The project that was Lowriders in Space began when author Cathy Camper started thinking about the need for more diverse books for kids. In 2005, Camper was working three part-time jobs, including a gig doing outreach at low-income housing for the local library. The kids who would show up to check out books were a multi-cultural bunch, many of them fluent in both English and Spanish. The library had books in Spanish and books in English, but not many that blended the two languages in a way that reflected the Spanglish of her patrons. Camper noticed that they also didn’t have a lot of books for kids that starred characters who weren’t white and suburban. Of best-selling young adult books, only about 15 percent have main characters who are people of color. Camper started to think about how cool it would be to have a bilingual book on hand that these kids and their parents would want to devour.
Keep reading Sarah Mirk’s review of “Lowriders in Space” at BitchMedia.org.