Cover Reveal: The Raising by Steven Dos Santos

So Guinevere and I are getting ourselves prepared for our Annual Diversity Month in December(Interested in being featured during the festivities as a blogger or an author? Click here to learn more and sign up.) and we got approached to participate in another #coverreveal. 

Book Blitz: The Mark of Noba by G.L. Tomas +INTL #giveaway

This is OUR stop during the book blitz for The Mark of Noba by GL Tomas. This book blitz is organized by Lola's Blog Tours. The book blitz runs from 25 till 31 August, you can view the complete blitz schedule on the website of Lola’s Blog Tours.

Diverse Book Tours Presents: The Spellbringers Series Blog Tour feat. @TriciaDrammeh

Welcome to The "Spellbringers Series" Book Tour!

This Tour features author Tricia Drammeh and is brought to you by Diverse Book Tours!

Review: Coal by Constance Burris

Welcome to "Coal" Blog Tour!

This Mini-Tour features author Constance Burris, and is brought to you by Diverse Book Tours!

Looking for a Diverse new Fantasy? Check out "Coal!" Coal blends a matriarch society of Queens, Dwarves and Elves in a race to save a child from a corrupt Princess.

The Birth of GL Tomas, The Mark of Noba Cover Reveal, and Writing Books You Want To See-Thoughts on Self Publishing

Review: King by Ellen Oh @elloecho

July 21st, 2015

King by Ellen Oh

Month9Books Friday Reveal: Cindy Pon's Serpentine @cindypon @Month9Books

So we've been off the radar for some time now. It will be fully explained in a future post, but when we got this email earlier today, we really wanted to be apart of this cover reveal!

It features an author we've always found to be a big champion of diversity, especially with keeping her characters as diverse as her stories =)

Month9Books presents the cover for Serpentine by Cindy Pon!

Review: Vessel by Lisa T. Cresswell

April 16th, 2015

Vessel by Lisa T. Cresswell

Review: Jane by Michelle N.Onuorah+ Ebook Giveaway

So I decided to hop on another blog tour for a book we posted a guest post for last week. I(Libertad) decided to review it as well because the cover really drew me in!!! It's simple but eye catching. It's rare when I actually like Interracial couples on book covers that aren't YA, simply because I hate covers that fetishize Mixed Race unions. This one was really to my liking because the girl on the cover is darker skinned. Believe it or not, that seems like a rare thing these days. So off to my thoughts...

YA Bound Book Tours Present: Cover Reveal-Drawn by Chris Ledbetter @dos_twinjas @NereydaG1003 @Chris_Ledbetter

Drawn

by Chris Ledbetter 

Release Date: 06/08/15

Evernight Teen

Cover Artist: Jay Aheer

Jays Book Covers By Design

Why Topics Of Social Justice Belong In Children's and Young Adult Books

So I've officially received my first book review troll.

Latin@s in Kid Lit Guest Post: Why I'm Not Interested in a Mexican Katniss

So we've done our first guest post of the year with Latin@s in Kid Lit!

 

For those who havent been acquinted with Latin@s in Kid Lit, they're an amazing blog that brings the celebration and awareness to Latin@s in middle grade, young adult, comics, picture books and so much more.

We're going to be ongoing contributors a few times a year, to talk about subjects concerning Latin@s in literature.

Our first contribution this year is "Why I'm Not Interested In A Mexican Katniss."

 

It talks about why characters need to be able to stand on their own, and not have to live up or constantly be compared to their "default" counterparts.

Check it out!

Twinja Book Reviews Year in Review

So since Twinja Book Reviews is on Blogger and not Wordpress, we decided to do our blog in review manually!

We've had a really great year talking about our favorite authors, favorite blogs, hosting awesome events, attending awesome events!

2nd Annual Diversity Month Day 24: Publisher Interview w/ Stacy Whitman of Tu Books +Kindle Fire 6" and Book Giveaway!

There isn't a better way to start the holidays than to have our next guest!

So we've been trying to get this woman FOREVER! She's extremely busy, because she's out there grinding and editing diverse books! She's very well known in the #WeNeedDiverseBooks conversation, and has attended many events(See this year's ComicCon) to address diversity in books.

Tu Books, her project of love and dedication, is actually an imprint of Lee & Low, that focuses on all the genres of fiction we love(sci-fi, fantasy, mystery and historical fiction) that center on characters of color at the forefront.

We're so happy to finally host her on our blog, because she's one of the best editors that are also champions for diversity! If you don't know her, you'll know her now!

Introducing: Stacy Whitman!

2nd Annual Diversity Month Day 9: Author Interview w/ Maurene Goo +Kindle Fire 6" and Book Giveaway!

This next lovely was introduced to us by the powerhouse Ellen Oh. Anyone who knows us knows we don't take any suggestions from Ellen Oh lightly, so when she recommended we read this book, we went out and got it as quick as you can say "Light Speed" a million time fast. So check out her words and hopefully by the end of the interview we've made you a fan!

Look! Im everywhere XD @drupkins @MadhuriBlaylock @dos_twinjas

Black Speculative Fiction Month, Day 30: Author Bret Alexander Sweet Talks About #BSFM

So we officially close our Black Speculative Fiction Month event starting tomorrow, with our usual Martial Artist Spotlight, but we just have one more interview left.

We almost met this author back in early October, when we ventured to Sacramento for KidLitCon. Obviously because we'd never been, and lack of time management, we weren't able to cross paths.

But we saved one of the best interviews for last on our Black Speculative Month event. His book "Among The Veils" made our Top Ten list of spec fic titles featuring Bi/Multi-Racial protganists of African descent.

Author Bret Alexander Sweet is always a pleasure to have on the blog. Here's what he has to say about Black Speculative Fiction Month.

Blended and Bold: Twinja Book Reviews Top Ten List of Bi-Racial/Multi-Racial Main Characters in Spec Fic #BSFM

We weren't sure how readers would interpret a list full of main protagonists whom are of African heritage, but also a blend of identities.

Black identity is extremely important to us, especially because we're Afro-Latina. We don't identify as mixed race but it is always difficult to explain being of blended cultures or identities and proud of such.

As a woman who has a biracial boyfriend(who is half Black-Haitian and half White-Colombian) I tend to forget that he struggles with identity and how he classifies himself as much as I do. We come from two different sides of the pond. We talk about race ALL the time. I know he doesn't always have it as easy as I think he does.

Thoughts on #KidLitCon Day 1- Theme DIVERSITY

So for those of you bloggers that don't know much about Book Conferences(Don't feel alone, we're just discovering a lot of them too XD) they're basically events that celebrate what's new in publishing. I'm sure everyone has heard of Book Expo America? 

So yea, This year we wanted to start attending more Book Conferences because blogging can be pretty lonesome. You have your faithful followers who always show you love with their rec's and comments, but we made ourselves a few promises that we'd go out there and start meeting other bloggers who blog about books. Put some faces to the blogs that we follow and luckily a Book Conference called "Kid Lit Con", made it really easy to do that.

Beyond Black and Ability: Twinja Book Reviews Top Ten List of Black Main Characters with Disabilities in Speculative Fiction #BSFM

So we're revealing some pretty cool lists of novels(which will include full length, novellas, short stories in anthologies, and the like) and the more we immerse ourselves in diversity, the more we actually learn about it.

Just with this blog alone, we've learned just how important intersectionality is, so like our list featuring books with Black Queer main characters in spec fic, this one is especially important.

Disability is often the MOST neglected marginalization. Too many people are afraid of addressing disability, and it's often why many attempts at inclusion end up problematic.

Characters with disabilities are especially important to children. Children of color dont often have proper representation, so imagine being a child of color AND having a disability.