Diversity Matters

Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors

In 1990, Rudine Sims Bishop wrote "Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors," an amazing article about the importance of providing diversity to all children so they can see and understand the world around them through literature. Written more than thirty years ago, her words still ring true today...

“Books are sometimes windows, offering views of worlds that may be real or imagined, familiar or strange. These windows are also sliding glass doors, and readers have only to walk through in imagination to become part of whatever world has been created or recreated by the author. When lighting conditions are just right, however, a window can also be a mirror. Literature transforms human experience and reflects it back to us, and in that reflection we can see our own lives and experiences as part of a larger human experience. Reading, then, becomes a means of self-affirmation, and readers often seek their mirrors in books.”  

                                                                                        - Rudine Sims Bishop