Call for cash to increase diversity in school reads
SCHOOLS should receive extra funding to increase the diversity of children’s books for pupils to read.
A major study has highlighted how only one per cent of the 9,000 books for three to 11 year olds published two years ago featured a lead character from an ethnic minority.
School shelves are heaving with faded titles depicting minorities only as slaves or cartoon characters in dreadlocks, the report claims.
The report,time For Change, was commissioned by Arts Council England and published by Sheffield
Hallam University last week. It blames the situation on the vast majority of children’s books being written by white authors, such as Davidwalliams and Julia Donaldson.
Many of these are said to be afraid of creating black or Asian heroes or heroines in case they are accused of cultural appropriation.
Walliams, whose bestselling books include Gangsta Granny, was caught up in a race row over his depiction in many of his stories of Asian shopkeeper Raj. Anthony Horowitz, creator of the Alex Rider teenage spy novels, claimed he was “warned off” creating a black character.
Children’s author Gptaylor was one of the first white fantasy writers to choose a black child as the hero when he wrote his bestseller Shadowmancer in 2002.
He said: “White people are now frightened to write about black people in case they are accused of cultural appropriation. Until more black people start writing about black characters we are going to be in this situation, even though we are a multicultural society.”
The report says talent from ethnic minorities is still largely being ignored by publishers fixated on existing authors “who were historically more likely to be white”.
Arts Council England says that government cash is needed to boost sales of emerging black and Asian writers, and encourage schools to restock. Sarah Crown, the council’s director of literature, said: “Every child should be able to see themselves in the books they read.”