The Importance of Diversity in Children's Literature

There have been a lot of news stories this week that made me think about the importance of diversity in children's literature. I would like to preface this by saying that I am white, my husband is white, and my children are white. With the exception of a few cousins and maybe some Native American blood way, way back in the family tree, my whole family is white. But I believe that diversity in literature is just as important for my own children as it is for children of color. Discrimination often comes from a lack of knowledge about another group of people and education begins when children are young.

For the second year in a row, all 20 of the Oscar acting nominees are white and some people are boycotting attending or watching the award show because of that. When accused that his boycott was about not being nominated himself, Will Smith said, "This is so deeply not about me. This is about children that are going to sit down and they're going to watch this show and they're not going to see themselves represented." (I don't get TV and have never sat down and watched the Oscars, so not watching them this year doesn't mean anything.) Whether you believe him or not, and whether you boycott the Oscar show or not, his statement gets at the heart of issue.

We're fond of telling children that they can grow up and be whatever they want to be. But it's a lot harder to actually convince them of that unless they see people who look like them in literature (and movies). In school my daughter has been learning about space and space exploration. It broke my heart a little bit when she told me that only boys could be astronauts. No one told her that, but all the books they had read in class only had astronauts who were men. I told her that girls have been and can be astronauts too. She didn't seem to believe me.

In spite of the frustration over the lack of diversity in children's literature, there are encouraging things happening as well.

Marley Dias, a young black girl, was frustrated by only reading books about white boys and their dogs, and started a campaign to collect 1,000 books with black girls as the main character. She exceeded that goal and now has more than 4,000.

Simon & Schuster started an imprint that will focus on publishing Muslim-themed children's books. We have close friends who are Muslim so I was excited about this news for them and for the potential for my own children to read more books about our friends' culture.

Another great source for diversity in books is the campaign We Need Diverse Books.

Diversity to me extends beyond race and gender. It includes literature with characters from many different times, places, and life circumstances. Growing up I saw myself in characters like Matilda and Ramona and Emily. But I also thought about what it would be like to live through the Holocaust, Great Depression, or the Wild West. I imagined myself traveling to other worlds and planets, and wondered what it would be like to be deaf or blind or an orphan or a slave or a princess because of the books I read growing up.

We, and our children, need to read books about children in diverse neighborhoods, in WWII England, and in Colonial America. They need to imagine what it would be like to travel in time and space or what it would be like to have nowhere to live at all. They need to learn about kids who are different, kids who look different, and kids learn to love themselves for who they are.

As I finished my argument in favor of diversity in children's literature, I took a look at our bookshelves to see how well my ideals match my reality. The truth is that in our picture book collection, there are far more white kids than kids of color. But actually, kids don't feature in most our picture books at all. Our collection is dominated by Elephants, Piggies, Pigeons, farm animals, and dogs named Charlie. So far I have very few books for Middle Grade and Young Adults. But as my children get older and I continue to buy them books, I hope to remember my ideals and aim for diversity.