Diversity Audit Update: Humor

Feb 12

This week ended with a completion of the Humor section for the Diversity Audit. From here on out there will be some space in between posts as we move into the bigger sections such as Sci-Fi, Mystery, Historical Fiction, Realistic Fiction, Fantasy and Graphic Novels. Humor is a smaller section, but has an alarmingly high number of male authors and while it seems like the main character characteristics are more diverse, the numbers themselves are quite low across the board of what we do have that qualified in each section.

The numbers for authors in this category were surprising to me because there so many male authors and hardly any female authors. Are men the only ones that can write humorous books for middle grade and young adult?! I know so many funny females so I’m going to make it my mission to get their stories in my library next year so this number evens out more. The Diary of a Wimpy Kid series by Jeff Kinney and Middle School series by James Patterson just dominated this section with very little representation anywhere else other than white, male authors.

The main characters had a slightly bit higher amount of females, but not much. It was still dominated by male main characters like Rowley Jefferson and Rafe Khatchadorian. I will add more female-driven stories in the Humor section too. Lastly, I changed the format of the last chart Main Character Characteristics so that the categories would be easier to read.

All in all this section was another disappointment, but I expected it, to be honest. Hopefully Science Fiction will be better.