Reading Without Walls

During our class on Tuesday, I was trying to think of ways that I've seen or contributed to activism on social media platforms. I realized that I have participated in one particular "movement" of sorts. I first learned about the Reading Without Walls challenge on Twitter earlier this year. It is a campaign that many public libraries, schools, and bookstores are participating in right now. It was created by Gene Yang, who has written installments of Avatar: The Last Airbender for the publisher, Dark Horse.

Reading Without Walls encourages readers to:

This challenge falls right in line with a personal goal I made for myself for 2017 of reading more books with more diverse characters and plots. While the name of the campaign has a thinly veiled political reference, the "rules" of the campaign are very open, non-threatening, and inclusive. The main point is to read and learn about someone or a topic that is out of one's comfort zone. 

With all of the uncertainty and fear that has taken hold due to the recent events taking place in the world, this campaign is a wonderful way of learning about other people and situations by tapping into the power of literature and stories. This campaign strives to help readers learn about others and see differences as wholesome and beautiful, rather than scary or threatening.

Reading Without Walls has been very popular from what I've seen on my Twitter feed. Some libraries are sharing pictures of children and the books they've read. Various publishers and book promotion companies have also supported this goal of diverse reading by sharing book recommendations either written about different cultures and ways of living, or written by diverse authors. 

I have found it easy to support Reading Without Walls, and I have interacted with others in regards to it on social media. If you're interested in participating in the Reading Without Walls challenge, here are three great books to get you started:

 

You can learn more about Reading Without Walls here.