Racial diversity in children’s books grows 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.
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 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 grassroots 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.
In reality, books written by and about people of color have made it on The New York Times’ bestsellers’ list, including “Hair Love” by Matthew A. Cherry, “Sulwe” by Lupita Nyong’o and “We Are Water Protectors” by Carole Lindstrom.
Changing that perception will largely fall on the shoulders of the publishing industry, which itself is lacking in diversity. That includes publicists, marketing teams, agents, editors and booksellers, as well as the teachers and librarians who get the books into children’s hands.
A 2019 diversity baseline survey by Lee & Low Books, an independent children’s book publisher centering diversity, found that 76% of the publishing industry was white. Diversity was most lacking on the editorial side, where 85% of employees were white.
Efforts to change that, both within mainstream publishing houses and through grassroots organizing, is vital, said Nina Crews, illustrator of “A Girl Like Me.”
“When you see yourself reflected in the pages of a book, you’re part of the conversation, part of the story. You’re not ignored. It gives you a sense of ownership to the world that you’re in,” Crews said. “Every child deserves that.”