During grad school, I created this diversity/empathy reading challenge to encourage people to read books with characters or authors from an underrepresented voice in literature (as defined by We Need Diverse Books). Readers can earn badges along the way and prizes from participating libraries. Participants can read physical books, ebooks, or audiobooks — they all count. Book reviews and participation in discussion groups are not required but are encouraged. It is also suggested that readers share their participation in the challenge on their social media accounts with the hashtag and graphics.
One of the main goals of this project is to provide promotional materials to libraries and independent bookstores at no cost. Many local libraries already struggle with funding and are asked to pay for promotional materials like bookmarks and posters, even when they are printing them in-house. By providing my materials as free downloadable PDFs, libraries and independent bookstores can participate in the book challenge at just the cost of printing.
My #diversebookschallenge is a list of 100 books about diverse life experiences. Rather than just suggest one book to read each month, my challenge is like an ultra-marathon for readers. With no time limit, readers are encouraged to read as many books as they can and challenged to complete the whole list.
