Angela Davis is an activist, educator, and author who has dedicated her life to fighting for civil and human rights. She was born on January 26, 1944, in Birmingham, Alabama, during a period when segregation laws known as Jim Crow laws enforced separation between African Americans and white people. Witnessing the harmful effects of these laws inspired Angela to advocate for equality.
From 1961 to 1967, she attended schools in the United States and abroad, during which time she became actively involved in the civil rights movement. In the late 1960s, Davis joined the Black Panther Party, an organization committed to fighting for justice for African Americans.
https://kids.britannica.com/kids/article/Angela-Davis/632641
Young Diverse Readers (YDR) is a Latina-owned small business specializing in professional development training and personalized consulting services. Its commitment is to foster inclusive and supportive organizational environments where historically marginalized youth can successfully be recognized, respected, and empowered through literature.
VISION
Our vision is to create opportunities that showcase cultural awareness, acceptance, and understanding. Overall, giving each child and teen a voice through literature that reflects their multicultural world and creates a climate of inclusiveness by seeing human connections where all feel genuinely valued and respected in a culturally pluralistic world.
MISSION
Our mission is to remove Brown and Black disparities from youth curriculums, programs, and services by providing diverse expertise, implementing complimentary support within organizations, and successfully training paraprofessionals and professionals through tailored training and one-on-one consulting.
BACKGROUND
Children and teen literature are primary conduits for relaying messages to youth via shared readings, storytimes, read-alouds, reading assignments, and more.
From utero, each child begins to hear their immediate world, and by 3 months, they develop a better handle of what is being read to them. At six years old, children use pictures and context to decipher unfamiliar words. While celebrating their ninth-year milestone, grade school children start analyzing texts for meaning, graduating to analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating ideas from the text by high school.
However, there is a lack of diverse and inclusive representation in children and teen literature. Publishing companies often focus on releasing predominantly white, female, heterosexual, and non-disabled characters in youth literature. Thus, displaying the need for advocacy and diverse, equitable, and inclusive representation in books and literary formats for youth readers.
https://www.understood.org/en/articles/reading-skills-what-to-expect-at-different-ages?_sp=17c3c568-2beb-4d3a-be34-089caec77225.1653509624294#Babies_(ages_0%E2%80%9312_months)https://ccbc.education.wisc.edu/literature-resources/ccbc-diversity-statistics/books-by-and-or-about-poc-2018/