In recent years, critics, teachers, editors, authors, and readers have all argued that children's and Young Adult literature must be more diverse. In fact, there are numerous blogs and websites, including "We Need Diverse Books," "Diversity in YA," "Latin@s in Kid Lit," "Rich in Color," and "I'm Here. I'm Queer. What the Hell Do I Read?," among others, devoted to promoting diversity in children's and YA lit. As such blogs and websites along with numerous surveys show, there is a dearth of diverse characters and diverse writers in children's and YA lit. This dearth promotes, whether intentionally or not, the idea that whiteness is normal and that the unearned privilege that comes with being white is also normal. This dearth further suggests that characters who display middle-class, hetero-normative whiteness are the only characters worth writing and reading about. The result is that characters of color, LGBTQ+ characters, characters who are not able bodied, and characters from marginalized socioeconomic backgrounds are not only on the margins of these literary genres, but that they are—and should remain—on the margins of society. This proposed panel seeks to examine and to interrogate the ongoing normalization of whiteness in children's and YA lit. We specifically seek papers that consider the following, although we will consider papers on all related topics:
• What impact does normalizing whiteness have on readers, both young and old?
• What impact does normalizing whiteness have on writers?
• How does normalizing whiteness limit diverse authors' ability to publish and to succeed?
• How does privileging white characters over diverse characters perpetuate systems of oppression?
• In normalizing whiteness, are writers, publishers, and readers also normalizing heterosexuality, able bodied-ness, and middle-class economic values?
• Do such books perpetuate neoliberal political agendas?

We welcome papers that address texts from all historical periods and genres as well as papers that consider the role of education and the publishing industry.

Please submit abstracts of 300 words to Miranda Green-Barteet (mgreenb6 at uwo.ca) and Meghan Gilbert-Hickey (gilbertm at stjohns.edu) along with a 50-word biography by October 5, 2015.

The panel proposal will be submitted to the 2016 Children's Literature Association Conference, which will be held June 9-11, 2016 at the Sheraton Square Columbus at Capitol Square.