i am sassa

Marley Dias is a book nerd. She embraces the title and appreciates her parents for helping to instill in her a love of books from a very young age. She says she always received books as gifts, and learning to read gave her a magical independence. Her parents always made sure that Marley was able to see herself in her book collection. The characters were as diverse as possible, with plenty of black and brown girls as the main players.

When Marley went to school, she says pretty bluntly that all the books were suddenly about “white boys and their dogs”. It’s so true, isn’t it? She quickly realized that girls of color who weren’t lucky enough to love books before going to school certainly weren’t going to learn to love them at school…at least not with the limited viewpoints school books shared.

Marley was ten and was still in elementary school when she launched an online campaign with the hashtag #1000blackgirlbooks. The book drive exploded. She has now donated over 10,000 books worldwide that feature girls of color as the protagonist.

Marley hasn’t slowed down since then. She regularly speaks in public, and has a zine sponsored by Elle Magazine called Marley Mag (she interviewed Hillary Clinton for one of her stories!). She has even written her own book called Marley Dias Gets It Done, and So Can You! Her interviews are insanely impressive, and maybe the sweetest, most wholesome things I’ve ever watched.

Thank you, Marley Dias.