College Student Kaya Thomas Creates “We Read Too” Mobile Directory of 600 Books that Prioritize Diversity

As a kid, Kaya Thomas enjoyed reading. “No matter how old I was, what I was going through, how I felt in any moment, a book was always a means of escape” she wrote in a blog post in 2015. “A way to dive into a new world and become a new character.”As a self-professed “nerdy black girl in high school,” Thomas’ love of books, and the escapism they afforded, only grew. She’d read three or four a week, seeking solace in their pages when she “felt very different than most of my peers.”

Something changed in those high school years, though. As a mature reader, she began to pay more attention to how the characters in her favorite books were described ― namely, how they were meant to look. “When I was a teenager I…

Please read original article College Student Kaya Thomas Creates “We Read Too” Mobile Directory of 600 Books that Prioritize Diversity posted on Healthy Black Girls on 12 April 2017 | 1:53 am —