy of my first child should have been a joyous occasion - it was a joyous pregnancy after all - but I was acutely conscious at the time of another family me...
Read more