I come to you today, bookwyrms, not just as a book blogger, but as a book blogger and librarian.

And also your future Benevolent Overlord, but let’s not beleaguer the point. For now, the first two will suffice.

I’m happy to announce the Tour the World in 30 Books blog tour, to finally open sign-ups, and to tell you about my little pet project for my library that I have the pleasure (and honor) of spearheading.

Which I assure you is not at all stressful and nerve-wracking, being my first official project. No. I’m fiiine. Is … is it a little warm in here? Just me?

Sooo … what am I on about now?

The library I work at is running a diverse book drive for the month of September.

I work in a really small, rural library whose budget has been cut this year for … reasons. I’m sure you all can guess some of them. But I’m an ardent believer that this doesn’t mean we should forego our mission to include more diverse books on our bookshelves.

Our focus is getting books in the hands of children, particularly third grade to high school reading levels, though we aren’t excluding adult books, either.

A big part of the library’s mission is focusing on the youth, and we want to make sure they’re able to explore as much of the world as they can … from the safety of their preferred reading nook, wherever that happens to be, of course. This seems especially important in the time of COVID, which is a very isolating time for many of our children. We want to remind them there’s a whole world out there still.

So why did I start this initiative?

The reasons, as you can imagine, are many, but I’ll try to be concise:

• I know what it’s like to not be able to see yourself in books. It’s a bummer. It makes you question a lot of things. Like why you can’t be a hero. Or if there’s something wrong with you that you don’t get to go on grand adventures. I want our kids to be able to see themselves and see that they, too, can kick butt or be villains or whatever pleases their little evil genius hearts.
  
• I live in a county that is overwhelmingly white Christian and also has a high poverty rate, so many people are unable to travel and just aren’t exposed to other cultures. In the months leading up to my decision to take on this project, I spoke to many people in their 40s and 50s who said they had never seen a person of color until they were 18 or 20, which blows my mind. The county is getting more diverse, though, and we are becoming more and more global-minded, and I think our books need to reflect that.
  
• I am the only person of color at my library, and prior to me working here, we just didn’t really shelve books that focused on people of color or were written by people of color. The excuse I heard (not from current staff, but about former staff) was that, “White people won’t read those books.” Which I think we can all agree is categorically false. But that was used for a long time to keep the shelves in the library mostly white, and it was not a belief held by the majority of the staff here. Just the one that counted.
  
• This county is large, mostly Republican, mostly Christians, and mostly white … but about a month ago, they had a BLM rally that had a surprisingly large turnout and saw the protesters and counter-protesters all coming together in a dialogue, and that tells me that we are all trying to do better. I firmly believe that. I’ve lived in this county for 10 years now, and the people here are fabulous, for the most part. You’ll always have those people, but this county has fully welcomed me and embraced me, and I whole-heartedly want to give back to it. This is my contribution.

Here’s where you, the bloggers, come in …

I’m running a 30-day blog tour, from September 1 to September 30, where bloggers share one of their favorite diverse books in a creative way to introduce more readers to diverse books. One book a day, 30 days, hence the Tour the World in 30 Books blog tour.

As an added bonus, all the books that these bloggers recommend will go on a wishlist for donations for the library.

Which means this is your chance to bring your favorite book to a small, local library to be thrown at readers. I mean … gently placed in their hands? My director has informed me there will be no throwing of books because she’s no fun at all.

But wait! There’s more!

Sorry, I’ve always wanted to say that. Look at me, living the dream.

The Write Reads has been kind enough to pledge to donate whatever books out of the 30 blog tour books aren’t donated by the end of the month!

So if you participate in this blog tour? Your book will be donated, either way! Look at you, doing your part. You deserve a cookie.

So let’s talk about the blog tour …

The tour will run September 1 – September 30 with one blog post a day.

Here’s what you need to know:

• You do not need to donate in order to participate in the blog tour. No pressure. My goal is to spread the word about the drive, of course, but also to celebrate diverse books. No one should be excluded from that.
  
• For the purposes of this drive, we are defining diversity as a book that is not written by or from the point of view of a white, Christian American. This includes, but is not limited to, books by and about people of color, set anywhere outside the US that displays aspects of that culture, fantasy books/worlds inspired by other cultures, LGBTQ+ characters and authors, characters/authors with other ethnic and religious identities.
  
• When you sign up, you’ll choose your top three diverse books you want to highlight in a creative way. This should be fun! The whole point is to generate buzz for diverse books, so go wild with this, however you like. Why three? Just in case someone’s book overlaps. I’d like to highlight a different book every day, so this’ll prevent people from talking about the same book.
  
• Your post will need to contain a link to my kick-off post on September 1, a tour schedule, a little info blurb about the drive, and a link to the blog tour wishlist. Please make sure you’re comfortable with including these in your post before you sign up.

Sound like something you’re interested in? Sign up to participate in the blog tour using this form.

Thinking about donating?

I will be posting all the details about how to donate in the kick-off blog post on September 1, but I’m happy to field questions prior to that, if you want to reach out to me before then. We are accepting book donations as well as monetary donations. Donations are used at the discretion of the library.

You can either email me at sammie@thebookwyrmsden.com or DM me on Twitter @srbetler.

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