Bruce Gargoyle's Reviews > Book Uncle and Me

Ten Second Synopsis:
Yasmin has a goal to read a book a day for the rest of her life, ably aided by Book Uncle, the man who runs a free little lending library on the corner of Yasmin's street. When Book Uncle receives a notice from the Council that he must close his book stand, Yasmin must find a way to change Council's mind and bring books back to her community.

Charming and humorous story about changing your world, for young independent readers. Even though this is a short book, it's chock full of underlying social issues and culturally interesting elements just ripe for discussion by young readers

Yasmin is delightfully flawed and determined and compassionate and an all around charming heroine. She speaks without thinking, then feels guilty for it, then tries to rectify her mistakes, then manages to mobilise a whole lot of strangers to her cause simply through her passion for it. If you are looking for realistic female protagonists in early chapter books, then look no further!
This book celebrates books and the people who read them. It celebrates the power of books to change people's lives in big and small ways, and to bring people together who otherwise have little in common.

This book wasn't written to be a "diverse" book, but if you aren't an Indian person reading it, it certainly fulfills that criteria. The story itself is completely transferable to any Western classroom in which civic education is a priority, but there are also lots of parts of the story that will inspire discussion about difference - particularly issues of access to free lending library resources and election processes.