Armchair BEA Day #3: Delving Into Diversity and Dining With The Author

Welcome to day 3 of the Armchair BEA!! It’s so fun and exciting to see what topics and activities are in store for us each day.  Today we are going to talk about two topics. I’m not sure how long my responses will be, but I’ll try to keep them fairly short so you can move on and enjoy the other participants’ responses!

 

• Delving Into Diversity:Book Expo sparked quite the controversy a couple years ago regarding diversity in books and authors. Where are we now? OR, let’s take a different direction and explore the diversity of the format of a book. Do we judge a book by its cover and/or content (e.g.,, audio, digital, graphic, etc.)? Or, combine the two topics and discuss diversity found in alternative content (e.g., representation in graphic novels). Get creative and maybe even controversial!
• Dining With the Authors:Every year at Book Expo, children and adult authors are featured during breakfast. Who would you dream of enjoying a meal with? Would it be breakfast, lunch, dinner, or simply coffee? What would your meal be? What would you discuss?

 

Delving Into Diversity……..of book formats. I don’t generally listen to audio books so I most definitely judge a book by that. If it’s available only in audio book, chances are, I won’t even give it another thought. As for a digital book, well, that’s trickier. If I love the cover of a digital book versus the cover of a print book, I’ll snatch it up. But, that said, still have to have a print version of it. I will forever love my print versions. I don’t tend to be too judgmental of contents of the books unless it’s misrepresented. I.e. an author praises his/her work as good clean fun, and I get nothing but porn in the story. That will be an auto no no for future books and I become judgmental then. But, I always try to give the books all a try and be fair with them!

Dining With The Authors……yes please! Can I just do a coffee sit down with ALL my favorites? No? I have to pick just one? Ok then…..well, I guess I would say I would sit down with Karen Kingsbury, or Wanda Brunstetter. Both of those ladies have been inspirations to me. Plus, my mama, who passed away almost 3 years ago, loved both of their works and made it a priority to read every one of their books. I would sit down with them and tell them about my mom and her love of their books and then tell them how their work has blessed me!