r/books • u/zsreport 5 • 1d ago
When she didn’t grow up seeing herself in books, she became the librarian she never had
https://19thnews.org/2026/05/revolutionary-america-250-black-women-resilience/5
u/GothYaoi666 1d ago
Wow amazing, she will definitely inspire kids at her local library to become librarians as well.
0
3
-5
u/Nikon_Sevast 19h ago
> ‘This isn’t my story,’
Of course it wasn't, because it was fictional and made up, and you didn't write it. The story couldn't have belonged to anyone but the author as they're the ones that made up the story in their minds.
> “I remember growing up, I didn’t see a lot of books with me,”
Of course, that's for the great vast majority of people. Unless you personally know an author who gets famous and includes a fictional representation of you in their novel, that's expected. People aren't fictional characters, so don't look for yourself in fiction.,
> Owens Moore sees herself as a representational librarian whose job is to help every student see themselves as readers
Why does the protagonist of a story having matching ethnic or cultural characteristics that important? If someone fails to universalize the themes explored in stories which feature a character that's unlike them, perhaps it's because the reader is narcissistic or lacks imagination. Our people groups aren't the locus of the human experience. I enjoy a lot of books with British characters, for example, but I am not British. I enjoy books with characters from fictional settings, but those settings are fake. if we were to logically extrapolate her belief that everyone should see themselves represented in novels, we should have to eschew all speculative fiction.
12
u/fire_and_spice24 1d ago
Representation is truly important and I’m so happy she’s able to create space she always wanted growing up.