Diversifying Voices in BC's Little Free Libraries

Imagine if every young person had greater access to books that featured someone who looked like them. Imagine if books about Black and Indigenous history, culture, and anti-racism were stacked on everyone’s bookshelves. Diversity matters. Representation matters. Imagine if we could fill the Little Free Libraries in our community with a diverse collection of books that represent Black and Indigenous lives.

Let’s help fulfill the mission of LFDL here in British Columbia!
Funds from this GoFundMe will be used to purchase books from Black and Indigenous owned bookstores to fill our province's Little Free Libraries with voices and stories from Black, Indigenous, and POC authors.

As an extension of Kamya's LFDL initiative, LFDL Canada seeks to expand diversity in Little Free Libraries by not only increasing the presence of Black stories, but Indigenous stories as well. Every child should be able to find a character that they can identify with and find stories that represent their history and culture.

Little Free Diverse Libraries (LFDL) aims to bring Black stories from Black writers and Black-owned bookstores to young people today. Fueled by the current tide of civil justice, LFDL is set on normalizing Black stories and bringing Black narratives to the forefront, especially for Black youth, who so often cannot find role models in today’s media. LFDL was created by Sarah Kamya, 26, when she witnessed a Free Little Library in her own neighborhood of Arlington, MA and wished she had a similar resource in her youth. Free Little Libraries are book-sharing boxes open to the public 24/7 , and community members are encouraged to take a book for free or leave a book for others.

Want to pick out specific books? Purchase books directly from our Amazon wishlist which is curated by Sarah Kamya: https://bit.ly/LFDL-BC
LFDL Canada is curating a list of Indigenous stories and authors to be added to this wish list now - if you have any recommendations, let us know!

Follow the initiative @LittleFreeDiverseLibraries on Instagram, and keep tabs on the Canadian movement:

British Columbia: @LittleFreeDiverseLibrariesBC on Instagram and @LFDL_BC on Twitter
Canada: @LittleFreeDiverseLibrariesCan on Instagram and @LFDLCanada on Twitter

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The Little Free Diverse Libraries Manifesto

We believe that Black lives matter. Black stories
matter. Black history matters. Black childhood
matters. Black joy matters. Black sorrow matters.
Black voices matter.

We believe that all children deserve to see
themselves and diverse others represented in
literature.

We believe that children of color deserve to see
themselves represented in ordinary stories in which
a character’s race is not their defining characteristic.

We believe in revising the canon of children’s
literature to feature authors of color and texts that
portray a diverse range of experience.

***

Kamya is a child of a Ugandan immigrant, has a Masters from NYU in Counseling and Guidance in Schools K-12 and now works at P.S 191, a  K-8  Title 1 Public School in New York City as a School Counselor. It is here she witnesses first hand how hard it is for young Black people to find their own experiences reflected in popular media, especially literature. It is through LFDL that white folk will be able to educate themselves further on anti-racism, Black history, African-American culture, and that black and brown children will finally be able to see themselves represented and celebrated in literature.