Attempting to buy Lit for or by Minorities

This post is about trying to find YA Lit for or by Minorities in Schuler's Bookstore. Most times finding books of interest large chain bookstores can be a daunting task but if you are looking for Literature for or by Minorities in the Young Adult section you better know titles and authors because you may not be able to find them. While looking for multicultural texts in relation to young minority adults even after spending over an hour looking though the shelves I grabbed someone to help in my search. Now, I know that the people working in the large chains may not be all that knowledgeable about the books that they are stocking but on this day they weren't any help at all. Except for the cashier that commented, "Yeah, I have a hard time finding them here too." This from an employee!

What I was trying to do is simulate a young person looking for something good to read. I didn't find anything. It could have been that there weren't any multicultural titles that made the cut and were facing the potential buyer with anything but the spine of the book. It could be that Schuler's Books doesn't carry titles pertaining to or relevant to minority readers. It could be that the shelves contain these titles but we as readers need to develope special powers to find them.

Now why is it so hard for a young person to find something to read? Most people would say that they look at the book's front cover, flip it over and read the back cover and decide whether they want to read the unknown book or not. I tried this with a few books and outside of the lucky chance that I might find an author with a Spanish last name, finding books in the YA section for minorities was painful at best.

So what do we do? Do we have to depend on the Anthologies, or the pre-made lists of Multi-cultural lit. in books and websites? Do we have to rely on what the librarians find "good" for our diverse societies' needs?