A Wealth of Books for Everyone!

Covid has meant deprivation of one kind or another for pretty much everybody.

At the risk of sounding trite, deprivation is difficult, and that difficulty can often take over our field of vision and cause us to lose sight of the many, many things we have in abundance.

So here’s something October has in abundance: Special Days! No, we’re not talking about a day for dressing up your kids and chasing them around the neighborhood as they go mad for sugar. That’s fun, but this is even better:

October is BOTH International School Library Month AND Disability Awareness Month… which means we have an opportunity to spend not just a day or two but an entire month focusing on two of our favorite things: books, and expanded access to books in all places by all people.

There’s a flip side to that, of course.

The reason we’re taking all this time to focus on this is that equality of access to books is still something we only aspire to. For those of us fortunate enough to live in places where libraries are generally well stocked, there is still a hard reality that not all libraries are created equal. Just as there are “food deserts” in many of our financially disadvantaged regions, so too are there “book deserts,” where access to the truly breathtaking number of books available in our own language (or at least, the language that this post is written in) can be very, very limited—especially for underserved groups like the Deaf or people who are visually impaired. Although great work continues to be done to expand access in places where language is less of a primary barrier, the fight is by no means over.

But what about places where language is a barrier? Where children and adults have little to no access to books written in the language they best speak and understand? For thousands of marginalized language communities around the world, this is a daily reality. Has Covid forced you to reflect on “deprivation” and “lack” in unprecedented ways? Have books provided you with consolation, entertainment, and fresh knowledge during these often trying times?

Perhaps all of this can be an opportunity.

Will you take a moment to think about those who have less access to books or no access at all?

A recent article by our friends at All Children Reading has suggested three ways that you can support the development and use of accessible books for children with disabilities: commit to creating and publishing born-accessible e-books, use Bloom book creation software to create accessible books, and order accessible books for any education programs you might be affiliated with.

These are fantastic, practical suggestions that we hope you’ll consider.

But even before that, we hope you’ll pause and think about the millions of people around the world with extremely limited access to books in their own languages. We believe it’s long-since time we change this.

What do you think?