Diversity in the Overlake Library Fiction Collections

The Overlake Library strives to build a diverse fiction collection inspired by Rudine Sims Bishops' seminal descriptions of books as windows, mirrors, and sliding glass doors. Window books allow readers to expand their horizons and empathy by seeing into the lives of characters/worlds/lives unlike their own. Mirror books allow readers to gain validation by seeing characters like themselves/worlds and lives like their own. Sliding glass door books allow readers to metaphorically step into and experience the world of the book, and build empathy with the characters. We also strive to avoid a collection that reflects the "single story" narrative--for example, books about Jewish characters only taking place during the Holocaust, or books with Black characters only taking place during Civil Rights. 

We have created a webpage with tabbed boxes featuring lists of diverse middle school and young adult fiction books in our collection, complete with cover images and summaries. These are organized by genre and diversity, and a PDF of the covers in a grid format is linked below. While we couldn't find a book we owned to fit every genre in every diversity, we came pretty close; for many, we could have filled the boxes many times over! Please explore our catalog for additional titles, or our Sora eBook catalog for additional eBook titles.

Also on the page is an extensive list of DEI books for parents and families, and links to other sources of diverse booklists.