Diane Yancey

About Diane Yancey

Diane Yancey is a prolific nonfiction author who has specialized in health, medical, and science writing for young adult readers over a career spanning more than two decades. She has published more than fifty books, primarily for educational publishers including Twenty-First Century Books and Lerner Publishing Group, targeting middle school and high school students.

Her books cover a wide range of subjects: eating disorders, cancer, diabetes, forensic science, environmental issues, and sexual health, among others. They are written in clear, accessible prose appropriate for their intended age group and designed for use in school libraries and classroom settings.

Her Work in Sexual Health Education

STDs (2002) is representative of Yancey's approach: a factual, clearly organized reference book explaining the major sexually transmitted infections, their transmission routes, symptoms, and available treatments. It is the kind of book that belongs in school libraries precisely because factual health information should be available to young people who may not have other reliable sources for it.

Books like STDs exist because the gap between what young people need to know about sexual health and what they are actually told remains significant. Medical and public health organizations have consistently supported comprehensive, accurate sex education for adolescents. Yancey's reference work is part of the library infrastructure that supports that goal.

Book Bans

Yancey's STDs was challenged at Escambia County Public Schools in Florida, where its frank coverage of sexually transmitted diseases and prevention methods was cited as the basis for the challenge. The challenge is characteristic of a pattern in which factual health reference materials are targeted by the same complaints leveled at literary fiction — despite the fact that restricting access to accurate medical information does measurable harm to the population that depends on it.