At 11-years old, literary advocate and creator of #1000BlackGirlBooks Marley Dias was fed up. All of the books she was reading in school were about “white boys and their dogs.” According to a study done by the Cooperative Children’s Book Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison less than 10 percent of children’s books released in 2015 had a black person as the main character.
After bringing this to her mom’s attention, Marley’s mom asked, “What are you going to do about it?” In the fall of 2014, Marley Dias started a book drive with the goal of collecting 1,000 books about black girls and #1000BlackGirlBooks was born. Now 12-year old Dias has far exceeded her goal by collecting more than 4,000 books. In her advocacy, she is asking school districts to change which books are assigned to students and add more with black girls as lead characters.
Presented with an award last year at Black Girls Rock on BET, Marley now has plans to author her own book with Scholastic. “Scholastic is the perfect partner for spreading my message of diversity, inclusion and social action.” Dias’ new book will be published in Spring 2018.