Racial diversity in children’s books grows, but slowly
CHICAGO » In the world of children’s books, villagers can protect their water from a black snake, dark skin is as beautiful as the night sky, and a little girl’s two puffs of hair can make her feel like she’s floating above the clouds.
Kids are seeing more of these possibilities in the books they read as authors make a bigger push to reflect the diversity around them. Racial diversity in children’s books has been picking up since 2014, reversing a 25-year plateau, according to Kathleen T. Horning, director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Cooperative Children’s Book Center.
But despite the gains, progress has been slow. Children’s books written by authors of color in 2020 increased by 3% to 26.8% compared with 2019.
Children’s books written about racially diverse characters or subjects, however, grew by only 1% to 30%, according to preliminary data provided to The Associated Press by the CCBC, which has been tracking statistics on children’s book representation since 1985.
Meanwhile, books about Latino characters saw a slight decrease in 2020, from 6.3% to 6.2%, while the number of books both by and about Native people stayed flat, Horning said.
Books both by and about Black and Asian people saw small but steady increases.
Horning notes that it can take years for a children’s book to be written, illustrated and published, so whatever progress was made in 2020 may not be apparent until 2022 or 2023.
Still, Horning would like to see more people of color writing about their own communities.
“We want people to feel empowered to tell their own stories,” she said.
Ellen Oh, CEO of the grass-roots advocacy nonprofit We Need Diverse Books, said one barrier to achieving diversity in children’s books is the myth within the publishing industry that books about people of color don’t sell.
“Because of this myth, publishing never gives these books a chance,” Oh said.
Oh also recommends supporting independent publishers centering diversity and hiring cultural sensitivity readers to ensure adequate representation. Another option is for mainstream publishers to create imprints focused on diversity.
Such efforts, both within mainstream publishing houses and through grassroots organizing, is vital, said Nina Crews, illustrator of “A Girl Like Me.”