Saturday Spotlight - Reading In Color

Hey guys! Welcome to another Saturday Spotlight, where I'm shining a light on a new blog that deserves some attention. Today we have a great blog that is all about multicultural YA fiction. And so as to be thematic, I've brightened up the interview with different colors. :)

Name: Ariana
Nickname: Ari/MissAttitude
Blog Name: Reading in Color
Blog URL: http://blackteensread2.blogspot.com/



Tell me a bit about yourself.
I'm a half Black, half Latina sarcastic sophomore in high school who (besides loving to read) loves dancing, listening to music, politics, hanging with friends and just having fun.

When and why did you start your blog?
I started this blog on the 4th of July (totally unintentional really, I just had nothing to do that day). I started Reading in Color to review YA multicultural fiction. I saw a serious lack of book blog reviews featuring poc (people of color) for teens and I wanted to change that. I wanted to read books about people who looked like me (AAs, Latinas) as well as spotlight books by people who were different from me and seriously underrepresented in the teen book blogging world (Asians, Native Americans).

What is your blog all about? Any cool features you want to share?
My blog is all about reviewing books about Asians, Latinos, Native Americans, African Americans, girls, guys, LGBT teens. Fiction that isn't always spotlighted.
What you won't see on my blog: an excess amount of reviews of books with white main characters (maybe a few), there's enough of those blogs out there. A cool feature I have is Male Monday. I started Male Monday because I realized that I don't really read many books about guys so I wanted to make a more deliberate effort to change that. Male Monday is when I review books about guys of color.

What are some of your favorite genres and/or books currently?
My favorite genres are historical and realistic fiction. Currently, some of my favorite books are Flygirl by Sherri L. Smith, Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher, the Hoopster by Alan Lawrence Sitomer and Ask Me No Questions by Marina Budhos.

Do you have a review system? If you do, would you like to explain it for us?
I don't really have a review system. Just a 1-5 rating scale. In a good book I always look for no spelling/grammatical errors, good plot and setting, good characters and character development and a good beginning and ending. Humor and sarcasm always helps. :)

Any tips or advice for those starting or thinking about starting a blog?
Something I would advise new bloggers (even though my blog is barely 1 month old) is to network. Email fellow YA book bloggers or leave comments on their blogs. All the people I reached out to had very useful tips and advice. Some even added me to their blogrolls which helped me get more viewers. Best of luck to all new bloggers!

I just really, really want to stress that it's important to read books about people other than yourselves. if you don't feel comfortable reading about a book about someone totally different from yourself, start small. for example,if you're a gay Native American teen try reading about a gay Latino teen I love my fellow YA book bloggers, but I would really like to see more diversity in the books they read and review. There are some great challenges and websites out there to help get you started (Color Online, worducopia). Also if you want suggestions feel free to email me willbprez@aol.com or leave a comment on my blog.

Contest Alert!
Ari is going to be holding some fabulous contests starting today, so make sure to keep an eye out for that post on her blog!


Thank you Ari for donating some time to answer these questions! Please check out Ari's blog and leave her a comment (or 10!).

Are you a new blogger too? Or just getting back into the swing of blogging? Do you want to be featured on my blog? Shoot me an email at bittahsweetharmony@yahoo.com.

The Neverending Shelf is doing a similar type of spiel over at her website. So check it out to find out about a different blogger!