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Blog – Posted on Tuesday, Sep 15

60 children's books about diversity to read with little ones.

Our world is not a simple place to live in. It is wide and full of color; its inhabitants enjoy a multitude of experiences and struggle with a variety of obstacles. Learning about these differences and appreciating them takes a whole lifetime, so what better way to prepare the generation of the future by reading children’s books about diversity with them?

We’ve put together here a list of 60 books to introduce to young minds a range of subjects: from cultural differences to gender fluidity, from social expectations to identity construction. Created by a diverse cast of writers and artists, these stories offer different lenses through which children can see the world. You can choose to ease little ones in with light-hearted and eye-catching picture books, or you can encourage self-reflection by going through more introspective stories.

We’ve divided the books into the sections below to help you find you the most suitable children’s book.

General children’s books about diversity

1. families, families, families by suzanne lang and max lang.

All types of families are valid, which is the message that this inspiring, joyous book imparts to children of all ages. Gentle rhymes accompany cleverly framed portraits of traditional and non-traditional families in these bright pages. All they want to tell you is this: whether you’re living with two dads, two moms, a mom and dad, your grandparents, a stepmom, or a stepdad, you’re in exactly the right place — you’re with your family.

2. Lovely by Jess Hong

You won’t find any preaching about the importance of differences here! Instead, Jess Hong’s Lovely straight-up offers a delightful look at every kind of person under the sun. Her portraits of people cover the gamut of race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender expression, body shape — all of which ask the question, “What is lovely?” And it all culminates in one simple, powerful message: there is beauty in everyone, and we are all lovely.

3. I Am Enough by Grace Byers and Keturah A. Bobo

From Empire actor and activist Grace Byers comes a wonderful and empowering collection of positive affirmations for your child to read and cherish. Put simply, this is a celebration of you . In unassuming but freeing terms, Byers will show you the merits of a positive sense of self while teaching you how to appreciate and embrace differences.

4. Just Ask! by Sonia Sotomayor and Rafael López

If your child is looking for a role model, you can’t do better than Sonia Sotomayor — the first Hispanic and Latina justice to sit on the Supreme Court, bestselling author, and all around great human being. And while the briefs that she writes for the Supreme Court might be a little too hard for kids to understand, Just Ask! might just be perfect for them. In this hopeful, affirmative picture book, kids of all sorts of backgrounds and personalities work together to build a community garden. In encouraging children to ask others about their varying experiences, Sotomayor's wisdom and kindness shines through on the page.

5. A Boy Like You by Frank Murphy and Kayla Harren

Brute strength. Unfeelingness. Misogyny. Those are the norms that underpin toxic masculinity in today’s culture — and A Boy Like You is the joyous, gentle book that’s here to teach boys everywhere that that’s actually not what you need to have in order to be a boy. Instead, Murphy and Harren (quite literally) paint a picture of positive masculinity that bucks stereotypical gender norms, providing a much-needed reminder that character, vulnerability, kindness, and sportsmanship are much more important than physical strength and privilege.

6. Everywhere Babies by Susan Meyers and Marla Frazee

Diversity isn’t just a hot topic to learn about when you start entering school — it’s everywhere already even when you’re just a baby! Everywhere Babies is the perfect representation of that: full of charming rhymes and delightful watercolor illustrations, it never tries to preach or be assertive when it depicts diversity. Instead, its gentle, warm, and humorous approach to  multiculturalism lets even the littlest kid get a grasp on the matter.

7. All Are Welcome by Alexandra Penfold and Suzanne Kaufman

A book that belongs in every classroom and library, All Are Welcome invites children to step into a school where everyone is received with open arms. Even though it’s the nerve-wracking first day of school — and even though everyone is different, from the kid in the wheelchair to the kid with the hijab — all come together to learn from and laugh with each other. Accompanied by bright, accessible illustrations, this is a picture book that children will cherish throughout the school semester.

8. An ABC of Equality by Chana Ginelle Ewing and Paulina Morgan

In An ABC of Equality , Chana Ginelle Ewing and Paulina Morgan re-imagine everyone’s favorite ABCs in terms of diversity. Which means that A is for ability , B is for belief , C is for class , and P is for pick this one up if you’d like a cheerful, colorful book to help you explain social justice to your children . With its vibrant illustrations and simple explanations, this book is particularly great for younger children for whom it’s never too early to start learning about equality.

9. Maddi's Fridge by Lois Brandt and Vin Vogel

Sofia and Maddi are the best of friends. Everything they do, they do together: they play together, go to school together, and enjoy life together. But then Sofia finds out one day that Maddi’s fridge is almost completely bare… and that Maddi goes hungry more often than not. How can Sofia help Maddi — despite having promised her ashamed best friend that she’ll keep this discovery a secret? Brandt handles hard topics like poverty, hunger, and diversity with a sensitive, empathetic touch, and the result is a compassionate picture book that instills a true lesson about friendship and trust. 

10. Geraldine by Elizabeth Lilly

No, no, NO! Geraldine is NOT moving, especially NOT to a new place where she’s always the odd one out. Not to mention that she’s a giraffe with an incredibly dramatic neck, which complicates matters (and doorways)! But in this whimsical, heartwarming book about getting along with people different from you, with the help of another girl as unusual as her, Geraldine discovers just how to fit in without losing herself.

11. Giraffes Can't Dance by Giles Andreae and Guy Parker-Rees

If you can’t get enough of Geraldine, check out Gerald the giraffe, who just wants to dance. As you might expect, this is quite a feat for a giraffe: his twisty neck, knobby knees, and spindly legs don’t make him the most natural fit for the stage! But there’s hope for Gerald yet, especially when he meets a little cricket who teaches him about the value of self-esteem and how to step to the rhythm of his own tune.

12. The Day You Begin by Jacqueline Woodson and Rafael López

Award-winning Jacqueline Woodson is back with another awesome hit for children. For any child who’s ever felt scared and different from others, this sweet book will help them find the courage to reach out and connect. Whether they’re feeling excluded because of their race, hair style, family, or learning ability, The Day You Begin , with its gentle verse and gorgeous artwork, is here to give them the support and reassurance that there will always be someone out there who welcomes them.

13. We're Different, We're the Same by Bobbi Kates and Joe Mathieu

When there’s a complex question, trust Elmo and the Sesame Street gang to figure out the answer! In We’re Different, We’re the Same , the beloved show is packed into a beloved book that teaches children and adults alike that it’s what’s on the inside that truly matters. Colorful and engagingly illustrated, it will let you in on a secret about what makes our world so wonderful. (Spoiler alert: it’s us!)

14. One Big Heart by Linsey Davis and Lucy Fleming

If you’re looking for a book that approaches the topic of diversity from a Christian point of view, One Big Heart might be the one that you want to read out loud to your kids at night. In this multicultural picture book, similarities are celebrated as much as differences. From our laughter to our dreams, we’re more alike than we are different, and there’s always common ground to be found when you meet someone else.

15. Same, Same But Different by Jenny Sue Kostecki-Shaw

8,000 miles might separate Elliot and Kailash, but that distance won’t stop these pen pals from writing letters and exchanging pictures with one another! The more notes that they exchange, the more they realize exactly how different their cities, their lives, their families, and their backgrounds are. But they’re also much more similar than they realize, which is where the true magic of friendship lies.

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Books about cultural diversity

16. little leaders: bold women in black history by vashti harrison.

88 pages. 40 inspiring black women. This book will introduce children of all types to forty brave and beautiful ladies, from shining icons like abolitionist Sojourner Truth and poet Maya Angelou to more obscure (but no less important) leaders like Rebecca Lee Crumpler and Mary Bowser. Wonderfully illustrated and entertainingly written, Harrison nevertheless doesn’t shy away from hard topics like racism and sexism that these women faced in their lives. Put simply, this is a must-read for any child who wants to learn about the trailblazing, powerful, kind, and courageous black women who changed the world — and continue to inspire children’s lives.

17. Separate Is Never Equal by Duncan Tonatiuh

Everyone knows about the towering significance of Brown vs. Board of Education, and the dynamic change that it wrought in the country. But do you know the story of Sylvia Mendez, who helped end school segregation in California about 10 years earlier ? In Separate Is Never Equal , Tonatiuh has created a culturally rich and historically important children’s book about one family’s fight to desegregate schools in the United States. A true story that draws from court transcripts, newspaper articles, and reports, this nonfiction book is a must-read that fills in the gaps that school curriculums might skip over. 

18. Hair Love by Matthew A. Cherry and Vashti Harrison

Zuri is a lovable little girl who has an extremely relatable problem: her beautiful hair has a mind of its own. Whether it’s sticking up, kinking, or curling, it just doesn’t listen to her! It only listens to her mom, who does her hair everyday. But what will happen when her mom is away? Enter Zuri’s dad, who LOVES Zuri despite not knowing much about hair. This is the empowering book that you and your child will love reading together — a fun, touching ode to African-American heritage, and fathers and daughters everywhere in the world.

19. Parker Looks Up by Parker Curry, Jessica Curry, and Brittany Jackson    

In 2018, a museum-goer snapped a photo in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC that quickly went viral and melted hearts: a 3-year-old black girl staring up in awe at Amy Sherald’s regal portrait of Michelle Obama hanging on the wall. Parker Looks Up is her story, which we get to relive with her. Told from her own perspective, it’s a moving tribute to the world of possibilities that appropriate representation can offer to children everywhere.

20. Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters: An African Tale by John Steptoe

A magnificent and timeless children’s book, John Steptoe’s Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters is a African retelling of Cinderella that will enchant your child even more than the original did. At its center are two daughters: Nyasha and Manyara. While Manyara is selfish and vain, Nyasha is kind and beautiful both on the inside and out. So what will happen when the Great King decides to take a worthy wife? Though you can probably guess the ending, it’s the journey there that counts — and Steptoe makes sure that it’s a stunning, original ride packed with folklore from Zimbabwe.

21. Amazing Grace by Mary Hoffman

Meet Grace, a girl who just loves stories. She’s “lived” as Joan of Arc, Anasi the spider-man, and every other character under the sun. When her school announces that it’s putting on Peter Pan, she wishes that she could try out for the role of Peter, even though her classmates insist on reminding her that Peter’s a boy and she, well, is not. But Grace’s positive attitude and brilliant imagination carry the day, as Hoffman delivers a transcendent book with an empathetic message about identity, gender, race, and the power of dreams.

22. Last Stop on Market Street by Matt de la Peña and Christian Robinson

The 2016 winner of the prestigious Newbery Medal, Last Stop on Market Street is a magical, heartening picture book about a young African-American boy and his grandma who go on a bus ride across the city. CJ is full of questions, to which his grandma patiently answers along the way, helping him learn about the simple beauty in the world — and the people — that surround all of us, all the time.

23. Henry's Freedom Box by Ellen Levine and Kadir Nelson

Henry Brown dreams of one thing growing up: freedom. As a slave in the deep South, he has no freedom, no birthday, and no rights. When one day his family is torn apart from him, his desire to escape slavery crystallizes into one desperate, dangerous plan: he will mail himself in a wooden crate to a place where slavery does not exist, and where the prospect of freedom will wait for him. A groundbreaking, moving book by an award-winning author and illustrator duo, Henry’s Freedom Box is a hard story, but a necessary one that everyone — children and adults — ought to read to remind ourselves that the concept of liberty, justice, and equality for all is something that we still fight for today.

24. Sulwe by Lupita Nyong'o and Vashti Harrison

Sulwe’s skin is the color of midnight, and it’s made her yearn for a lighter, fairer tone ever since she was born. She struggles to come to terms with the darkness of her skin… until a beautiful legend about day and night helps her see her own beauty in the world. Vashti Harrison’s lush, dream-like illustrations combined with Academy Award winning actress Lupita Nyong’o’s wise prose culminate in a culturally important picture book that’s destined to become a beloved classic for future generations. 

25. Mommy's Khimar by Jamilah Thompkins-Bigelow and Ebony Glenn

Mommy’s khimars are colorful, lovely, and right there in the closet for our little protagonist to try on for dress up. And that’s exactly what she does! In this exquisite book that holds up a mirror for young Muslim girls everywhere, we learn how much a khimar means to her as she tries them on, one by one. One of them might make her imagine herself as a queen, and another might make her think of herself as a superhero — but all of them make her feel beautiful, and powerful.

26. Mango, Abuela, and Me by Meg Medina and Angela Dominguez

An award-winning duo paired up to bring us Mango, Abuela, and Me — a wonderfully tender story about a bright young girl and her Abuela who’s come to stay with her and her parents in the city. But there’s just one problem: Mia doesn’t really know Spanish, and Abuela doesn’t really know English. So what can they do? Start by bonding over learning each other’s mother tongues’ while cooking, of course. Add a chatty parrot to this team of pupils, and you get an exceptional picture book with a warm message: love truly knows no language barrier.

28. My Hair is a Garden by Cozbi A. Cabrera

Mackenzie is a beautiful young girl who has hair that is as wild, unruly, and untamable as a forest. She’s bullied relentlessly for it by the kids at school — until one day that she reaches a breaking point and runs to her next door neighbor’s house, where there’s a stunning garden Mackenzie thinks of as a sanctuary. How can Miss Tillie change her mind about how much trouble her hair is? Gorgeously rendered, My Hair Is A Garden will provide affirmation and support for black children who struggle with their hair and show them that there’s a garden to admire in every forest.

28. Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story by Kevin Noble Maillard and Juana Martinez-Neal

Fry bread isn’t just bread: it’s a gateway into Native American culture. In Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story , we learn about this dish’s place in food, art, and heritage for Native American people through simple but charming text. Don’t forget to read the back matter, which will take you even deeper into Native American life to show you what fry bread represents to Native Americans, and how it brings people together. The clincher? There’s a recipe at the end to make your own fry bread!

29. A Different Pond by Bao Phi and Thi Bui

The 2018 winner of the Caldecott Honor Book Award, A Different Pond depicts a simple fishing trip taken by father and son at dawn in Minnesota. In between reels, the father tells his son about life back in Vietnam, and a different pond in his homeland that he used to fish at. Soon, the father will need to go to his second job and work again, but for now, both have this: the pond, the fish that they need to catch in order to put food on the table for the night, and each other. This is an eye-opening and elegantly illustrated autobiographical account of the immigrant experience — a must-read, especially in this day and age. 

30. We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga by Traci Sorell and Frane Lessac

Otsaliheliga (oh-jah-LEE-hay-lee-gah): a word that members of the Cherokee Nation use to say thank you, or express gratitude. It’s also the word that We Are Grateful revolves around, as Traci Sorell zeroes in on it to create a truly remarkable picture book that illustrates all the different ways that the Cherokee people cultivate gratitude throughout the seasons. Complete with a helpful pronunciation guide, this book isn’t just insightful, it’s also engaging and fun to read. This will end up being a book that your child will be grateful to have on their shelves.

31. Everybody Cooks Rice by Norah Dooley and Peter J. Thornton

There’s no better way to introduce children to diverse cultures than through food. Everybody Cooks Rice makes this case by taking children on a journey through a diverse neighborhood with little Carrie. While calling her brother home for dinner, she happens to come across other families preparing their own meals — and, as with their differing nationalities, no dish is the same. And if the colorful illustrations can’t quell readers' hunger, then the recipes that come with each dish surely will!

32. Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness by Anastasia Higginbotham

As part of the Ordinary Terrible Things series, Not My Idea isn’t afraid to tackle heavy issues like systemic racial discrimination. The picture book features a young child who’s curious about the news and protests regarding racism around her, but can’t find satisfactory answers from adults who choose to overlook the matter. Through the scrapbook art style and the clear, simple language, Anastasia Higginbotham reminds adults and children alike that discrimination is more than just racist acts: it’s a system that affects us all, regardless of your skin color.

33. The Name Jar by Yangsook Choi

As every immigrant would know, it can be hard for people to get your name right. Moving from a place like Korea to America, it’s sometimes tempting to switch to a name that’s common and easier to pronounce, like Suzy, Amanda, or Laura. That’s exactly what little Unhei does in The Name Jar . Instead of introducing herself to her new classmates, she picks names out of a jar everyone put together to find herself a new one. But in a heartwarming turn of events, Unhei realizes that there’s no need to change herself or hide her heritage in order to fit in — and understanding that is a good first step toward embracing diversity.

34. Dreamers by Yuyi Morales

Yuyi Morales's richly illustrated picture book is a memoir recounting her journey from Mexico to America with her son. While everything around them is unfamiliar, resilience and their strong familial bond help them endure the  transition and chase their dreams. Sweet and lyrical, the story combines the experiences of an immigrant with the universal theme of family love to create a fantastic, soulful read for both children and adults.

35. Mama's Nightingale by Edwidge Danticat and Leslie Staub

Stories about immigration are inspiring, and sometimes in very different ways. If Dreamers is full of hope, then Mama’s Nightingale introduces young readers to the darker side of immigration —  when a parent is separated from a child. That’s what happens to Saya and her mother, who’s been taken to a detention center. Kept together only through voice recordings of Haitian folk stories that the mother sends her daughter from confinement, neither lose hope: in fact, their connection inspires Saya to write a story that will bring her mother home to her for good.

36. Paper Son by Julie Leung and Chris Sasaki

If you’re searching for another real-life story to touch your young audience, you don’t want to miss out on Paper Son . It’s a biographical picture book about Tyrus Wong, the lead illustrator of Disney movie Bambi . Crossing the Pacific Ocean with only a suitcase, Tyrus has to work hard to sustain himself and pursue his passion. His story, told through the intricate illustrations of Chris Sasaki, is as admirable as it is relatable, because the art of dream-chasing is exclusive to no one.

37. The Proudest Blue by Ibtihaj Muhammad, S. K. Ali, Hatem Aly

From Olympic medalist Ibtihaj Muhammad and award-winning novelist S. K. Ali comes the story of Faizah, a young girl who joins her sister on the first day of school. But her hopes for a wonderful day, especially with her sister wearing her beautiful blue hijab for the first time, falters a little when they are met with unkind comments. Rather than being daunted, the pair of siblings teach children to embrace cultural differences by holding their heads high against the negativity.

38. The Colors of Us by Karen Katz

Skin color is often bluntly put into neat categories like “white,” “black,” or “brown.” To an artist who looks at skin and sees a spectrum of shades and hues, that can be incredibly limiting. Lena, a little artist who’s contemplating a self-portrait, has this epiphany as she walks through the neighborhood with her mother. With that, she also learns that colors and differences should not stand in the way of people getting to know and appreciate one another.

39. Let the Children March by Monica Clark-Robinson and Frank Morrison

Teaching children history is not the easiest task, but Monica Clark-Robinson and Frank Morrison make it effortless in their captivating work on Let the Children March , which tells the story of the thousands of African American children in Birmingham who organized to march in 1963 after hearing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s empowering speech. With this picture book edition of a history lesson on the civil rights movement, young readers not only get to learn about the plight of people of color, but also get to see how people as small as them can make a difference to the world.

40. Dave the Potter: Artist, Poet, Slave by Laban Carrick Hill and Bryan Collier

Dave the Potter is a lyrical, warmly illustrated picture book about a slave in 17th-century South Carolina. Though limited by his status in an unjust society, Dave’s talent with words and pottery shines through the page, and he brings life into every piece of art he creates. While this probably isn’t the most historically accurate portrayal of the dark history of slavery, it is an elegant way to breach the subject to young minds.

41. The Sandwich Swap by Queen Rania of Jordan Al Abdullah, Kelly DiPucchio, and Tricia Tusa

Co-written by the Queen of Jordan (and based on her own experience as a child), this story is about two best friends, Lily and Salma, and the lunch that broke their friendship. Lily usually has a peanut butter and jelly sandwich while Salma has hummus with pita — a difference in preference that one day becomes far more serious than anyone thought it could be. A food fight breaks out, the severance of a friendship seems inevitable, and yet the solution is simple: open up to the other’s culture, and everything will be fine again. As dramatic as it sounds, this messy battle will do wonders when it comes to relating to young readers while also teaching them to be open-minded.

42. Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga

New York Times bestseller Other Words for Home is a story of a young refugee who is fleeing Syria due to escalating violence. Leaving her brother and father behind, Jude travels with her mother to stay with their relatives in America, where she is to start a new life. While she never stops worrying about her family in Syria, Jude also has to process and learn to handle the stigma of being an outsider in America. Refugees’ experiences are always going to be a tough topic, and this tear-jerker of a novel doesn’t try to hide that fact: an honesty that goes a long way to inform children and inspire them to be sympathetic towards others.

43. New Kid by Jerry Craft

Moving to a new school is already difficult. But Jordan Banks has it even harder by being one of the few kids of color in his grade. Jordan’s new school is a private institution in a fancy part of town, where studying is competitive and his passion for drawing cartoons is not taken seriously. As if that’s not enough, he also has to balance his relationships with old friends in his neighborhood! Let children navigate class differences and cultural diversity with Jordan in this humorous yet profound award-winning graphic novel by Jerry Craft.

44. Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis

Featuring a slightly older protagonist, Elijah of Buxton tells the story of Elijah, who’s the first child to be born free in a town populated by runaway slaves. He’s often considered a soft child, having not been toughened up by the horrors of forced labor. Still, he rises to the challenge when a thief steals the money his friend had been saving up to rescue his enslaved family. On this unexpected journey, Elijah encounters the harsh reality of this unjust social order, and so realizes that he has been taking his freedom for granted.

Children’s books featuring disabilities

45. dan and diesel by charlotte hudson and lindsey gardiner.

Told through sweet and simple drawings, Dan and Diesel is the wildly imaginative adventure of a young boy and his pet dog. Like many children and their pets, this duo is inseparable, and they can go anywhere, from funky music halls to jungly dinosaur lair, and thoroughly enjoy the vivid worlds they build in their heads. Only at the end of the story can readers find out that those are the only worlds that Dan can see: he is blind, and Diesel is his guide dog.

46. The Push: A Story of Friendship by Patrick Gray, Justin Skeesuck, and Matt Waresak

The Push is the story of two young neighbors, John and Marcus, the latter of whom just moved into his new home. And even though Marcus walks on two legs and John uses a wheelchair, there’s no end to the amount of adventure that the two buddies can go on. In a collection of everyday wanderings that are close to home for young readers, this pair of friends learn to use their strengths to make up for each other’s drawbacks. It’s even more heart-warming to learn that the sweet tale is based on the friendship of authors Patrick Gray and Justin Skeesuck.

47. Moses Goes to a Concert by Isaac Millman

Moses and his school friends are just like many other children — they’re intrigued by musical instruments and would love to see a concert. The only difference? They wouldn’t be able to hear any of that music, because they’re deaf. That said, they have other ways to enjoy such experiences, as Moses’s day out with his class will show in this picture book. The added bonus is that readers can also learn the basics of Moses’s medium of communication: American Sign Language!

48. The Deaf Musicians by Pete Seeger, Paul Dubois Jacobs, and R. Gregory Christie

If you’re interested in learning even more about sign language and non-vocal communications, pick up The Deaf Musicians , a story about artists who have lost their ability to hear after having discovered their passion for acoustics. This talented trio of creators' vibrant and jazzy illustrations will help all children learn to deal with such negative turns of fate and, more importantly, let them know that these disabilities don't inhibit people from enjoying their lives.

49. Don't Call Me Special by Pat Thomas

There are a lot of disabilities that children will probably not encounter early on  in their lives, but that’s not to say that they shouldn’t learn about them. Don’t Call Me Special offers a comprehensive run through a range of disabilities, along with all the tools and equipment that may be used to aid people living with them. Moreover, it’s an inside look at the difficulties and the emotional stresses that these friendly characters face because of their conditions. Carefully written by a psychotherapist, this book is graceful and candid in its approach toward disability, and provides an outstanding overview for children on this complex matter.

50. The Girl Who Thought in Pictures by Julia Finley Mosca and Daniel Rieley

Unlike our common mode of communication — that is, the spoken and written word — thinking doesn’t necessarily come with a language. Autistic people such as Dr. Temple Grandin, the main character of biographical children’s book The Girl Who Thought in Pictures , know this better than anyone. Indeed, the same brain functions that worried the adults surrounding her as a child led her to think outside of the box and come up daring proposals for ethical practices in the livestock industry as an adult. Colorful and filled with fun facts, this little biographic book is as informative as it is effective in letting readers know that there’s nothing wrong with being unconventional.

51. King for a Day by Rukhsana Khan and Christiane Kromer

Visit Pakistan’s yearly kite-flying festival, Basant, where Malik, a little boy in his wheelchair, hopes to be the champion. Basant is not merely a competition of which mosaic kite flutters the highest — it’s a series of string-cutting battles between kite-fighters. Will Malik, our little warrior, ride the wind better than anyone and win the contest? Jump into the cultural celebrations of Malik’s world and watch him fly beyond his disability in this beautiful multimedia picture book.

52. Wonder by R. J. Palacio

If you’re searching for a longer read about kindness and acceptance for children, Wonder could be the novel to pick up. Entering junior high in this tale is Auggie Pullman, a young boy with an extraordinary face. All Auggie wants is to be treated as normal, even though it seems unlikely that his classmates will look past his appearance. But he’s far from alone: Auggie has his close friends and family to walk with him through everything. Wonder is a touching story about being different and yet being bullied for it; it’s a must-read for children everywhere.

LGBT+ books for children

53. pink is for boys by robb pearlman and eda kaban.

As common and pervasive as it is, the blue for boys and pink for girls dichotomy can be rather confining. And children tend to be very quick to pick up cues about this. But what if a boy likes pink, and a girl likes blue? What about all the colors in between? In Pink Is for Boys , children can pick any color they like! They’re encouraged to do things for their own happiness and not for anyone else, which makes it a wonderful children’s book to get little ones thinking about social expectations regarding gender — and how those can be broken.

54. And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell

First published over a decade ago, And Tango Makes Three is a lovely little story about Roy and Silo, a pair of male penguins taking residence at Central Park Zoo. They are always together, and they even want to make a family together. While the rest of the zoo may find it strange, their kind zookeeper is determined to make their dream come true by helping them adopt a new little penguin. As far as LBGT books about same-sex parents are concerned, there isn’t one as adorable as this!

55. Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman and Laura Cornell

But that’s not all: here’s a story about a family with two mothers. While cute waddling penguins are not included, the soft-edge watercolor illustrations of Heather and her mothers enjoying picnics and reading bedtime stories are just as lovable. As Heather starts school, she realizes that her family isn’t the same as a lot of other children’s, and becomes very conscious of the fact that she doesn’t have a dad. But as the class goes on, she learns something else that puts her at ease — no two families are ever the same, and every one of them are just as valid.

56. Introducing Teddy by Jessica Walton and Dougal MacPherson

When someone is figuring out their sex and gender, what others can do to support them is to love them for who they are — not the gender identity they choose for themselves. That’s the compassionate message that Introducing Teddy has to send. Errol and Thomas are two teddy best friends, who have daily adventures together. When one day Thomas says that he feels more like a Tilly than a Thomas, Errol upholds their friendship and fully supports his decision.

57. Julián Is a Mermaid by Jessica Love

On his journey home on the subway with his abuela, Julian sees something that will occupy his mind for days to come: the vibrant, luscious costumes of some women dressed up as mermaids. As apprehensive as he is about his Abuela’s judgment, Julian can’t stop himself from trying out such a costume himself. He assembles one by using the curtain at home and some fern fronds — and he feels fabulous in this skin! And in loving himself and choosing to do what makes him happy, he realizes that those who love him will support his choice, too.

58. From the Stars in the Sky to the Fish in the Sea by Kai Cheng Thom, Kai Yun Ching, and Wai-Yant Li

This magical picture book is about a child, Miu Lan, who is born with a special power: they can shift into any shape they want. They can be a star or a bird, a flower or a fish, a boy or a girl. But not everyone is accepting of Miu Lan’s wondrous ability, especially not at school. Miu Lan’s source of comfort is their mother, who reminds them that they can be anything they want to be. Movingly told through shimmering illustrations and poetic prose, From the Stars in the Sky to the Fish in the Sea presents identity exploration as an empowering act and opens children’s hearts to gender fluidity.

59. This Day in June by Gayle E. Pitman and Kristyna Litten

The struggle for LGBTQ+ rights has a long history, and it’s as important a part of our story as humans as any. In this vivid and exciting picture book, join the characters as they celebrate the different identities and colors that we all have and choose to be. In between the joyous conversations and dazzling images are fun facts about LGBTQ+ history and culture. There’s even a starter pack at the end of the book, which leaves some suggestions for parents and guardians to start talking about gender identities with their children.

60. The Misadventures of the Family Fletcher by Dana Alison Levy

For a bit of chaotic fun, head on over to the Fletcher family, where the two dads and their four boys are getting ready for a new school year while also welcoming the talkative new neighbor. There seems to be nothing ordinary about this big family at first sight, but through the messy halls of their home and their humorous dialogue, you’ll quickly feel like you can belong in such a home. Witty, entertaining, and compassionate, The Misadventures of the Family Fletcher is destined to become the next classic children’s book about family life.

Looking for books that young imaginative minds will adore? Take a look at these 60 fantasy books for kids .

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50 Children’s Books About Diversity That Celebrate Our Differences

Danika Ellis

Danika spends most of her time talking about queer women books at the Lesbrary. Blog: The Lesbrary Twitter: @DanikaEllis

View All posts by Danika Ellis

We need children’s books about diversity because the world is a diverse place. It’s packed full of people living dramatically different lives, even within the same neighborhood or classroom. In order to raise kids in this world, we need to teach them about people outside of their immediate family. On the other hand, some kids grow up not seeing themselves or their family represented in any of the books they read or the TV shows and movies they watch.  This is the importance of mirrors and windows: mirrors to see ourselves reflected in the world, so we don’t feel alone, and windows to see outside of our own lives, to recognize the humanity of other people. That is why we have compiled a list of 50 children’s books about diversity.

The importance of raising kids to be anti-racist and inclusive of all differences has only become more apparent as Black Lives Matter has become an everyday news story, and more people than ever have become aware of institutional racism and other forms of oppression. It’s not enough to talk about this only when it makes the news, though. To prevent kids from growing up to adopt the everyday racism, heterosexism, and ableism that is all around them, we have to educate them about a better way to see the world.

By reading these books together, you can start a conversation about the world and all the different kinds of people in it. These books explain that differences are something to be celebrated, not feared or made fun of. Whether you’re a parent trying to raise an activist kid, a teacher trying to create an inclusive classroom, or you’re just trying to introduce a different worldview to your niblings , you’ll find plenty of options on this list!

As I began to research this topic, I quickly realized this could get out of control, so I made the parameters pretty strict: these are all picture books (and a few board books)—depending on the book, the age range is 1–8. I also avoided books that are metaphorical (like  Brick by Brick by Giuliano Ferri,  Red: a Crayon’s Story by Michael Hall , or  Not Quite Narwhal by Jessie Sima) in favor of books that have literal representation.

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Finally, I tried to stick to books that don’t just include a diverse cast, but actively teach about diversity and inclusion. I do think that books like  Everywhere Babies by Susan Meyers that include diverse families without actively teaching about diversity are also great additions to any kids’ library, as well as general books about celebrating difference, like  It’s Okay To Be Different by Todd Parr. For the purposes of this list, however, I have stuck to these terms, and I’m mostly concentrating on racial and cultural diversity as well as disabled and LGBTQIA+ representation.

Children’s Books About Diversity and Inclusion (in General)

Our Favorite Day of the Year , written by A. E. Ali and illustrated by Rahele Jomepour Bell

It’s the first day of school, Ms. Gupta’s favorite day of the year! Musa isn’t feeling excited about it, though: he doesn’t know what he has in common with the other kids. As the school year goes on, though, they learn about each other’s favorite days, including Eid al-Fitr, Rosh Hashanah, Las Posadas, and Pi Day! The more they learn about each other, the more it brings them together. This is a great one for school classrooms or libraries, especially to introduce a unit about different holiday celebrations. The author has a handy chart of the all the holidays happening in the background of each page.

All are Welcome , written by Alexandra Penfold and illustrated by Suzanne Kaufman

This a perfect book for classrooms, because it depicts a group of kids in a day at their school. They come from a wide range of cultures, and they share these cultures with each other through food (at lunch), music, art, and their stories.  All are Welcome shows how these differences are their community’s strength. Not only are different cultures and races represented, there are also disabled kids as well as a variety of family configurations shown.

The Day You Begin ,  written by Jacqueline Woodson and illustrated by Rafael López

“ There will be times you walk into a room and there is no one quite like you…” Angelina feels uncomfortable in her class, because all her classmates are talking about the exciting places they traveled to over the summer. She was home, taking care of her sister, and she feels awkward and alone. Soon, though, it becomes apparent that we all have times when we feel different, but by sharing our stories, we can always find points of connection as well, and that those differences are something to be celebrated, not hidden.

Bodies are Cool , written and illustrated by Tyler Feder

This is a perfect readaloud book, with its flowing style and upbeat rhyming structure: “Lanky bodies, squat bodies, / tall, short, wide, or narrow bodies, / somewhere-in-the-middle bodies, / bodies are cool!” It shows all kinds of bodies, including fat bodies, bodies of all races and skin tones, disabled bodies, and more! The illustrations and rhythm will captivate preschool readers!

Lovely ,  written and illustrated by Jess Hong

I have completely fallen in love with this book. It shows a huge diversity of people, all described as “lovely.” The simple, minimal text shows opposites: “black”—represented by a white woman in all black, “white”—a black woman with white hair, but includes them all under the umbrella of “lovely.” There are gender non-conforming people shown, different races, a person with a prosthetic leg (playing soccer—the depiction of the word “sporty”), and person in a wheelchair. One page shows braces spelling out lovely, while another has a unibrow shaped into the word. I’ll admit , the page that shows someone with hairy legs wearing red high heels with the text “Fancy” underneath made me want to buy a copy for my personal collection.

IntersectionAllies: We Make Room for All , written by Chelsea Johnson, LaToya Council, and Carolyn Choi, illustrated by Ashley Seil Smith

This one comes recommended by Roxane Gay: do I need to say anything more? Just in case I do, this is a book teaching how to embrace difference and support others, all told in a rhyming style. It includes many different types of diversity, and it has a refugee character and a genderfluid character. It starts an introduction by Kimberlé Crenshaw, who coined the term “intersectionality”!

Last Stop on Market Street , written by Matt de la Pena and illustrated by Christian Robinson

I was surprised to see this was only published in 2015, because I think of this as a classic picture book. (It won the Newbery and Caldecott the same year, so you can’t get much higher recognition in the kidlit world.) This follows CJ as he rides the bus with his grandmother after church. As he comments (and sometimes complains) about their community (why doesn’t he have an iPod? Why do they have to go through the “dirty” part of town?), she lovingly chastises him and points out the beauty of the world around them. Some readers might object to the “incorrect grammar,” but that might be an opportunity to talk about AAVE and that just because someone speaks differently than what you might be used to, that doesn’t mean they’re wrong.

A is for Activist and Counting on Community , written and illustrated by Innosanto Nagara

It’s never too early to start teaching kids about inclusion and diversity! So why not gift Innosanto Nagara’s board books the next time you attend a baby shower instead of Goodnight Moon ? Not only does  A is for Activist teach about activism in an ABC rhyming format, it’s also populated by a wide range of people being represented!  Counting on Community  is a great way to introduce the idea of a diverse and close-knit community and what being a good community member means (while also teaching numbers!) Once they’ve got the basics down, you can move on to Oh, the Things We’re For , which is a Nagara picture book about fighting for change.

Enough! 20 Protesters Who Changed America ,  written by Emily Easton and illustrated by Ziyue Chen

Enough! showcases some of the people throughout history (in the USA) who fought for their freedom. While it includes events like the Boston Tea Party, it centers the stories of activists like Martin Luther King Jr. and Harriet Tubman, as well as the protesters and activists still fighting today, like Jazz Jennings and Colin Kaepernick. It also includes a foreword from a survivor of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school shooting.

Books Featuring Racial or Cultural Diversity

The Name Jar ,  written and illustrated by Yangsook Choi

Unhei has just moved to America from Korea. As she enters her new classroom, instead of introducing herself, she says she will be picking a new (“American”) name soon. Her classmates are intrigued by this nameless newcomer, and they fill a glass jar with suggestions, which she tries out. When one classmate visits her home and finds out her name and its meaning, the jar disappears. Unhei realizes that she doesn’t have to change her name to find acceptance and friendship in her new life.

Your Name Is a Song by Jamilah Thompkins-Bigelow

When a child comes home from school vowing never to go back, her mother discovers it’s because her classmates and teacher can’t pronounce her name: “it got stuck in her [teacher’s] mouth.” The mother explains that her name is a song to be celebrated. This story includes names from many cultures, each with a pronunciation guide, and encourages kids with these “hard to pronounce” names to say them with confidence. This is a great book for kids with names that differ from white Western conventions, but it should also be used to explain to all kids how important it is to pronounce each other’s names correctly.

The Sandwich Swap ,  written by Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah with Kelly DiPucchio, illustrated by Tricia Tusa

The Sandwich Swap makes a great introduction to the concept of celebrating differences, especially cultural differences. Lily and Salma are best friends that do everything together, but privately, they think the others’ everyday lunch is disgusting: peanut butter sandwiches vs hummus on pita. When the truth comes out, the entire cafeteria splits into these teams, and a food fight erupts, until Lily and Salma try each other’s lunches and realize that both are good. A little simplistic, sure, but a good conversation starter with young kids.

Where Are You From? written by Yamile Saied Méndez and illustrated by Jaime Kim

A young girl is frustrated by her classmates’ constant question: “Where you from?”–especially when they don’t accept her answer. When she talks to her abuelo, he explains where she’s “really from” in a lyrical answer drawing on their South American heritage, their family’s history in the USA, and the simple answer that he is from her heart. While this is about her acceptance and celebration of her identity, it should also be used to start a conversation with white children about why “Where are you from?” can be an invasive question.

Same, Same But Different , written and illustrated by Jenny Sue Kostecki-Shaw

A popular choice for teachers,  Same, Same But Different compares the lives of two kid pen pals: Elliot in America and Kailash in India. They learn what they have in common (pets, taking a bus to school, living with their families) and where they differ, but these differences are celebrated, instead of being treated as a barrier to their friendship.

Magnificent Homespun Brown: A Celebration, written by Samara Cole Doyon and illustrated Kaylani Juanita

This poem is a love letter to the different kinds of brown skin can be, comparing them to beautiful and radiant shades in nature. The illustrations are gorgeous and the writing is lyrical–the vocabulary will be challenging for young readers, but the flowing language will keep them engaged. It also includes depictions of people of differenct races and skin tones as well as disabled people.

Marisol McDonald Doesn’t Match / Marisol McDonald no combina ,  written by Monica Brown and illustrated by Sara Palacios

Marisol is Peruvian-Scottish-American, and she celebrates every aspect of her identity. She has red hair and brown skin, speaks English and Spanish (the book is also available in both languages), and she eats peanut butter and jelly burritos for lunch and plays pirate princess soccer at recess. When she’s told she doesn’t “match,” Marisol tries to be all one thing, speaking only in English, eating PB&J sandwiches, and drops the “pirate princess” part of her recess activities. She fits in, but she is diminished and listless. A teacher writes her a note to tell her that she misses the Marisol she knows, and Marisol bounces back, embracing her whole, multi-faceted self.

Hair Love , written by Matthew A. Cherry and illustrated by Vashti Harrison

This book celebrating Black hair has since been made into an Oscar-winning short film ! Zuri is proud of her hair with its “kinks, coils, and curls.” When her mom does her hair, it makes her feel confident and strong. When she is away, though, her dad steps up to style Zuri’s hair in a way that perfectly matches her style. Hair can be source of tension for Black girls in particular, and this title is a great way to show that everyone’s hair is different and that natural Black hair is beautiful–and can look lots of different ways!

Eyes That Kiss in the Corners , written by Joanna Ho and illustrated by Dung Ho

An unfortunate problem that still persists in children’s book illustrations are Asian characters distinguished by slanted/squinting eyes, so it’s refreshing to have a book like this to read instead. This is a story that celebrates the beauty of “crescent moon” eyes or “eyes that kiss in the corners.” When the main character feels self-conscious that her eyes don’t look like her classmates’, she realizes that she can see her eye shape in her family’s faces and that they link their generations together. Browsing through the Goodreads reviews, it’s evident how needed this book is by how many adults this brought to tears, especially in thinking about how their younger selves would have appreciated this story.

The Proudest Blue: A Story of Hijab and Family , written by Ibtihaj Muhammad with S. K. Ali and illustrated by Hatem Aly

Faizah is excited: today is the first time her older sister Asiya is wearing a hijab to school! Unfortunately, some of the other kids at school make negative comments. That just makes Faizah appreciate its beauty even more, though, and how it symbolizes tradition and cultural pride for their family. This is a much-needed resource for hijabi kids, but it also is familiarizes other kids with hijabs and their importance to many people. It’s a way into a conversation for all kids about appropriate and inappropriate questions to ask or comments to make when someone wears clothing that is unfamiliar to you.

Let the Children March ,  written by Monica Clark-Robinson and illustrated by Frank Morrison

Let the Children March  is the story of the Children’s March in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963. When their parents couldn’t protest in fear of losing their jobs and not being able to provide for their family, Black children as young as nine marched to protest Jim Crow laws. They were met with a hostile police force who responded with water hoses, batons, and dogs set on them. This story focuses on the strength of these children, and how they contributed to history. This gives important context to conversations about diversity and inclusion, while showing how children have made a difference in their words and actions throughout time.

Separate Is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez and Her Family’s Fight for Desegregation ,  written and illustrated by Duncan Tonatiuh 

Almost a decade before  Brown vs. Board of Education , Sylvia Méndez was denied enrollment to a “Whites only school.” Despite speaking perfect English, her parents were told she must must attend the “Mexican school,” which was further away and underfunded. The Méndez family fought back against this, and their fight helped end school segregation in California. A good touchstone for the history of diverse classrooms.

Dreamers , written and illustrated by Yuyi Morales

In  Dreamers,  Yuyi Morales draws on her own experience migrating from Mexico the U.S., trying to make a life with only herself and her infant son. Together, they found refuge in the library, and there, Morales learned English and was able to access resources to help her make a home in this new country.  Dreamers also shows that despite leaving her possessions in Mexico, Morales carried with her her talents, skills, and dreams, which improve not only her own life, but also the lives around her. This title is also available in Spanish!

Stepping Stones: A Refugee Family’s Journey ,  written by Margriet Ruurs and illustrated by Nizar Ali Badr

Stepping Stones is a book inspired by the stone art of Syrian artist Nizar Ali Badr. It depicts a family who has a happy and loving life in Syria, until war turns their home into somewhere unfamiliar and unsafe. They are forced to flee, packing as much of their lives as they can carry. The unnamed family can serve as an everyperson story about refugees, and the collage art is surprisingly evocative.

We Are Still Here!: Native American Truths Everyone Should Know , written by Traci Sorell and illustrated by Frané Lessac

While it’s easy for conversations started from the titles above about immigration to veer into “We’re all immigrants” territory, it’s important to give kids a more accurate background to the history of North American and its population. We are Still Here! discusses both Indigenous history and ongoing activism in North America. This provides a foundation for kids to begin learning about contemporary Indigenous issues and the legacy of colonialism. I also recommend We Are Water Protectors , written by Carole Lindstrom and illustrated by Michaela Goade, for a specific focus on Indigenous environmental activism.

Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness ,  written and illustrated by Anastasia Higginbotham

Ordinary Terrible Things is a series where Anastasia Higginbotham explains difficult topics to children (with titles like  Death Is Stupid , Divorce is the Worst , and Tell Me About Sex, Grandma ). In  Not My Idea , a white child sees a news report about a police murder of a black victim. When she asks her family about it, they skirt around the issue. She begins to research at the library, and learns more and more about racism and white supremacy. This is painful, but necessary: “Connecting means opening. And opening sometimes feels…like breaking.” She learns how to fight against this ideology:  Not My Idea teaches that racism and white supremacy are problems that white people have created, and we have a responsibility to fix them. At the end of the book, Higginbotham addresses any concerns about whether kids are too young to learn about this with the simple statements: “Innocence is overrated. Knowledge is Power. Get some. Grow wise. Make history.” ( Check out the School Library Journal blog for a detailed review , as well as pages from the book that show the collage style illustrations.)

Children’s Books about Diversity featuring LGBTQIA+ Representation and Inclusion

It Feels Good to Be Yourself: A Book About Gender Identity , written by Theresa Thorn and illustrated by Noah Grigni

This introduction to gender for young kids is written by a parent of a trans kid and illustrated by a non-binary artist. It is simple, clear, and gentle, explaining that when babies are born, the doctor guesses their gender: “What a baby’s body looks like when they’re born can be a clue to what the baby’s gender will be, but not always. When people guess wrong, it’s okay to let them know.” It includes lots of different expressions of gender and two non-binary characters: one who feels like a boy and a girl and one who feels like neither. It also includes a list of resources in the back to continue the conversation.

Who Are You?: The Kid’s Guide to Gender Identity ,  written by Brook Pessin-Whedbee and illustrated by Naomi Bardoff

Who Are You?  serves as a great introduction to gender for kids. With minimal text per page, it’s pretty general—sometimes vague—but provides a good foundation to build on. It introduces gender as being experienced through the gendering of our bodies, our activities, and our identities. My favorite part is the wheel included, where you can mix-and-match different gender expressions, bodies, and identities. The message is simply that gender norms shouldn’t dictate how you express yourself, and you know yourself best.

Call Me Max , written by Kyle Lukoff and illustrated by Luciano Lozano

This is the first book in a series exploring Max going to school as a trans boy, written by a trans guy. This book is one of the many that has been victim of being banned or challenged for daring to educate kids on LGBTQ issues. It is an accessible introduction to what being trans means for around kindergarten age, and it concentrates more on Max and his adventures than on the “issue” of being trans.

Introducing Teddy: A Gentle Story about Gender and Friendship ,  written by Jess Walton and illustrated by Dougal MacPherson

This delivers just what the title promises. Errol notices that Teddy, his best friend, seems to be sad. Errol asks what’s wrong, and Teddy responds that she wants to be known as Tilly Teddy now—she knows she’s a girl Teddy. Tilly is afraid, though, that she will lose her friends if she tells them. Errol assures her that she is still his best friend, and he just wants her to be happy. This is a cute, gentle introduction to people transitioning.

When Aidan Became a Brother , written by Kyle Lukoff and illustrated by Kaylani Juanita

Yes, this is another Lukoff title, but I couldn’t pick just one! This one takes place after Aidan has already come out as trans. Instead, the focus is on Aidan welcoming a new sibling into their family. He is worried both about typical new sibling fears and his concerns about the baby being gendered before they’re even born–he knows what it’s like to be misgendered. It shows that life is always a series of transitions and that can be source of joy! I love the illustration style in this one, and this is another trans boy book by a trans guy author.

My Rainbow , written by Trinity and DeShanna Neal and illustrated by Art Twink

This autobiographical picture book is by a “mother-daughter advocate duo,” and it follows a mother trying to find the perfect rainbow wig for her trans daughter. This isn’t an explainer of being trans: it assumes you already have that foundation. Instead, it’s about the mother character trying to find ways to affirm her kid. The daughter is also Black and autistic, which is nice to see: it’s still very rare to see intersectional representation like this, whether in picture books or books in general! I love the colorful illustrations.

47,000 Beads ,  written by Koja Adeyoha and Angel Adeyoha and illustrated by Holly McGillis

I could have filled this list with Flamingo Rampant books , because I love them all. It’s described as a “micropress with a mission—to produce feminist, racially diverse, LGBTQ positive children’s books.” All of their books not only depict LGBTQ+ kids and families, but they are also racially and culturally diverse (including different religions), as well as depicting people with disabilities. I’ve picked  47,000 Beads because it’s the first picture book I’ve seen to represent a Two-Spirit kid (it’s also written by a Two-Spirit Lakota person).  The main character, Peyton, is struggling, because she feels like she doesn’t fit the gender expectations of her. Her family, recognizing this struggle, all come together to prepare a gift to show Peyton that they accept her and teach her about what being Two-Spirit means. This is a book I think every elementary school library should have.

The Boy & the Bindi ,  written by Vivek Shraya and illustrated by Rajni Perera

A young boy is fascinated by his mother’s bindi. She explains what it is and its cultural significance, and when he asks for one of his own, she happily gives him one in his own color—yellow. He is allowed to express himself and his difference through the bindi, while participating in his culture and history. Like many of the books on this list, it represents diversity on multiple axes, so this could just as easily be read to learn about cultural diversity.

Prince & Knight ,  written by Daniel Haack and illustrated by Stevie Lewis

I couldn’t write about LGBTQIA+ kids’ books without mentioning  Prince & Knight , a fairy tale update in the tradition of  King & King . The prince’s parents want to find him a bride, but all the princesses they introduce him to don’t strike his fancy. He’s looking for something special in a partner. When a dragon attacks his kingdom and he is fighting to defend it, he is rescued by a knight in shining armor, and they instantly fall in love. They marry and live happily ever after. This is a charming, Disney-esque fairy tale story that should help combat the heteronormativity of the typical book in the genre.

Julián Is a Mermaid , written and illustrated by Jessica Love

Personally, I can’t resist that cover. The sheer confidence and style that Julián exudes makes the book for me. When Julián sees three women on the subway dressed up as mermaids, it inspires him to go home and make his own costume, but when his Abuela finds him, he’s nervous about how she’ll react, both to the mess he’s made and to how he looks. Instead of chastising him, his Abuela takes him to see a community he didn’t know he was part of: the Mermaid Parade . (Which I wasn’t aware of, and will now be looking at endless pictures of.) Also check out the sequel: Julián at the Wedding , which takes place at a wedding between two brides and introduces another gender nonconforming kid character!

The Answer (Steven Universe) ,  written by Rebecca Sugar and illustrated by Tiffany Ford and Elle Michalka 

I’m a big Steven Universe fan, and I’ll admit, I’m not sure how this would translate if you’ve never seen the show. It is absolutely beautiful, though, and portrays the love story of Ruby and Sapphire, two gems (aliens) whose love allows them to become someone new together: Garnet. Their relationship is not accepted in their society, but they find a place to be themselves, one that celebrates their love. Alongside the story are mini versions of Sapphire and Ruby reacting to the events as they unfold, providing commentary and contrast. The style is reminiscent of a classic Little Golden Book. Not only did I have to include this because I, personally, love it, but it’s also—as far as I’ve seen—the only picture to have a love story between two women (or girls). There are books about kids with two mothers, but there doesn’t seem to be many sapphic equivalents to  Prince & Knight , King & King , And Tango Makes Three ,  and  Marlon Bundo . (Some digging has brought up  Maiden Voyage by Jaimee Poipoi, but I haven’t read it yet, so I can’t give a full recommendation yet!)

Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress ,  written by Christine Baldacchino and illustrated by Isabelle Malenfant

Morris loves make-believe and dress up, and his favorite thing to dress up in is his tangerine dress, in which he has many adventures. Unfortunately, the other kids don’t understand why a boy would wear a dress. After staying home a day, Morris comes back and answers the claim of “Boys don’t wear dresses!” with “This boy does.” This isn’t necessarily a book about being trans, but about questioning gender roles and making space for kids to express themselves and their gender however they see fit.

From the Stars in the Sky to the Fish in the Sea ,  written by Kai Cheng Thom and illustrated by Kai Yun Ching and Wai-Yant Li

Kai Cheng Thom’s memoir  Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars is one of my favorite books, so I had to pick up her picture book. This is a story about a kid who is a shapeshifter. Born when both the sun and moon were in the sky, they delight in being a little bit of everything. They grow wings or fins or horns or all at once. No matter what they look like, their mother always reassures them that she’ll love them no matter what. When the kid goes to school and gets teased, they stop shapeshifting, only to find that their classmates want them to be either a boy or a girl. When the kid asks their mom if the other kids will accept them, she gives a refreshing answer of “I don’t know,” but reassures them that they’ll always be loved anyway. Going back to school as their glittery, shape-shifting, non-binary self, they manage to find some commonalities after all, and they teach the other kids how to develop their own wings, fins, and horns. A mix of non-binary representation and metaphor of imagination and difference in general, this works on both levels.

Children’s Books about Diversity Featuring Disabled or Neurodiverse Representation and Inclusion

All the Way to the Top: How One Girl’s Fight for Americans with Disabilities Changed Everything , written by Annette Bay Pimentel and illustrated by Nabi Ali

This is a biography of Jennifer Keelan-Chaffins, a disability activist who began when she was just six years old. You might recognize her from Crip Camp , a Netflix documentary produced by Michelle and Barack Obama’s production company. (I highly recommend it!) To advocate for the Americans with Disability act, wheelchair users–including Keelan-Chaffins–crawled up the steps of the Capital building in protest called the Capital Crawl. It gained a lot of press and attention, and eventually, the act was passed! This sheds light on history that is rarely taught in schools.

Just Ask!: Be Different, Be Brave, Be You , written by Sonia Sotomayor and illustrated by Rafael López

This is written by Sonia Sotomayer, the first Latina Supreme Court Justice! When she was diagnosed with diabetes as a child, she was bothered by people staring or seeming uncomfortable when she did things like check her blood sugar levels or give herself a shot. She wished people would just ask! This book covers a range of disabilities, including characters with Down Syndrome, dyslexia, autism, nut allergies, and much more. Together, they plant a garden together, with the message that it would be boring if the garden only had one type of plant! This is a great addition to a still quite small amount of children’s books portraying disabled characters, but The Conscious Kid does offer some drawbacks: this book doesn’t actually use the word disability or disabled. It also mentions (in a long list of resources) Autism Speaks, an organization rejected by autistic communities for speaking over autistic people and perpetuating harmful views of autism . Because there are so few picture books introducing disability as a subject, I think this is still worthwhile to start a conversation, but be prepared to supplement it.

Moses Goes to a Concert , written and illustrated by Isaac Millman

Moses and the rest of his class are Deaf, and they communicate with each other using sign language. They are going on a field trip to a concert, which Moses is excited about, because he loves playing his drum. When they get there, though, their teacher has a surprise: the percussionist is also Deaf, and feels the vibrations of the music through her feet. During the concert, the students hold onto balloons to feel the music in their bodies. This book also has ASL throughout and includes an index in the back with the ASL alphabet.

My Three Best Friends and Me, Zulay , written by by Cari Best and illustrated by Vanessa Brantley-Newton

Zulay and her three best friends are in first grade together. They’re all excited about the upcoming Field Day, but the class is surprised when Zulay wants to run a race, because she’s blind. With some help and practice, though, she shows them how it’s possible! This book doesn’t state that Zulay is blind: kids will have to use clues to figure it out. Zulay is also Black, and we’re still lacking in book representing disabled kids of color. I also appreciate that it shows Zulay thriving in a group of friends! I’m going to direct you to a Goodreads review from a young blind girl dictated to her dad , because it’s adorable and shows how needed these books are.

What Happened to You? written by James Catchpole and illustrated by Karen George

Joe is tired of everyone asking what happened to his leg. He wants to play on the playground with other kids, not answer the same rude question over and over. This is based on the other’s own childhood experiences, and it claims to be “The first ever picture book addressing how a disabled child might want to be spoken to.” It tackles this topic with humor and playfulness, showing that Joe is more than just a single story.

When Charley Met Emma , written by Amy Webb and illustrated by Merrilee Liddiard

Emma is a girl with limb differences (she doesn’t have hands) who uses a wheelchair. When Charley meets her on the playground, he remembers his mother saying, “Different isn’t bad, sad, or strange–different is just different and different is okay!” They soon become friends. Although I would rather that this was from Emma’s perspective, there are still very few children’s books portraying children with limb differences, so I think this is a great addition. It also has information in the back for parents, guardians, and teachers about how to help kids know what is appropriate to say to physically disabled kids.

I Talk Like a River , written by Jordan Scott and illustrated by Sydney Smith

The boy in this story is frustrated by a “bad speech day.” He hides in the back of the room, hoping his teacher won’t call on him. When he is chosen to speak, he feels the whole classes’ eyes on him. His father tells him, “You see how that water moves, son? That’s how you speak.” Although it doesn’t fix all his problems, he’s comforted that even water stutters sometimes. The strength of this story is the breathtaking illustrations. It shouldn’t just be reserved for teaching about stuttering: it’s a gorgeous read that is also an entry point into talking about anxiety and feeling different–how we can cope and how we can help others feeling that way.

Why Johnny Doesn’t Flap: NT is OK!  written by Clay Morton and Gail Morton, and illustrated by Alex Merry

A parody of the typical “Here’s my friend with a disability” picture book, this story centers an autistic child trying to explain his friend Johnny, who is neurotypical (NT). He acts erratically, his speech patterns are confusing, and he doesn’t have a properly maintained special interest, but that’s okay! They can still be friends, even if they are different. This achieves the same ends as the kind of book it parodies, but by centering autistic kids, it prevents the othering of neurodiverse readers.

Noah Chases the Wind ,  written by Michelle Worthington and illustrated by Joseph Cowman 

“Noah is different. He sees, hears, feels, and thinks in ways that other people don’t always understand, and he asks a lot of questions along the way.” When Noah can’t find an answer in his books about where the wind goes, he sets off on adventure to find out himself. Although this book doesn’t directly name Noah as autistic or as having a sensory processing disorder, it does serve as a good foundation for talking about neurodiversity as well as how people thinking differently is one of the many ways we are all unique and have our own perspectives to share.

Other Children’s Books About Diversity and Inclusion

How Mamas Love Their Babies ,  written by Juniper Fitzgerald and illustrated by Elise Peterson

This book shows how mamas use their bodies to take care of their babies: through (sometimes) breastfeeding, (sometimes) being pregnant, and through the labor they perform: “Some mamas stay home with their babies all day long. It’s hard work!” “Some mamas dance all night long in special shows. It’s hard work!” The depiction of some mothers as sex workers is what makes this truly groundbreaking, but it’s also notable just for the diversity of experiences, class, and races shown. The collage style illustrations feature photos of mothers taking care of their children, whether by feeding them, protesting for their rights, or making money by cleaning houses.

On Our Street: Our First Talk about Poverty ,  written by Jillian Roberts and illustrated by Jane Heinrichs 

On Our Street acts as a gentle introduction to kids asking about poverty and homelessness. It is written from a middle+ class perspective, with an us/them framing, so it’s not the best choice for a classroom that might include some students living in poverty. It also doesn’t mention how race factors into poverty. That said, it does mention mental illness and refugee status. The subject matter is depicted in a mix of illustrations and photos, so it does show what poverty and homelessness really looks like. For kids first noticing homelessness and poverty in the world around them, this is a good first step in introducing them to the topic.

Of course, these are far from the only children’s books about diversity! I made the parameters for this post fairly narrow, and often just picked my favorites that covered the same subject matter. There are many, many more children’s books with diverse characters that aren’t specifically about teaching diversity, too. If you haven’t found exactly what you’re looking for, let us know if there is another facet of this topic you’d like us to cover!

If you liked this post, also check out:

• The Suffocating Homogeneity of Bestselling Children’s Books
• Children’s Books for the Resistance
• Children’s Books that Center a Disabled Character But Not Their Disability
• 25 LGBT Children’s Books for the Little Readers in Your Life
• 52 Incredible Picture Book Biographies of Black People Creating and Leading
• Indigenous Voices for Little Ears: 15 Books About Native American Tradition and History for Children

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• Baby & Toddler
• Emotional Development

25 Wonderful Children's Books That Celebrate Diversity

Teaching kids to appreciate and celebrate diversity is a top priority in today’s global landscape—but how do you impart valuable lessons in an age-appropriate way? Books, of course! They’re a fun way to introduce little ones to important concepts early on and a great conversation-starter for parents as you talk to your kids about difference, privilege, respect, empathy and inclusivity. And there are boatloads of beautiful children’s books about diversity to choose from.

Whether you’re looking for stories with characters your child can easily relate to or ones that encourage your kids to empathize with those who are different, we’ve put together a list of some of the top children’s books that feature characters of all different ethnicities, races, religions and gender identities.

The Colors of Us

One of the best children’s books about diversity, The Colors of Us is about a little girl named Lena who wants to paint a self-portrait using brown paint for her skin. When Lena and her mom take a walk through their neighborhood, she notices that there are many different shades of brown skin, and she begins to see her familiar world in a new way. The author wrote the book for her daughter, Lena, who she and her husband adopted from Guatemala.

Age rating: 4 to 8 years old | Number of pages: 32 | Year published: 2002

The Skin You Live In

Another great pick for children’s books about race is The Skin You Live In, written specifically for little kids. A rhyming book that celebrates all different skin colors—from “butterscotch gold” to “cookie dough rolled”—it makes a point to reinforce the message that the person within is what matters, not how someone looks on the outside. An ideal read-aloud book, the illustrations are brightly colored and absolutely charming and will keep your little reader engaged ‘til the end.

Age rating: 4 to 6 years old | Number of pages: 32 | Year published: 2005

It’s Okay to Be Different

If you’re searching for children’s books about diversity for toddlers, this is a must-have. Author Todd Parr always fills his books with whimsical characters, and It’s Okay to Be Different is no exception. Featuring lots of characters with different traits, including braces, glasses, funny noses and wheelchairs, this book celebrates the things that make everyone unique. Kids will get a kick out of the bright colors and silly illustrations while simultaneously learning to celebrate themselves for who they are.

Age rating: 2 to 5 years old | Number of pages: 32 | Year published: 2009

Mommy, Mama, and Me; Daddy, Papa, and Me

“Traditional” families feature heavily in children’s literature, but if you’re looking for the best children’s books with same-sex parents, Mommy, Mama, and Me and Daddy, Papa, and Me are two classic board books featuring two moms and two dads. They have charming illustrations, gentle rhymes and a simple plot that shows a day in the life of a child with same-sex parents. A positive look at LGBTQ families, these are great books for kids with two moms or two dads, as well as for kids who could benefit from seeing a different kind of family structure.

Age rating: 1 to 3 years old | Number of pages: 20 | Year published: 2008

Pink Is for Boys

Walk into a children’s clothing section of any large retailer, and you’ll notice how gendered the boys and girls departments can be, despite the fact that lots of boys love pink and many girls love trucks and tools. Pink Is for Boys is a beautiful picture book that empowers kids to express themselves in every color. It includes characters of different races, genders and abilities and helps kids learn about all the incredible colors that fill their world.

Age rating: 2 to 6 years old | Number of pages: 40 | Year published: 2018

Julián is a Mermaid

Julián is a Mermaid is another excellent children’s book about gender identity. The illustrations really set this book apart, and the story about Julián, a little boy who loves mermaids, focuses on self-expression and acceptance.

Families, Families, Families

Families, Families, Families is one of the best children’s books about diversity for preschoolers. A charming rhyming book that shows many different combinations of families, the book depicts silly animals in framed pictures of “families.” A celebration of family, no matter what form it takes, Families, Families, Families mentions adoption, step-siblings, kids being raised by grandparents and animals of all shapes, sizes and colors. The overarching theme—that if you love one another, you’re family—will resonate with kids and adults alike.

Age rating: 2 to 5 years old | Number of pages: 32 | Year published: 2015

Marisol McDonald Doesn’t Match/Marisol McDonald No Combina

At the top of the list of children’s books for biracial kids is Marisol McDonald Doesn’t Match/Marisol McDonald No Combina . Titular character Marisol McDonald is a Peruvian-Scottish-American with red hair and brown skin who prefers mismatched outfits and peanut butter and jelly burritos. Everyone around Marisol wants her to “match,” but she’s perfectly happy being just who she is. This bilingual book (in English and Spanish) features a wonderful selection of illustrations that perfectly capture the beauty of Marisol’s mismatches.

Age rating: 3 to 6 years old | Number of pages: 32 | Year published: 2011

This is How We Do It: One Day in the Lives of Seven Kids from Around the World

Fascinating for both kids and adults alike, this story is our top pick among children’s books about culture. Follow a day in the life of seven kids from around the world and from very different cultures: Italy, Japan, Iran, India, Peru, Uganda and Russia. The characters in the gorgeously illustrated book are based on real kids from each of the countries, and the story follows them throughout their days from morning until bedtime. Kids will be fascinated to see how their contemporaries in other countries play, eat and spend time with families and will gain a new appreciation for different cultures around the world.

Age rating: 3 to 7 years old | Number of pages: 52 | Year published: 2017

We're Different, We're the Same

When Elmo's involved, preschoolers have a tendency to perk up and pay attention. Perhaps that's why Sesame Street's We're Different, We're the Same story is one of the most beloved children's books about diversity. Featuring the classic Sesame Street cast, this book drives home the message that while we all look different, we have plenty in common—and that at the end of the day, it's our differences that make this world a special place.

Age rating: 1 to 4 years old | Number of pages: 40 | Year published: 2017

Over the Hills and Far Away: A Treasury of Nursery Rhymes

If you’re looking for a more diverse selection of nursery rhymes, pick up a copy of Over the Hills and Far Away: A Treasury of Nursery Rhymes . It’s a spectacular book that includes 150 nursery rhymes from 23 countries, accompanied by beautiful illustrations created by 76 different artists. Featuring rhymes from countries as different as Jamaica and China, Over the Hills and Far Away is a unique look at the similarities and differences in folk songs, stories and rhymes across the globe.

Age rating: 3 to 7 years old | Number of pages: 160 | Year published: 2015

Encourage little kids to celebrate diversity with Say Hello! Protagonist Carmelita enjoys greeting everyone in her neighborhood while walking her dog, Manny. On her walks she sees neighbors of varying races and cultures and learns how to say hello in many different languages. Illustrated with colorful collages, the book captures the vibrance of Carmelita’s neighborhood and the people she greets along the way. Say Hello! Is a must-have addition to any preschooler’s bookshelf.

Age rating: 2 to 4 years old | Number of pages: 30 | Year published: 2017

Everybody Cooks Rice

Everybody Cooks Rice , another one of the best multicultural children’s books around, celebrates food and the role it plays in different cultures. A little girl named Carrie canvases her San Francisco neighborhood in search of her little brother, who’s late for dinner. Every house she visits contains families with different ethnic heritages, including a Puerto Rican grandmother, a neighbor from Haiti and emigrés from China. Everywhere she goes, the family is eating (or preparing) rice for their dinner, showing that no matter how different we may seem, there are plenty of similarities too. The illustrations are simple and colorful and the book even includes recipes for the rice dishes.

Age rating: 5 to 9 years old (but skews younger) | Number of pages: 32 | Year published: 1991

Thunder Boy Jr.

Another children’s book about respect, Thunder Boy Jr. tells the story of a little boy who doesn’t want to be named after his dad. One of the few children’s books that features modern Native American characters, Thunder Boy Jr. is a sweet and funny tale that explores identity, culture and the relationship between a boy and his dad.

Age rating: 2 to 5 years old | Number of pages: 40 | Year published: 2016

A Mother for Choco

A Mother for Choco has a sweet plot that explains adoption in an age-appropriate way for preschoolers. Protagonist Choco wishes he had a mother of his own, so he sets out to find one. He eventually meets Mrs. Bear, who takes him home to join her brood of other animals, none of whom look anything alike, but who form a loving family nonetheless.

Age rating: 2 to 4 years old | Number of pages: 32 | Year published: 1992

Mommy’s Khimar

Mommy’s Khimar is a beautifully illustrated book about a little Muslim girl who dresses up in her mother’s headscarves. As she drapes herself in all of the many colorful scarves, her imagination takes flight. Young kids will relate to the thrill of dressing up in mommy’s glamorous clothing, and the story of the love between mother and child is universal.

Age rating: 4 to 8 years old | Number of pages: 40 | Year published: 2018

We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga

Written by a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, this children’s book offers a look into modern Native American life, following a year of celebrations and experiences as the Cherokee community expresses gratitude for the blessings and challenges that each season brings. It’s racked up a number of accolades; it was named among the School Library Journal Best Books of 2018 and included in NPR’s Guide to 2018’s Great Reads, to name a couple.

Age rating: 1 to 7 years old | Number of pages: 32 | Year published: 2018

Queen of the Hanukkah Dosas

As interfaith marriages become more common, so too has the selection of children’s books featuring kids from two-faith families. One of our favorite children’s books about interfaith families is Queen of the Hanukkah Dosas . In this story, the father is Jewish and the mother is Indian, so they celebrate Hanukkah not with the traditional latkes, but rather by frying dosas. When the family gets accidentally locked out of their house, it’s little sister Sadie who saves the day.

Age rating: 4 to 7 years old | Number of pages: 40 | Year published: 2017

Daddy Christmas and Hanukkah Mama

For families that celebrate both Christmas and Hanukkah, a perfect book come December is Daddy Christmas and Hanukkah Mama . Sadie (yes, another one) celebrates both holidays at her house, where they leave gelt under the Christmas tree and sing carols about the Maccabees. It’s silly and sweet and sure to become a favorite in other interfaith homes.

Age rating: 5 to 8 years old | Number of pages: 32 | Year published: 2012

Everywhere Babies

Everywhere Babies is a fantastic diversity book for toddlers. The rhymes are catchy, but the best thing about this story is that it’s full of babies (and their parents) of all different races and creeds. The underlying theme is that no matter what babies look like, they’re all loved “for being so wonderful just as they are!”

Age rating: 1 to 3 years old | Number of pages: 30 | Year published: 2011

Red: A Crayon’s Story

In this children’s book about finding the courage to be true to yourself, a blue crayon suffers an identity crisis after mistakenly being labeled as red. His teachers and family try to help him be red (let’s draw strawberries!), but no matter how hard he tries, he just can’t be red. It’s not until a friend offers a new perspective that the crayon discovers he’s actually blue. Funny and heartwarming, it’s an engaging read for youngsters but can be read on multiple levels, making it one of the best children's books about gender identity.

Age rating: 3 to 7 years old | Number of pages: 40 | Year published: 2015

Chocolate Me!

Author (and actor) Taye Diggs and illustrator Shane Evans struggled with feeling different and trying to fit in as kids. Now that both are fathers, they combined talents to bring us a picture book that encourages kids to love themselves. This timely book explores how it feels to be teased and how each of us is beautiful, no matter how we look.

Age rating: 2 to 6 years old | Number of pages: 32 | Year published: 2019

Not Quite Narwhal

Another one of our favorite children’s books about diversity is the story of Kelp, who has always been a bit different from the rest of his narwhal family—he’s not as good of a swimmer and his tusk isn’t as long. Then a current sweeps him to the surface of the ocean, where he discovers he’s actually a unicorn! This heartwarming tale is about fitting in, standing out and the love of family.

Age rating: 3 to 5 years old | Number of pages: 40 | Year published: 2017

The Day You Begin

Nedxt up on our list of best children’s books about diversity is The Day You Begin. There are times when we all feel like outsiders. Maybe it’s because of how we look, or where we’re from. It can feel intimidating to join a group of people who are different than us, but this beautiful children’s book about diversity—a #1 New York Times bestseller—reminds kids that when we reach out to others and share our stories, we find connection and friendship.

Age rating: 5 to 8 years old | Number of pages: 32 | Year published: 2018

Big Tune: Rise of the Dancehall Prince

Last but certainly not least in our roundup is Big Tune: Rise of the Dancehall Prince which celebrates community and selflessness. The book follows a young boy, Shane, who saves up for a new pair of sneakers. When he’s alone, he can dance and sing to his heart’s content; when he’s in front of others, he’s too shy to express himself fully. But, when the speakers break at a party, Shane finds his confidence and steps up to save the day! While reading, your child will learn all about Jamaica’s vibrant culture, including the island’s music, dancing and food.

Age rating: 3 to 6 years old | Number of pages: 40 | Year published: 2023

How We Chose the Best Children’s Books About Diversity

To help you pick out the best children’s books about diversity, we browsed options from an array of leading authors, publishers and online retailers. We included board books, paperbacks and hardcover options in our roundup, for infants to big kids and everyone in between. When choosing books, we also considered the publishing date, the reading level, the number of pages and user reviews.

Interested in learning more about our editorial process? Read about how our team develops and reviews all articles here .

Please note: The Bump and the materials and information it contains are not intended to, and do not constitute, medical or other health advice or diagnosis and should not be used as such. You should always consult with a qualified physician or health professional about your specific circumstances.

Plus, more from The Bump:

The 80 Best Children’s Books of All Time

14 Great LGBTQ+ Books for Babies, Toddlers and Preschoolers

35 Best Children’s Book Quotes

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Representation Matters: Diversity in Children's Books

“Diverse literature enables students to see themselves as the heroes of the story…”

-Lily Eskelsen García

If you think back to your favorite books from your childhood, which titles come to mind? What is it in those particular books that resonated so deeply with you? For many young readers, being able to see themselves reflected in the main characters strikes a deep chord. Reading books with accurate representations of students’ own cultures can contribute to self-worth within students, while allowing them to connect with themselves and their culture on a deeper level.

Diverse representations of characters in multi-cultural books are beneficial to all readers. Reading multicultural books:

• Helps people to better understand current world issues
• Exposure to multicultural literature increases awareness of the social practices, values and belief systems of other cultures
• Promotes unity and empathy: people learn that not only are differences tolerated, they are embraced
• Promotes the interaction of children across differing ethnic backgrounds

What does the current breakdown of diversity in children’s books look like? Read this short article from Huffington Post to learn more:

Kids Books Still Have a Lack-of-Diversity Problem, Powerful Image Shows

https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/diversity-kids-books-statistics_ca_5d0bb0f8e4b0859fc3db38c3

How can parents and teachers gauge problematic content in children’s books? Check out this article for tips on how to spot racist and sexist ideas in children’s literature:

10 Quick Ways to Analyze Children’s Books for Racism and Sexism

https://wowlit.org/links/evaluating-global-literature/10-quick-ways-to-analyze-childrens-books-for-racism-and-sexism/

Where can you find recommendations for diverse books? Spend some time looking through the multitude of resources on WNDB (We Need Diverse Books) to find suggested titles, blog articles, resources on diversity, equity, and inclusion, and much more:

We Need Diverse Books

https://diversebooks.org/

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Diverse voices: the 50 best culturally diverse children's books

This list of culturally diverse books to read, savour and recommend is a joyous celebration of the 50 most fabulous books for children of all ages living in multiracial, multicultural UK today.

Thanks to Seven Stories, The National Centre for Children's Books for sharing the list with us today – and to the experts they called on to pull it together: Julia Eccleshare (the Guardian children's books editor), Jake Hope (from Youth Libraries Group ), Library specialist Sarah Smith and Katherine Woodfine from the Book Trust .

Tomorrow we'll be launching a discussion blog where you can share your favourite and most inspirational diverse books of all kinds – and there'll be features, blogs, galleries and other stuff on diversity on the site all this week so stay tuned!

Early Years

Amazing Grace By Mary Hoffman, illustrated by Caroline Binch (Frances Lincoln Children's Books) The classic picture book about the little girl who loves stories and shows us that we can be anything we want to be.

Fruits: A Caribbean Counting Poem By Valerie Bloom, illustrated by David Axtell (Macmillan Children's Books) A rhythmic counting poem that describes all manner of delicious Caribbean fruits as a little girl tries to eat as many of these as she can in a single day.

The Goggle-Eyed Goats By Stephen Davies, illustrated by Christopher Corr (Andersen Press) A vibrant and colourfully illustrated tale about Old Al Haji Amadu's five extremely naughty and very hungry goats who gobble and gulp through whatever they find. Handa's Surprise By Eileen Browne (Walker Books) A mouth-watering story about Handa who puts seven fruits into her basket to take to her friend Akeyo, but one by one these disappear as all manner of creatures snack upon them.

Hue Boy By Rita Phillips Mitchell, illustrated by Caroline Binch (Frances Lincoln Children's Books) As much as Hue Boy longs to be bigger, he discovers size isn't everything in this uplifting village-based story about a small boy with a very big personality. Leon and Bob By Simon James (Walker Books) A quiet reflective book about the unusual friendship shared by Leon and Bob and the sense of fun and fulfilment others can bring into our lives.

Not So Fast Songololo By Niki Daly (Frances Lincoln Children's Books) An African town is brought to life through sight and sound in this touching story of young and old where Grandmother Gogo and grandson Songololo set out on a stroll together.

Over the Hills and Far Away By Elizabeth Hammill, illustrated by 77 artists (Frances Lincoln Children's Books) A stunning collection of 150 rhymes from countries all over the English-speaking world, including Great Britain, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ghana, South Africa and the Caribbean compiled by Seven Stories co-founder Elizabeth Hammill. The collection contains best-loved nursery rhymes, but also new discoveries, and vibrant rhymes from Native American, First Nation, Inuit and Maori cultures.

Ramadan Moon By Na'ima B. Robert, illustrated by Shirin Adl (Frances Lincoln Children's Books) The festival of Ramadan and its celebration across the world is explored in this thoughtful book which looks at the role faith plays in many children's lives.

Rastamouse and the Crucial Plan By Michael De Souza, illustrated by Genevieve Webster (Little Roots) A cheeky, cheese-filled tale about super bad thief Bandalulu who has stolen all the cheese from Mouseland.

So Much By Trish Cooke, illustrated by Helen Oxenbury (Walker Books) A fun, feel good and familiar story about the different generations of a family brought together by their love for a new baby. Where's Lenny? By Ken Wilson-Max (Frances Lincoln Children's Books) An ideal first picture book by an award winning author/illustrator in which Lenny and his dad have a game of hide and seek in the house, enjoying fun and games together.

Younger readers (5+)

Azzi In Between By Sarah Garland (Frances Lincoln Children's Books) A powerful graphic novel about Azzi and her family who seek refuge, filled with drama and tension it shows just how dangerous some people's home lives can be and the difficult decisions needed to reach a place of safety.

Kasia's Surprise By Stella Gurney, illustrated by Petr Horacek (Walker Books) A moving and hope-filled book about Kasia and her mum who have moved to the UK from Poland, it looks at the importance of the people we are close to and the gradual acceptance of change.

Betsey Biggalow is here By Malorie Blackman, illustrated by Jamie Smith (Random House Children's Books) Somewhere between Pippi Longstocking and Tracy Beaker, Betsey Biggalow, who stars in these short, pacey stories, is an imaginative and enquiring girl who is sometimes mischievous but always endearing.

The Colour of Home By Mary Hoffman, illustrated by Karin Littlewood (Frances Lincoln Children's Books) Hassan feels out of place in a cold, grey country so different from his colourful Somalian home, which he was forced to leave because of war. But gradually things change... and he sees the new colours of home.

Fly, Eagle, Fly! By Christopher Gregorowski, illustrated by Niki Daly (Frances Lincoln Children's Books) A story of fulfilment and freedom shown through the parable of the baby eagle who is reared with chickens. This simply told yet dramatic story from Africa will delight children everywhere and encourage them to "lift off and soar," as Archbishop Tutu puts it in his foreword.

A Hen in the Wardrobe By Wendy Meddour (Frances Lincoln Children's Books) This is a funny, heart-warming family story set in Britain and Algeria, with fascinating glimpses of traditional Berber culture and lots of colourful characters.

Mirror By Jeannie Baker (Walker Books) Although thousands of miles apart, there are many similarities between the homes and daily routines for the two boys in this book; its minutely detailed illustrations inspire readers to see that, in spite of surface difference, there is often more similarity in our lives than might, at first, be recognised.

Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters By John Steptoe (Puffin Children's Books) This special book has a fairy-tale like charm as a King takes on the search for a wife. Mufaro has two daughters, one rude and mean and the other generous and thoughtful: which will win the hand of the King?

Number 1 Car Spotter By Atinuke (Walker Books ) A witty story about the hugely appealing Oluwalase Babatunde Benson (AKA Number 1) who sets about searching for and solving problems and carrying out chores for his family.

Under the Moon and Over the Sea: A Collection of Caribbean Poems Edited by John Agard and Grace Nichols (Walker Books) A lyrical and lively collection of poetry that captures the sights, sounds, tastes and tales of the Caribbean and its people.

Walter Tull's Scrap Book By Michaela Morgan (Frances Lincoln Children's Books) The inspirational true story of Walter Tull's life is vividly re-imagined here in scrapbook form, drawing on photographs, documents and records of his life. Born in Kent, in 1888, Walter Tull became not just the first black British professional outfield football player – for Tottenham Hotspur and Northampton Town – but also the first black officer in the British Army.

Older Readers (8+)

Boy Overboard By Morris Gleitzman (Puffin Children's Books) Jamal and sister Bibi want to lead Australia to victory in the World Cup, but that entails a journey from their homeland, Afghanistan where their family has upset the authorities, and a lengthy voyage overseas.

The Island By Armin Greder (Allen and Unwin) The poignancy of the pictures in this story about a man washed up on an island beach and outcast by its community explores intolerance and is a powerful and moving conversation starter for discussions around acceptance.

Journey to Jo'Burg By Beverley Naidoo (HarperCollins) A deeply affecting modern classic about a brother and sister who journey through the South Africa of Apartheid in a race against time to find their mother thereby saving their poorly baby sister, Dineo.

The Life of Stephen Lawrence By Verna Allette Wilkins, illustrated by Lynne Willey (Tamarind) Full of life and potential, Stephen Lawrence was a boy with huge hopes for the future. Murdered in 1993, the book looks at prejudice, injustice and a family's fight to uncover the truth.

Little Leap Forward By Guo You, co-written by Clare Farrow and illustrated by Helen Cann (Barefoot Books) This semi-autobiographical tale looks at Little Leap Forward, a boy who grew up in the hutongs of Beijing during the Cultural Revolution in China.

Oranges in No Man's Land By Elizabeth Laird (Macmillan Children's Books) Ayesha lives in war-torn Beirut, a city divided by conflict. When Ayesha's granny falls ill, she must cross the barricades into deadly no-man's land to try to get the medication that is so badly needed.

A Nest of Vipers By Catherine Johnson (Random House Children's Books) The youngest member of a collective of pick pockets and con-artists in 18th century London, Cato Hopkins appears at risk of paying penance for his crimes with his life…

Talking Turkeys By Benjamin Zephaniah (Puffin Children's Books) A thought-provoking and wide reaching collection of poetry for children that explodes from the page, begging to be read aloud.

Tall Story By Candy Gourlay (David Fickling Books) Quirky, unusual and filled with affectionate humour, this story looks at the relationship between Andi, who is short, and her long lost, enormous half-brother Bernardo who comes to live in London from the Philippines.

Too Much Trouble By Tom Avery (Frances Lincoln Children's Books) A fast-paced read about brothers Em and Prince who struggle to make a life and home for themselves on the streets of London. Winner of the Diverse Voices award 2010.

Trash By Andy Mulligan (David Fickling Books) Raphael is a dumpsite boy whose days are spent sifting through rubbish and whose nights are spent sleeping beside it. This deeply affecting story tells how one fateful moment – the discovery of a small leather bag – can radically change one's fortunes…

The Trouble with Donovan Croft By Bernard Ashley (Oxford University Press Children's Books) Keith's new foster brother, Donovan, won't speak to anybody, will Keith be able to uncover the reasons why and help Donovan to open up?

The Unforgotten Coat By Frank Cottrell Boyce (Walker Books) This acutely perceptive, gem of a book recounts how Julie tries to help two Mongolian refugees who are struggling to fit in with their new classmates in Liverpool and movingly describes why their friendship ended unexpectedly…

The Wheel of Surya By Jamila Gavin (Egmont) The violence and danger of India during the Independence movement and its partition from Pakistan acts a catalyst for Jaspal and Marvinder to flee from their village in an effort to reunite with their father who is a student in England.

Teenage (13+)

Apache By Tanya Landman (Walker Books) Following the vicious murder of her brother, orphan Siki vows to become an Apache warrior to take revenge upon her brother, Tazhi's, killers.

The Arrival By Shaun Tan (Hodder Children's Books) This wordless graphic novel explores the many reasons that lead people to leave their old lives and homes behind and set out upon the journey entailed in starting afresh. For teenagers, adults and younger readers too.

Artichoke Hearts By Sita Brahmachari (Macmillan Children's Books) Aged 12, Mira's life changes when her Nana Josie becomes ill and Mira begins to learn about the secrets of her family and loved ones in this emotionally honest novel.

Blood Donors By Steve Tasane (Walker Books) A skin-crawling novel about Marshall O'Connor who lives in the "Finger", a block of flats with a deep, dark and deadly secret. This distinctive, fresh and decidedly creepy novel explores stigma and prejudice.

The Breadwinner By Deborah Ellis (Oxford University Press Children's Books) Kept house-bound by the Taliban's law that women and girls should not leave the house on their own, Parvana, her mother and sisters are in danger of starvation when their father is arrested.

Moonfleece By Philip Ridley (Methuen) A playscript that explores the tensions between two groups of teenagers who come to learn the way party politics influence the everyday lives of individuals and the devastating impact this can have.

Half-Caste and Other Poems By John Agard (Hodder Children's Books) The poems in this highly original collection, penned by John Agard, uncover a wealth of human experience and on differences in race.

Noughts and Crosses By Malorie Blackman (Random House Children's Books) Sephy and Callum live in a world of split communities and civil unrest. Can their feelings for one another grow and blossom against this backdrop and what will occur if those feelings are discovered?

Palestine By Joe Sacco (Jonathan Cape) An extraordinary piece of current affairs reportage told in graphic novel form and recounting the conflict in the West Bank and Gaza strip.

Persepolis 1 and 2 By Marjane Satrapi (Vintage) This eye-opening graphic novel about author Marjane Satrapi's childhood growing up in Tehran uncovers the way a country's politics, religion, history and traditions, influence a sense of identity.

Refugee Boy By Benjamin Zephaniah (Bloomsbury Children's Books) Thrilled to have left his home country of Ethiopia for the first time, Alem is excited to be spending a holiday with his father in London. Happiness turns to despair, however, when he discovers that his father has left him alone in an unfamiliar country…

(Un)arranged Marriage By Bali Rai (Random House Children's Books) This highly personal story was partly influenced by Bali Rai's own experiences. It looks at the impact cultural traditions can have on young people growing up in modern times and the book will resonate will all who have experienced the pressure of expectation at the hands of their family.

The Weight of Water By Sarah Crossan (Bloomsbury Children's Books) Poetic and reflective, the story tells how Kasienka comes to England from Gdansk in Poland with her mother, a suitcase and a laundry bag full of clothes, desperate to search for her father.

• Children's books
• Children and teenagers
• Race in education
• Children's books: 7 and under
• Children's books: 8-12 years

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December 1, 2023

Are Children’s Books Improving Representation?

Racial and gender disparities persist in award-winning kids’ literature despite recent gains in representation

By Jesse Greenspan

monkeybusinessimages/Getty Images

Children's literature has become far more diverse in the past decade, helping more kids than ever to see themselves in their favorite books. Of the thousands of kids' and teens' books reviewed in a 2022 analysis , about 45 percent had a nonwhite author, illustrator or compiler, up from 8 percent in 2014. “There are just so many more choices of books [reflecting] the multifaceted complexity of individual lives,” says Tessa Michaelson Schmidt, director of the Cooperative Children's Book Center at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

But white males remain overrepresented in the most influential children's stories, the authors of a recent study concluded. The research, published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics , examined the winners and honorees of the Newbery and Caldecott medals—widely considered the most prestigious prizes in kids' literature—and the recipients of 17 awards for diversity. University of Chicago social scientist Anjali Adukia and her colleagues scanned 1,130 of these award-winning books, covering more than 162,000 pages, and used an artificial-intelligence program trained to detect faces and determine the age, race and gender of each pictured character.

Machine learning let the researchers pick up on details they may have missed if they had combed through the books by hand. For example, on average, youngsters were depicted with lighter skin than adults of the same race. And female characters appeared more often in images than in text, which “suggests more symbolic inclusion ... rather than substantive inclusion,” according to the study's authors. They also found that the vast majority of famous people mentioned in Newbery- and Caldecott-winning books are white.

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The results come amid a nationwide cultural clash, with diversity campaigns running alongside attempts to ban books that address aspects of race and sexual identity. But kids crave exposure to stories about people like them, which build up their feelings of self-worth and help them maintain an interest in reading, says Caroline Tung Richmond, an author of young adult fiction and executive director of the nonprofit organization We Need Diverse Books. At the same time, she says, young people benefit from stories that allow them “to see into a different culture or identity and build empathy.”

Credit: Amanda Montañez; Source: “What We Teach about Race and Gender: Representation in Images and Text of Chilren’s Books,” by Anjali Adukia et al., in  Quarterly Journal of Economics , Vol. 138; 2023 ( data )

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Your current subscription allows you to be actively logged in on up to three (3) devices simultaneously. click on continue below to log out of other sessions and log in on this device., an updated look at diversity in children's books.

Using numbers from the Cooperative Children's Book Center, this infographic—updated from 2015—illustrates representation in children's literature. The quantity of diverse books may have gone up, but that doesn't necessarily indicate accuracy and quality of titles.

An updated infographic on diversity in children's books has been released by Sarah Park Dahlen, an associate professor of MLIS at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, MN, and illustrator David Huyck. 

While this 2018 version shows improvement in representation since 2015, the creators of the image added cracks in the mirrors to illustrate the continued misrepresentation of the underrepresented communities—the quantity of books may have gone up, but it isn't all good news as that doesn't necessarily indicate accuracy and quality in the titles.

"As with the 2015 infographic, we relied on the multicultural publishing statistics  compiled by the librarians at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Education Cooperative Children’s Book Center ( CCBC ) that were 'about' particular populations: American Indian/First Nation, Latinx, African/African American, and Asian Pacific Islander/Asian Pacific American," Sarah Park Dahlen and David Huyck wrote on sarahpark.com . "One important distinction between the 2015 and 2018 infographics is that we made a deliberate decision to crack a section of the children’s mirrors to indicate what Debbie Reese calls 'funhouse mirrors' and Ebony Elizabeth Thomas calls 'distorted funhouse mirrors of the self.' Children’s literature continues to misrepresent underrepresented communities, and we wanted this infographic to show not just the low quantity of existing literature, but also the inaccuracy and uneven quality of some of those books.... 

"We hope that this infographic, along with Lee & Low’s  Diversity Gap  blog posts, Debbie Reese’s blog  American Indians in Children’s Literature ,  Edith Campbell  and  Zetta Elliott ’s blogs, Maya Christina Gonzalez’ “ Children’s Books as a Radical Act ” blog posts, Malinda Lo’s  LGTBQ blog posts ,  We Need Diverse Books ,  Reading While White ,  Research on Diversity in Youth Literature , and other diversity initiatives, can help push forward important conversations and lead to real change in children’s literature publishing. We encourage you to study these and other sources to better understand the context in which these numbers exist."

For comparison, here is the 2015 infographic:

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Cressida Hanson

Has there been an updated infographic for 2020? Would love to see the (hopefully) progress.

Posted : Mar 24, 2021 03:32

Chamayne Green

Thank you for sharing this information. I share your site with other educators who support young children.

Posted : Nov 02, 2020 08:54

It is good that they are adding diverse ethnicity to these books, but as they are saying they are not representing well. I think a lot of work still needs to be done.

Posted : Sep 07, 2020 03:03

Melinda Henry

The statistics are discouraging. I realize that the numbers are going up, but so slowly. What I would like to know (due to population differences) what are the ratios of books of that particular culture to the US population of that culture? My next question would be are we not educating (Native American specifically) these children well enough, are we not telling them that they have a voice and that their voices matter well enough? I am curious.

Posted : Aug 18, 2020 04:51

Linda Garrett

I like the way you created a picture for you data. The mirror idea was brilliant! If a picture is worth a thousand words--you really made it clear how diversity in children's book still has a long, long way to go.

Posted : Apr 29, 2020 07:42

Desma Howell

I am glad to see that the numbers are getting better over time. Many are seeing improvements in the diversity in children literature. I am curious to see how those numbers have changed up to this point of the 20th century. I am sure diversity in children literature has increased tremendously.

Posted : Apr 28, 2020 12:09

Kurt Schmidt

It is important to know the diversity of the book purchasers, as well. You will get more of whatever sells. It comes down to priorities for both the publisher and the purchaser.

Posted : Jan 02, 2020 06:44

Yvette Bezuidenhout

Posted : Jun 21, 2019 02:27

Jennifer Sobalvarro

Posted : Jun 21, 2019 11:42

Posted : Jun 20, 2019 09:44

Marina Cheney

Anastasia and Amal Visit Lady Liberty is my third children’s book. Two young friends, one Somali, have a delightful adventure meeting Lady Liberty. Check it out on Amazon. Thank you Marina Cheney

Posted : Feb 08, 2020 11:34 -->

Sharon McNeill

This was very interesting data concerning diversity in children's books. As I reflect on the books that I shared with my students, the data appears to be consistent with what I observed. Oftentimes, it was difficult to find books with diversity. However, I was glad to see the small improvement from 2015 to 2018 as well. I agree, there is still work to be done. However, I can not wait to see the 2020-21 data.

Posted : May 14, 2021 12:35 -->

Ethan Smith

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book.

Posted 6 hours ago REPLY

Jane Fitgzgerald

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Representation Matters: Kids Books That Embrace Disability and Difference

When we don’t talk openly about disabilities, they can become the elephants in the room, and children may interpret disability as a restricted topic. Let’s prioritize discussing and educating children about all kinds of physical differences. One way to do this is to read children’s books, like those below, that show respectful and genuine representation. Reading about people who are different from you lets you imagine, reflect on, and learn about their lives. 

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by Ruth Spiro

This series explains to toddlers how the five senses work. The Sight and Hearing books also explain sight and hearing disabilities. An important introduction to the diversity of human bodies. 

Pre -K 

Baby Loves the Five Senses: Hearing!

This Beach is Loud!

by Samantha Cotterill 

When a young boy is overwhelmed by all the sights, sounds, and sensations at the beach, his father gently reminds him of tricks that help calm him.

Grades Pre-K to 1

Moses Goes to a Concert

by Issac Millman

Moses loves playing his new drum. Even though he is deaf, he can feel the vibrations when he plays. One day, Moses's class goes to a concert. The teacher then says that he knows the percussionist and that she is deaf as well!

Grades Pre-K–2

Benji, the Bad Day, and Me

by Sally J. Pia, illustrated by Ken Min

In this tender story about siblings, author Sally J. Pia shares her experience of raising sons with different personality traits and needs. Benji, the Bad Day, and Me embraces the philosophy that we are all part of a wide spectrum of neurodiversity. And on those really bad, rotten days, you can always count on family to be there for you.

Grades Pre-K–K

Hello Goodbye Dog

by Maria Gianferrari, illustrated by Patrice Barton

A student who uses a wheelchair finds a way to see her dog each day in school.

The Black Book of Colors

by Menena Cottin, illustrated by Rosana Faria, translated by Elisa Amado 

Illustrations with raised lines and descriptions of color based on imagery provide readers with an interactive experience with the concept of blindness and include a full Braille alphabet.

Can Bears Ski

by Raymond Antrobus, illustrated by Polly Dunbar

Is Little Bear ignoring his friends when they say hi, or is something else going on? A discovery opens new doors in a tale that will delight kids with deafness and all children learning to navigate their world.

Just Ask! Be Different, Be Brave, Be You!

by Sonia Sotomoyor, illustrated by Rafael Lopez

Sonia and her friends plant a garden, and each one contributes in his or her own special way, in a book that celebrates the many differences among humans.

I Talk Like a River

by Jordan Scott, illustrated by Sydney Smith

When a boy who stutters feels isolated, alone, and incapable of communicating in the way he'd like, it takes a kindly father and a walk by the river to help him find his voice. Compassionate parents everywhere will instantly recognize a father's ability to reconnect a child with the world around him.

Frida Kahlo: Little People Big Dreams

by Isabel Sanchez Vegara, illustrated by Fan Eng Gee, translated by Emma Martinez

An introduction to the life and achievements of the famed Mexican artist describes the childhood accident that ended her ambitions to study medicine and prompted her to become an artist while regularly confined by disabilities.

Six Dots: A Story of Young Louis Braille

by Jen Bryant, illustrated by Boris Kulikov

The story of Louis Braille and how he developed the Braille alphabet system.

Emmanuel's Dream: The True Story of Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah

by Laurie Ann Thompson, illustrated by Sean Qualls 

The inspiring story of a West African youth who pursued an education, helped support his family, and became a record-setting cyclist in spite of a disability traces his ongoing achievements as an activist.

Thank you, Mr. Falker

by Patricia Polacco 

Trisha loves school but has difficulty learning to read. Until a new teacher helps her understand and helps her find a solution. An autobiographical tribute to Polacco's fifth-grade teacher, the first adult to recognize her learning disability and to help her learn to read.

Summaries provided via NYPL’s catalog, which draws from multiple sources. Click through to each book’s title for more.

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The Power of Representation: Why Diverse Children's Books Matter

Pamela Blair | December 28, 2023

In the world of children's literature, each story serves as a window into a universe of imagination, discovery, and learning. At our bookstore, we are on a mission not just to provide books but to be a beacon of representation, offering narratives that reflect the beautiful tapestry of African American culture and history. Why does this matter? Let's explore the profound impact of diverse children's books and the significance of positive representation.

Positive Identity Formation: Children's books act as mirrors, reflecting the world and allowing young readers to see themselves within its pages. For African American children, encountering characters who look like them, navigating diverse experiences, and overcoming challenges fosters a sense of pride, confidence, and identity. It's more than just seeing faces that resemble theirs; it's about affirming their existence and potential through literature.

Dispelling Stereotypes: Diverse books play a pivotal role in dispelling negative stereotypes not only for African American children but also for their non-African American peers. By presenting multifaceted characters and stories, these books challenge misconceptions, offering a more accurate and nuanced portrayal of individuals and cultures. They provide a window into lives that might be different but are equally valid and rich.

Fostering Empathy and Understanding: Exposure to diverse stories cultivates empathy and understanding among young readers. When children engage with characters from different backgrounds, they step into their shoes, experiencing their joys, struggles, and triumphs. Through these narratives, children learn that despite varying cultures and experiences, we all share common emotions, aspirations, and humanity.

Educational Impact: Research consistently demonstrates the educational benefits of diverse literature. These books not only broaden perspectives but also enhance critical thinking skills. They encourage children to ask questions, challenge assumptions, and engage with the world in a more informed and compassionate manner.

In our commitment to providing the very best children's books, we aim to serve as a catalyst for positive change. Every book on our shelves is carefully curated to offer a diverse range of voices, stories, and experiences, ensuring that every child can find themselves within the pages of a book.

Representation matters—it shapes minds, nurtures empathy, and paves the way for a more inclusive future. Join us in celebrating the power of diverse children's books and the beautiful tapestry of stories they weave.

Together, let's build a world where every child sees themselves respectfully represented in the literature they read.

Stay tuned for more insights, book recommendations, and celebrations of diverse cultures through our upcoming blog posts.

Happy Reading,

Eyeseeme Bookstore

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What award-winning children’s books teach children about race and gender

Subscribe to the brown center on education policy newsletter, anjali adukia , anjali adukia assistant professor - university of chicago, director - miie lab @aadukia alex eble , and alex eble assistant professor - columbia university, teacher's college @alexeble emileigh harrison emileigh harrison doctoral candidate - university of chicago, founding member, junior investigator - miie lab @emileigharrison.

June 2, 2023

Children learn from the books they encounter in their homes, schools, and libraries. The lessons they take from these books shape their beliefs and the future selves they will grow into. These lessons come from many dimensions of books; one such dimension which is particularly salient to the reader is who is and is not present in each picture and passage. The presence or absence of different characters teaches children societal norms about who gets to exist in what spaces. This matters for the children themselves—shaping their beliefs about themselves and their place in the world—but may also help shape their views of what spaces others of different identities may inhabit.

The problem is that it is hard to know, systematically, how race and gender are represented in the books we use to teach our children. Parents and teachers cannot possibly read every available book before they choose which books to give or suggest to their children or students, much less librarians, superintendents, or policymakers. These actors face a dauntingly large number of choices and often turn to external sources for help. A common source many look to for such guidance is endorsement of merit by a third party, such as recognition from national awards like the Caldecott and Newbery Medals. Indeed, our analysis of book purchases, library checkouts, and internet searches shows that winning these awards leads to a substantial increase in the number of children who read them. This then raises the questions: What messages about race and gender do these specific books convey, via representation, to the children who read them? And how can we measure similar representation in the other content considered for children’s use?

Using computer vision and natural language processing to measure representation in children’s books

This is where we come in. Our solution , which we describe in a paper forthcoming in The Quarterly Journal of Economics , is to use computers—specifically tools from the computer science subfields of computer vision and natural language processing—to measure representation in children’s books. Our approach develops a series of new tools, and combines them with other existing tools, to measure various features, including race, skin tone, gender, and age, of who is represented in the images and text of curricular materials. These tools are powerful and can measure many possible features of characters. We focus on bringing together tools that can measure the representation of these features of characters in both the text and the images of the books we wish to study.

Our analysis shows that these tools can be rapidly and cost-effectively applied to a wide range of curricular materials. They allow us to quickly and cheaply measure if and how people are represented in a large number of books.

We apply these tools to over 1,000 children’s books which have been recognized by a century of children’s book awards. Our analysis focuses on two main sets of books targeted towards children 14 and under. One set receives recognition for their literary or artistic value. These are books that are recognized by the prestigious Newbery and Caldecott awards. We call this the “Mainstream” collection of books because of their influence. The second set of books are recognized for both their literary or artistic value and for how they highlight experiences of specific identity groups. These include awards such as the Coretta Scott King Award, which highlights books centering experiences of Black individuals, and the Rise Awards which recognize books that center women. We call the books in this group the “Diversity” collection.

Despite significant progress, representations of race and gender in children’s books continue to lag

We first show how race and gender have been taught to children via these books’ images and text, and how this has changed over time. Our findings reveal some enduring patterns and others that indicate change. We find that characters in the Mainstream collection are consistently depicted with lighter skin than those in the Diversity collection. You can see how the two distributions vary in this figure: the Diversity collection, outlined in blue, clearly has a darker average skin tone than the Mainstream (see Figure 1). What’s more, it also has more variance—and thus diversity—of skin tones represented than the Mainstream collection.

Figure 1. Distribution of skin colors by human skin colors in Mainstream and Diversity collections in children’s literature

Note: This figure shows the distribution of skin color tint for faces detected in books from the Mainstream and Diversity collections. The mean for each distribution is denoted with a dashed line.

Source: Author’s calculations. See paper for additional details.

In Figure 2, we show that this difference between the two collections holds true even after conditioning on the race of the person being shown.

Figure 2. Distribution of skin colors by human skin colors in Mainstream and Diversity collections in children’s literature by character’s race

Note: This figure shows the distribution of skin color tint by the predicted race of the detected faces in the Mainstream and Diversity collections.

In other results, we show that children are more likely than adults to be shown with lighter skin, despite there being no definitive biological foundation for this that we are aware of. In other words, lighter-skinned children see themselves represented more often than do darker-skinned children. This result, unlike those previously, holds for both collections. That is, even in books recognized for highlighting the experiences of Black children, darker-skinned children are less likely to see themselves represented.

Moving from skin color to race, we also find that in both collections, Black and Latino people have been underrepresented in these books, relative to their share of the U.S. population, corroborating prior work on the representation of race in smaller subsets of these collections of books . Our analysis of gender shows that, again in both collections, females are also less likely than males to be present in these books, despite equal population shares. Digging deeper, we compare how often females appear in images, as compared to in text. We find that females are consistently more likely to be visualized (seen) in images than mentioned (read) in the text, which suggests more symbolic inclusion in pictures more than substantive inclusion in the actual story. Figure 3 below plots this result.

Figure 3. Female representation in images and text of children’s books

Note: This figure plots collection-by-decade average percentages of female representation in images (on the y-axis) and female representation in text (on the x-axis). This enables a comparison between the proportion of females represented in the images and the proportion of females represented in the text of the children’s books in our sample.

Over time, however, the patterns show signs of change. As time progresses, both collections of books include more characters with darker skin tones. Further, over the period we study, the representation of both race and gender trend closer to equality, though neither ever reach proportional representation, relative to the larger population.

Our paper then analyzes separate data on the checkouts of books in libraries and purchases of books by households to better understand what shapes who consumes different types of children’s books. We find that people tend to buy books that contain characters who share their gender and racial identities. Yet books centering many historically minoritized identities are either more scarce than other books, more expensive, or both. This suggests that greater provision of—and access to—books representing a more diverse range of identities than is currently available would fill a clear and desired need in the market. We also find that the content of books that people in a given area purchase are correlated with the political leanings of a community: in areas where progressive views are more common, people consume books with a more diverse range of identities represented than in areas where conservative views prevail.

Conclusion and implications

This research investigates who is represented; in other work , we also investigate how people are represented in children’s books. In these analyses, we show that the manner in which people are represented to children often reproduces societal norms and disparities. We see, for example, that females are more likely to be described relative to their appearance and roles in the family, while males are more likely to be described relative to their competence and roles in business. A century ago, we see a substantial gap between the sentiment, or overall positive feelings, associated with females and males—with males being shown in substantially more positive terms. Over time, however, this difference narrowed and is no longer detectable in books published today. We find similar disparities in the representation of race. For example, Black people, and Black women in particular, are more likely than white people to be mentioned in passages with more negative sentiment. While this gap, too, has lessened over time, in many contemporary stories we still find more negative sentiment associated with Black individuals than others.

Prior research has shown that the content of books can shape children’s beliefs, performance in school, and ultimately the adults they become. Our analysis shows that the representation of characters in books—and in award-winning, highly visible children’s books in particular—conveys important messages about how society values people by their race and gender. These messages trend towards equality over time, but even in many books published today, they still send the message that white people and males are the most visible and thus the most important members of society. This finding highlights some potential harms to children from recent political conflicts over critical race theory and the efforts to ban certain books that have sprung from these conflicts. It also underscores the important work that librarians, teachers, and parents play in building out school and home libraries with content showing a diversity of representation. These efforts can help ensure we teach children that all people can inhabit the many rich potential futures that await them.

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What We Teach About Race and Gender: Representation in Images and Text of Children’s Books

• Books are important for teaching children about the roles that they and others can or cannot inhabit.
• Given persistent racial and gender inequality in society, representations in books can offer a key means to address, perpetuate, or entrench core societal inequalities.
• To address these important questions about race and gender, this new research applies innovative techniques in AI to analyze images and text in children’s books over time.
• A key finding of this research reveals that despite growing awareness in recent decades about race and gender issues in curricula, children’s books generally skew toward lighter skin and male representation.

New research employing path-breaking artificial intelligence (AI) tools reveals that characters in children’s books, as measured by illustrations and text, are largely white and male.   In “What We Teach About Race and Gender: Representation in Images and Text of Children’s Books,’ the authors find that this white/male dominance is even true of books published in recent decades during a period of heightened awareness about race and gender issues.

This research has important implications for educators and publishers, and others concerned about the influence of books on childhood development. In addition, the authors’ novel methodology offers the promise of innovative investigations into other forms of text and visual media, including all types of literature and nonfiction, journalism, websites, art, photography, television, videos, movies, and many others.

A Note on Methodology The authors’ main data set is a series of books targeted to children and likely to appear in homes, classrooms, and school libraries over the past century. Specifically, they use books that received awards either administered or featured by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association, starting in 1922. These and other children’s books are often filled with images that transmit implicit and explicit messages to readers. Historically, human coders provided content analysis, a time-consuming effort necessarily limited in scope and impacted by human behavior and biases. To address these limitations, the authors devised a unique application to harness the analytic power of artificial intelligence tools (AI). They developed computer vision tools that use convolutional neural networks to identify and classify components of images; in this case, detecting characters in photos and illustrations and classifying their race, gender, and age. While AI tools also reflect bias in their training data and algorithms, they can be more replicable, can be standardized, and can be applied to a much larger sample than manual content analysis. Analyzing images involves three primary components: training the computer to detect faces, classifying skin color, and predicting the race, gender, and age of the faces. The authors build on existing face analysis software tools and also make pathbreaking improvements, including training their model to analyze illustrations, developing a classification of skin color, and introducing higher precision for classification of gender and age. [See the full working paper for detailed description and for many visual representations of this work, as well as an interactive chart depicting race and gender representation in various book collections.]

Diversity is not yet mainstream

Research has revealed the importance of curricular materials in education for teaching children about the world. In particular, the way that people are represented within books—including the roles that they inhabit—can contribute to children’s understanding about what roles they and others can or cannot inhabit. Given persistent racial and gender inequality in society and the importance of identity and representation in driving beliefs, aspirations, academic effort, and outcomes, these representations offer a key means to either address, perpetuate, or entrench core societal inequalities.

Note: This figure shows the distribution of skin color tint by predicted race of the detected faces in images. For example, the top graph in Figure 1 shows that a person identified as Asian in the Mainstream collection will be depicted with lighter skin on average than a person identified as Asian in the Diversity collection.

So how do children’s books stack up in terms of issues pertaining to race and gender? To answer this and related questions, the authors developed new software for the systematic analysis of images, highlighting their potential use in a wide range of applications in policy, education practice, and social science research. [See A Note on Methodology.] They then applied those tools, alongside established text analysis methods, to analyze children’s books categorized broadly as Mainstream, or those considered of high literary value but written without explicit intention to highlight an identity group (e.g., the Newbery and Caldecott Awards); and Diversity books selected because they highlight experiences of specific identity groups (e.g., the Coretta Scott King and South Asia Book Awards).

Books selected to highlight people of color or females increasingly depict characters with darker skin tones over time. However, Mainstream books are more likely to depict lighter-skinned characters than those in the Diversity collection, even conditional on character race.

In total, the 1,130 books in the study came from 19 different award categories and included over 160,000 pages of content published over the last 100 years (The Newbery was first awarded in 1922 and the Caldecott in 1938, for example, while the Coretta Scott King Awards began in 1970, and the South Asia Book Awards in 2012).

The authors’ novel analysis of images revealed the following about race in children’s books:

• Books in the Mainstream collection are more likely to depict lighter-skinned characters than those in the Diversity collection, even conditional on identified character race, potentially appealing to the assumed preferences of the median reader.
• Books selected to highlight people of color or females increasingly depict characters with darker skin tones over time. However, Mainstream books have increased representation of lighter skin tones over the last two decades despite growing rhetoric about the importance of diverse representation. Black and Latinx people are underrepresented in the images and text, relative to their share of the US population.
• Also, while females have always appeared in pictures over time (still less than 50 percent on average, but closer to 50 percent than in text), they are predominantly White females.
• Particularly surprising is that despite no systematic differences in skin tones across ages in society, children are more likely than adults to be shown with lighter skin, regardless of collection.

The authors also compared the incidence of female appearances in images to female mentions in text to find that:

• Females are more consistently visualized (seen) in images than spoken about (heard) in the text, except in the collection of books specifically selected to highlight females, suggesting symbolic inclusion of females in pictures without their substantive inclusion in the actual story.
• This underrepresentation holds regardless of the measure used: predicted gender of the pictured character, pronoun counts, specific gendered words, famous figure gender, and character first names.
• Males, especially White males, are persistently more likely to be represented by every measure, with little change over time despite substantial changes in female societal participation.
• Even though these books are targeted to children, adults are depicted more often than children in both images and text.

In a separate analysis about the appearance of famous figures, the authors find that:

• The Diversity collection has broader geographic representation of famous figures born outside of the United States or Europe than the Mainstream collection. However, when either collection presents a character outside of these two regions, that character is more likely to be male.
• This finding suggests that while the Diversity collection may represent a broader range of nationalities, it is still unequal in its representation of identity at the intersection of gender and nationality.
• Moreover, White males comprise the majority of famous figures in all collections. Famous people from other racial groups are less likely than either White people or Black people to be represented in any collection (0 – 8 percent), but even then, males are generally more likely to be represented than females within any racial group.

Note: In this figure the authors contrast the representation of females in the text of these collections of books with representation of females in the images of the same books. In Panel A, they plot collection-by-decade averages of female representation in images (on the y axis) and female representation in text (on the x axis). On the y-axis, the authors plot the average percent of female faces out of all faces detected. On the x-axis, they plot the average percent of gendered words which are female. Panel B shows the inverse to Panel A: the proportional representation of males in images and text. The authors detect faces using a Google Vision AutoML model trained on illustrations. Within these faces, the authors classify gender using an AutoML algorithm trained using a manually labeled random sample of our data, assigning the female value to all faces receiving the female label with a prediction value of greater than 50 percent.

Mainstream books consistently depict people within each race as having lighter skin than people of the same race books selected to highlight people of color.

There are limitations to this analysis, as the authors stress, including the inherent subjectivity that can be built into AI tools, the flaws in current measures of gender identity, and algorithms’ inability to perfectly detect faces or isolate skin from faces and thus leading to measurement error. Also, this analysis consists of a numerical accounting of different characters through simple representational statistics, that is, whether characters are included. However, if a character is depicted in a reductive or stereotypical manner, then solely the existence of representation will be insufficient and possibly counterproductive.

While many educators and schools wish to eliminate books that have overt racial and gender bias, such efforts are necessarily piecemeal and the judgments behind them subjective. This novel research program takes the adage “a picture is worth a thousand words” to heart and introduces a high level of objectivity by systematically analyzing images and text in prominent children’s books. In very broad sum, despite growing awareness in recent decades, children’s books generally skew toward lighter skin and male representation.

CLOSING TAKEAWAY Females are more consistently visualized (seen) in images than spoken about (heard) in the text, except in the collection of books specifically selected to highlight females, suggesting symbolic inclusion of females in pictures without their substantive inclusion in the actual story.

The authors are careful to stress that their work is not an attempt to offer a prescription for children’s books or a scorecard for publishers. What is the “optimal” level of representation in children’s books? That is a great question which is beyond the scope of this research and best left for experts in the field of education. That said, by offering a method to measure representation, this research does offer opportunities to address important issues and to better achieve desired goals.

Finally, the authors’ innovative application of AI should lead to further development of tools that can measure how people are represented in books and other media, and thereby help determine what content depicts characters in their full humanity. A systemic problem requires a systemic solution. This work can stimulate a wide range of social science research that uses printed content—both images and text—as primary source data that can help us understand how variation in representation shapes human beliefs, behavior, and outcomes. It’s a tall order. However, providing research that expands our understanding about diversity in content can help us overcome the structural inequality that pervades society and our daily lives.  

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Kids Books Still Have A Lack-Of-Diversity Problem, Powerful Image Shows

Parents Editor, HuffPost Canada

In 1990, scholar Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop wrote that books are mirrors , reflecting our own lives back at us, and that reading is therefore a means of self-affirmation. That idea is the inspiration behind a powerful new image that shows just how badly children’s books are failing our kids.

In the infographic, children of colour gaze skeptically into small and cracked mirrors while, nearby, a white child — and a bear — smile into full-length ones.

It’s based on some troubling, new U.S. publishing statistics that in 2018 there were more children’s books featuring animals and other non-human characters (27 per cent) than all types of visible minorities combined (23 per cent). Meanwhile, half of all the children’s books reviewed featured white kids.

“The positive ‘mirror’ experience is exactly why representation matters. Actually seeing someone who looks like you doing something you never thought of, it can give you the idea that ‘this could be me someday,’” U.S. children’s book illustrator David Huyck , who drew the image, told HuffPost Canada.

Huyck created the image along with Sarah Park Dahlen , a professor in library and information science at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, Minn. Dahlen, who is Korean-American, wrote on her website that the cracks in the mirrors represent how many of the books that do have diverse characters get it wrong.

“Children’s literature continues to misrepresent underrepresented communities, and we wanted this infographic to show not just the low quantity of existing literature, but also the inaccuracy and uneven quality of some of those books,” Dahlen wrote.

To create the infographic, Dahlen and Huyck used data from the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Education Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC), which has been compiling statistics on diversity in U.S. children’s books since 1985.

Of the 3,134 children’s books they reviewed in 2018, just 23, or one per cent, depicted Indigenous characters. Five per cent of the pics depicted LatinX characters, seven per cent had Asian Pacific Islander/Asian Pacific American characters, and 10 per cent had African/African American characters.

WATCH: Celebrating diversity in children’s books. Story continues below.

In their report, the CCBC urges people to buy and share more books featuring diverse characters .

“Sales matter to publishing,” the CCBC said in the report.

Dahlen and Huyck created a similar image in 2016, using 2015 CCBC data . That year, 73.3 per cent of children’s books depicted white characters.

But, don’t interpret the drop in white characters as a win for representation. The numbers for diverse characters only marginally increased over three years. It was the books featuring animals and trucks that made up the difference, jumping from 12.5 per cent in 2015 to 27 per cent in 2018.

Not just about, but by

While books “about” diverse characters are important, so are books “by” diverse authors. And those numbers are even smaller, the CCBC notes. That means a lot of the books that do contain characters of colour are created by white people, and may not depict the experience properly.

Huyck readily admits he’s a “white, male illustrator.”

“I am that blonde-haired blue-eyed boy at the right of my illustration. I’ve never questioned whether I could identify with the characters in the books I read or the movies I watch. But that is simply not the case for so many children across the U.S., and surely in Canada, too,” he said.

“In an ideal future, there will not only be more books about underrepresented people, but there will be more and more books written and illustrated by people representing their own diverse communities.”

That’s a challenge Canadian graphic artist Jay Odjick has been more than happy to rise to.

Odjick recently collaborated with Canadian author Robert Munsch to create Bear for Breakfast (Makwa kidji kijebà wìsiniyàn), which was published in English and French, with Algonquin translations for both. The duo also previously collaborated on Blackflies , set in a northern Alberta reserve, which made several best-sellers lists.

“I don’t know if there had ever been a bestseller set on a reserve with a cast of all First Nations characters,” Odjik previously told HuffPost Canada .

“It’s important for kids to see themselves reflected in their content. It can be a big deal for a kid to pick up a children’s book and see someone who looks like them.”

For more books by and about diverse and racialized people, check out the gallery below, as well as these LGBTQ-family-approved selections .

13 Children's Books That Celebrate Diversity

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10 diverse children's books to teach kids about racism and representation

As protests continue across the country, and across the globe, in the wake of George Floyd's death, a conversation has been ignited in America about how to teach kids to fight racism from an early age.

Experts have said these conversations can happen in an age-appropriate way, starting early and by using books that are a great way to dive into these complex, important issues.

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"Books provide a good context for starting the conversation," said Bunnie Hilliard, owner of Brave and Kind book store in Atlanta. "It's hard to just kind of out of the blue say, 'Well let's sit down and have a talk about race.'"

But reading materials, Hillard added, "allow you to start the conversation and then just kind of talk about it as a family."

Hilliard, who began Brave and Kind bookstore in 2018 as a way to celebrate and elevate diversity in children's literature, said over the last few weeks she's been inundated with book requests and has sold out of some children's book titles on these topics.

MORE: Teachers ask for help to get books by black authors in their classrooms

"It's important for children to see themselves in the story," Hilliard added. "Plant the seed early on that a diverse world is better and the way that we should be."

In New Jersey, Brittany Smith, a pre-kindergarten teacher for the Atlantic City School District, was inspired by Floyd's death and the calls for justice to share a list of her favorite children's books. It went viral earlier this month.

"As a black woman, these issues are very important to me and personal for me," Smith told "Good Morning America." "Especially because my students come from such diverse backgrounds and are mostly minorities."

"Representation matters," she added. "Through books, through posters, through music or dolls, things like that allows them [kids] to be more comfortable and more active within the classroom setting … I feel when we expose children to that more frequently, they become more accepting, which would lead them, later on in life, growing up to be more accepting as adults as well."

We've compiled diverse children's book recommendations from Hilliard, Smith and several Los Angeles librarians who have all curated lists of their own to help foster deep and meaningful conversations about race and racism.

"Children are never too young to begin to have these conversations," said Judith Kantor, a teacher-librarian at the University of California, Los Angeles, Lab School.

Read on for their picks.

For kids 12 and younger

'An ABC of Equality' by Chana Ginelle Ewing

3 months old to 5 years

"The 'ABC of Equality' appears to be a board book for a baby, but I think it's just a great resource and a tool worth talking about," said Hilliard. "In this book, like 'P' is for privilege and 'R' is for race and 'O' is for oppression. … And on the flipped page, it's giving you commonsense information about how we should treat people.

"It's just a good conversation starter for introducing social justice topics and language and teaching early on that all people should be celebrated and treated equally."

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'Sulwe' by Lupita Nyong'o

Ages 4 to 8

"It's a beautiful picture book that focuses on colorism and racism as well," said Smith. "She [the main character] is very dark skinned and she's tired of getting teased for it. And she goes home upset, and she essentially wishes her color away, wishes that she could erase her color. But her family tells her that her skin is beautiful."

"So it's also a book about self-acceptance and confidence in yourself," Smith added.

'Hands Up' by Breanna J. McDaniel

"It's a picture book that follows a girl from the moment she's born and as she grows, you see the phrase ['Hands Up'] stretching toward the sun in triumph," said Joanna Fabicon, a librarian at the children's literature department at the Los Angeles Public Library. "The phrase is charged, but it's recast in a triumphant light and it also provides a platform for talking about Black Lives Matter. In the end, they're all at a protest."

MORE: Merriam-Webster redefining racism after college graduate calls for action

'The Youngest Marcher: The Story of Audrey Faye Hendricks, a Young Civil Rights Activist' by Cynthia Levinson

Ages 5 to 10

"It's about a child, which can show kids that you can always be a part of this [the movement]. You don't have to wait until you grow up and this is something you can do," said Kantor. "I think it's important that kids can see that kids have been part of this movement standing up against segregation, marching alongside other students."

'Intersection Allies: We Make Room For All' by Chelsea Johnson

Ages 6 to 12

"It's a push for feminism, but within the book itself, it also focuses on diversity," said Smith who also said it discusses a variety of topics like race, protest and disabilities. "I would say that's a really good book that promotes all-around diversity and inclusiveness."

'We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices' by Wade Hudson and Cheryl Willis Hudson

Ages 8 to 12

"This is a compilation of works by a number of authors," said Fabicon. "There's poems, letters from one author to her children. They're empowering and they acknowledge what's going on in this world."

'Woke: A Young Poet's Call to Justice' by Mahogany L. Browne, Elizabeth Acevedo and Olivia Gatwood

"It's a collection of poems by women that reflects the joy and passion behind the fight for social justice, tackling topics from discrimination to empathy and acceptance to speaking out," said Candice Mack, a managing librarian at the Los Angeles Public Library.

'Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness' by Anastasia Higginbotham

"The book talks about what White parents can say to their kids about racism and what it means to be white and how you can be an ally," said Kantor. "For white families, it could be a great book to open up a discussion about how racism can affect them and that we're all in this together."

MORE: Here are 8 books on race and privilege to learn how to be a white ally

Young Adult

'This Book is Anti-Racist: 20 Lessons on how to Wake Up, Take Action, and Do the Work' by Tiffany Jewell

Ages 11 to 15

"This book goes into detail about some of the constructs and history of race and how race is something that people decided to bring into definition to separate people," said Hilliard. "It's for people who want to learn and take some lessons on how to be anti-racist and make a plan for how you may walk in the world differently now that you understand these things."

MORE: Valedictorian's anti-racism message sparks controversy: 'I wanted a wake-up call'

'March: Book One-Three' by Congressman John Lewis, Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell

Ages 13 to 16

"The art style of this book is like it's something out of the 'Green Arrow' or something crazy," said Matisse Mozer, a librarian at the Los Angeles Public Library, who described that it's a story about Congressman John Lewis' experiences in the Civil Rights movement. "It's this historical fiction that hits you really hard and it's this long recount of the '60s."

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Why Representation Matters in Children’s Literature

Join me and authors Dorina Lazo Gilmore-Young, Tina M. Cho, and Xochitl Dixon for a series exploring what representation means to each of us. I’m kicking things off with the blog post below.

The Impact of Representation 

In 2004 a new children’s book made a delightful debut. I Like Myself, written by Karen Beaumont, used energetic rhymes to deliver a story of self-love that featured a little brown girl with a dynamic personality. David Catrow’s whimsical illustrations featured a lead character with spiraling black hair. 

This sweet book found its way into my home and into the hands of my then four-year-old daughter Chase. I remember her walking around and quoting the lines that had been read over and over to her:

I like myself!

I’m glad I’m me.

There’s no one else 

I’d rather be.

This book was so loved that Chase felt the need to write a note inside the front cover: 

Chase loves this book!

Sixteen years later, Chase would find her purpose as a skilled painter, passionate about capturing brown skin-toned beauty on canvas. In a recent interview upon the release of her first published artistic work, Chase was asked about her inspiration for painting diversity. She mentioned I Like Myself and the impact of seeing a character who had spirally black hair just like hers.

Educator Rudine Sims Bishop teaches about the need for children to find mirrors of self-affirmation in books. I wanted that for my four black children as we raised them in a charming southern town. Many hours were spent at our local library, pulling books and engaging in storytime. While our diverse church was faithful to provide curriculum and images that reflected the beauty of diverse skin tones, I also wanted our home library to give my children both affirmation of their God-given beauty, and reinforcement of our faith-filled values. 

Visits to the local Christian bookstore did not satisfy this need; and often, the mainstream bookstores only had a few titles that featured characters that looked like my children. When I came across books that gave the double duty of ethnic diversity and faith, I grabbed them to stock our home and classrooms.

Five years ago when God began giving me story ideas, I collected them in my journal, thinking a blog was forming. But slowly, as I reflected on cultural events and the frustration I felt when well-meaning white Christians bragged about teaching their children to be colorblind, I felt called to make a difference by writing books that would impact young hearts. God mined decades of diverse church leadership and shaped a new mid-life adventure for me. And as I began researching and learning the world of publishing, all the treasured picture books that my kids had outgrown became valuable resources.

I am so thankful that there are more options of representation available for children. Diversity of ethnicity, culture, ability, religion, and family background is widely featured in forthcoming releases for children. And it is both an honor and a joy to be one of many who are passionate about providing literary mirrors for little children, especially brown and black children who, like my daughter, deserve to feel the delight of seeing a character who looks like them.

Parents have shared the power of ColorFull giving their children a tool to describe the shade of skin God made for them. A mother wheeled in her toddler son for a hospital book signing for ThoughtFull and thanked me for writing a book that included a boy in a wheelchair. Messages have poured in from grateful parents and ministry leaders, sharing the need for resources like GraceFull that help open up dialogue on difficult and relevant subjects. These words all deeply bless me and remind me that representation impacts both the children who see themselves and the adults who read alongside.

Coming in October, The Celebration Place will give children a window into the beauty of diversity in our church experiences. And I celebrate Black girl joy next January with the release of Crowned with Glory – focusing on self-love and celebrating how we each are crowned with God’s glory. 

I treasure the psalmist’s reflections in Psalm 104:24:

What a wildly wonderful world, God! You made it all, with Wisdom at your side, 

made earth overflow with your wonderful creations.

Books open up a wonderful world for young minds curious about the diverse people and places around them. I also believe adults need to cultivate hearts that are open to learn and grow. 

And there are young little girls like my Chase out there. I’m writing for them, for the delight that will fill their eyes and the joy that will overflow as they see their beautiful selves on the pages of a story. I’m hoping they know that they are seen, valued, and loved.

One dog-eared book shaped my young daughter and the purpose she would grow into. I pray that many more just like her will be impacted by the power of representation.

And now I’m pleased to introduce my friend Dorina! Besides sharing a name, we share a passion for multicultural children’s literature and a publisher (WaterBrook Multnomah)!

Cora loves being in the kitchen, but she always gets stuck doing the kid jobs like licking the spoon. One day, however, when her older sisters and brother head out, Cora finally gets the chance to be Mama’s assistant chef. Cora and Mama work together to cook up pancit for the family in this celebration of Filipino heritage and foods. 

Mosaic Voices: Why representation matters in children’s literature and beyond

By Dorina Lazo Gilmore-Young

I was a voracious reader when I was young. Part of this was instigated by my mother, who was a teacher, and read books aloud to my brother and me. She invited us to venture through the wardrobe into another world with Lucy, Edmund, Susan, and Peter. She made the poetry of Robert Frost come alive as we imagined those two roads that diverged in a yellow wood.

My favorite picture book when I was a child was Nine Days to Christmas by Hall Ets, a Caldecott Winner. In the early ‘80s, it was one of the few books I could find that featured a girl with brown skin like mine and included rich cultural details.

Although our family did not have Mexican roots, I was mesmerized by this book. It transported me to another place that somehow felt like home. My mom had lived in Mexico and she affirmed the storyline of this book, where a girl named Ceci is eagerly awaiting Las Posadas – the traditional nine-day series of Christmas celebrations in her village.

I examined the illustrations and poured over the pages of that book again and again. I felt like I was going to the market with Ceci and her mother to select the biggest piñata we could find.

I dreamed of becoming a children’s book author one day and writing books like this one.

I ended up pursuing a career in newspaper reporting and teaching, but one summer I found out about a class on writing children’s books. I knew it was time to pursue my dream of writing for kids. I eventually enrolled in the MFA in Children’s Literature program at Hollins University.

 Through my graduate work, I had permission to spend hours in the library reading children’s literature and writing stories. In those years, I had my first baby girl with two more to come. I longed to write books for my own multiracial daughters and others that centered characters of color. 

WHY I WROTE CORA COOKS PANCIT

During that season, I wrote Cora Cooks Pancit about a Filipino-American girl learning to cook a traditional noodle dish with her mama. The book was a compilation of my own experiences growing up in the kitchen with my mama, grandmas, and aunties as well as the stories I had gathered of other Filipino-American families in California’s Central Valley. I wanted kids to swirl the pancit noodles in the pot, smell the garlic, and hear the hiss and sizzle of the onions sautéing. 

I tried for several years to get that book published, but continued to receive nice rejection letters. Editors and agents told me they liked the story, but the book was too niche to sell. In other words, stories about a specific cultural group like this one would be hard to market.

One day, I received a phone call from an editor named Renee Ting. She just read my manuscript and wanted to publish it. 

I almost dropped the phone.

When I got home and consulted my notes, I discovered I had submitted to Shen’s Books two years earlier. In a few months, I signed a contract with Shen’s Books (today an imprint of Lee & Low Books). I didn’t have an agent, but Renee ushered me through the publishing process. My book baby , Cora Cooks Pancit , was born in June 2009 with illustrations by Kristi Valiant.

Our book was awarded the Picture Book of the Year by the Asian American Librarian’s Association. We were invited to Washington, D.C. to receive the award and give speeches. The most magical part was meeting my illustrator Kristi in person and hearing more about her process in creating the beautiful illustrations.

Over the next decade, I read Cora Cooks Pancit aloud and spoke at schools up and down the state of California. My greatest joy was seeing the faces of Filipino-American students light up when they recognized the signature dish that represented their culture – pancit. 

On several occasions, I cooked pancit for classes. Students from all different cultures tasted it for the first time. This was an open door to celebrate diversity and culture and to pivot away from the colorblind rhetoric that so often finds its way into education settings. 

Today, my Cora book is 11 years old and in her ninth printing. I like to think of her as a middle schooler in a new season for publishing. My heart is encouraged as I see a mounting desire among publishers, schools, and readers for books about and for children of color.

STORIES HAVE THE POWER TO HEAL

My youngest daughter, who is 9 now, enjoys books like Colorfull by Dorena Williamson, Different Like Me by Xochitl Dixon, My Breakfast with Jesus by Tina Cho, The Mindy Kim series by Lyla Lee, and Any Day with You by Mae Respicio featuring kids that look like her. These books are not considered “too niche,” but regarded as an invitation to readers to learn from and about kids from multicultural backgrounds.

We have tasted progress like an appetizer, but haven’t been served the full meal. Representation still matters. As an author, an educator, and a mother of three brave girls, I want to be part of serving up new dishes to add to the feast. 

Our family recently started a membership program called Global Glory Chasers . Each month we focus on a specific country and curate a list of books, movies, music, and recipes so families can delve deeper into learning about different cultures together. I believe that reading and listening to diverse stories can help shape all of us.

Stories have the power to educate, instruct, and heal.

As a Christian, I look to Jesus as the best model for using stories to heal. Jesus was a storyteller. He brought the Good News. He chose to share stories that represented and challenged the people who listened. He invited the marginalized to tell their stories. He didn’t elevate the story of a tax collector over an abused woman, or a Jew over a Gentile. Instead, he treated each narrative as precious and part of the whole story being written by God Himself. His stories resounded with love and forgiveness.

Psalm 107 says: “Let the redeemed of the LORD tell their story— those he redeemed from the hand of the foe, those he gathered from the lands, from east and west, from north and south.” (Psalm 107:2-3, NIV)

These words are an invitation to tell our stories. The Israelites continued to tell the story of how God restored them from captivity. Jesus told stories that would shape our understanding of His Father’s Kingdom. And we are called to tell our stories today. When we have fuller representation of stories by God’s image-bearers, we experience a more dynamic narrative of who God is and the work He is doing in our world. 

Dorina is an award-winning author, speaker, Bible teacher, and podcaster. She helps people chase God’s glory down unexpected trails and flourish in their God-given callings. She and her husband Shawn are raising three brave daughters in Central California, who love to travel and learn about different cultures. Connect with her at www.DorinaGilmore.com.

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Here’s why representation in children's books matters

Natalie Warren

Having created 70+  personalised books  (and counting!), we know the power of helping a child to see themself in the world of books – and the long-lasting impact of children’s books with representation. In fact, we believe so strongly in representation in children’s books that we commissioned our own  research  in partnership with OnePoll to report on it.

We asked 1,000 little readers aged 6 to 12 – and their parents – what they thought about children’s books with diverse representation, and more than a third don’t currently feel represented due to their gender or ethnicity. But that’s just scratching the surface. Read on to see why what we read can drastically impact what we do, and who we are.

Creating windows and mirrors

Let’s start off with some interesting facts, shall we? Big thinker – or ‘Relational Scholar’ to be precise –  Emily Style first published her ‘windows and mirrors’ take on the curriculum in 1988, and it couldn’t be more appropriate today. In recent years, the term has become widely used by educators when discussing children’s books, and it essentially means that reading offers windows into other’s lives, while mirrors reflect your own. And it is thought that only through a balance of the two that engagement can really take hold.

This, of course, makes perfect sense. How often did you feel a bond with a character that shared either visible or interested-related similarities to yourself when you were younger? Be it your family make-up, ethnicity, love of horses or whether you both wore glasses or not. Just like choosing friends, oftentimes we seek validation from our stories, too. We want to be told we’re not alone, that we can lead exciting lives, and ultimately, get our own happy endings.

In  our own research , we found that of the 50% of girls who don’t feel represented in the books they read, 39% thought lead roles in stories always seemed to be boys. While only 13% of parents see minority races represented in the books their children read. This is just one of the reasons why we chose to make our books entirely personalised. We also learned from the children we spoke to that nearly three-quarters read regularly but noticed that characters often look the same and don’t always represent different views, which is something that needs to be addressed really quickly.

How reading shapes perceptions

Reading doesn’t just alter how you feel about yourself, but also how you feel about everyone else, too. It is vital for everyone, yes  everyone , to be exposed to all different kinds of books and stories, in order to grow into the most open, compassionate, and insightful people they can be.

In response to our survey, Asi Sharabi, Co-Founder of Wonderbly, underlined the value of finding books with diverse representation: “Books are a way to educate your child on an infinite number of topics and themes that shape how they view the world.” And quite simply, the more that children understand and appreciate that everyone is different and that there is no such thing as ‘normal’, the better future generations will be. If we don’t fill these knowledge gaps with positive tales of diversity, then they will likely be filled unconsciously by indiscriminate outside sources, such as stereotype-driven hearsay and media.

With this in mind, we took our research beyond the world of books, as parents recognize the importance of representation in all aspects of a child’s life. Three-quarters of parents believe it’s important for kids to see themselves in the content they consume including books, movies and TV. While 44% of children would like to see more people like them in movies and 44% want to see more representation in TV shows. When it comes to the characters that star in these shows over a third (36%) of children said they have never seen a character they relate to on television, while over half have asked their parents to buy books with personalities that speak, look or act like them.

Why more really is more

Quite simply, the more children see themselves represented in the books that they read, the more books they will read. This is something that 62% of parents believed when we asked them. While 61% stated that a lack of representation when it came to race and gender had put them off reading altogether. Which is logical, as if you don’t see yourself or your circumstances mirrored back at you in the stories you seek out, then it is entirely possible that you would think that they’re not for you. In the same way children’s books and grown-up books cover different things, the same principle applies.

In fact, our research conclusively found that in order to engage a child in reading they need to feel they can relate to either the story or characters. While parents were very aware of this when it comes to the books and content they choose, they found there were lots of character traits children didn’t see in their books.

The 20 most common traits highlighted as missing from children’s books were

• Being transgender
• A physical disability
• Skin conditions
• Female or non-binary/alternative gender identity
• Having same-sex parents
• Having lost a parent
• Having dyslexia
• Being significantly under/above average height
• Non-heterosexual sexuality
• Religious beliefs
• Living in a flat
• Minority race
• Having divorced parents
• Wearing glasses
• Not having a brother or sister
• Non-native nationality
• Wearing braces
• Uncommon hair colour

A way to explore feelings

As children grow, so do their brains – at an astonishing rate. And with this, come a lot of thoughts and feelings. We know that historically, this was an element of parenting and development that was overlooked, but now, learning to be emotionally communicative is recognised as one of the key steps in becoming a happy and healthy grown-up. And, surprise surprise, representation in children’s books plays a big part. 

If you think that a lot of the emotions that children experience are new to them, then it makes sense that a degree of reassurance and normalisation is needed. Whether it’s loneliness, starting school, dealing with new family dynamics, or even grief, when a child sees a character similar to themself in the same circumstances to them, they can then relate more to the story. It can help them understand the thoughts, feelings, and motivations of others, as well as provide validation for their own feelings.

Empowering future heroes

Children needing and wanting to see themselves in the lead role of a book is about more than status. It’s about eliminating limits and maximising dreams and ambitions. As Wonderbly Co-Founder Asi Sharabi explains: “When children see themselves as the hero of a story, it helps them believe that they can do anything they can imagine; that any story they imagine could be their story.”

The power of seeing yourself in a book was also widely acknowledged by parents, with almost half believing that seeing characters like themselves in books enables children to feel they can achieve anything. Though 38% admitted it was difficult to find books that do represent their children.

At Wonderbly, we know that  personalisation  helps children relate to the storylines and makes children more receptive to the key messages of each tale. Asi continues: “We want as many children as possible to see themselves in their own story. When you create a Wonderbly book online, you choose from a range of skin tones, hairstyles, and colours to bring your child’s character to life.” With the insight from this survey, we’ll be working hard to make sure our personalised books continue to reflect the experiences of all the fantastic little readers out there, because representation in children’s books truly matters.

Feeling inspired to mix things up? Discover our bestselling personalised books to start building your unique home library!

Personalised books for kids of all ages

From tiny tots to little adventurers, discover our range of books to show them anything is possible.

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Privacy Overview

The importance of children’s representation in literature and media

Children’s representation is a key issue for child development and growth, and it has taken different forms over time. Children’s literature has played an important role in the discovery of the external and inner world of children , but the lack of representation of some ethnical groups has also represented a big challenge which is still far from being satisfied. In this sense, media have tried to fill the gap, falling into the same stereotypes which affected the literature’s world. Nevertheless, there are some actors who could still promote a shift in culture. 

Why children’s representation matters

Children shape their reality according to the models they build with many bricks: stories, songs, films, plays, experiences and many other factors which help them in codifying the reality into common patterns to be reproduced. Through these elements, they discover how the world they live in and themselves, too. 

In particular, stories play an important role in children’s representation: they provide information and models, they guide the reader through the discovery of the world, both real and imaginary, and they convey values such as friendship, empathy, courage, sense of belonging, emotions and diversity which are essential for child development and growth. 

At the same time, what stories and books taught to children before is now replaced by media content and this is why children’s representation should take into account both aspects: literature and media. 

Children’s representation in literature and media plays a significant role in child development and growth because it helps children to understand the reality they live in or to discover other cultures, giving them the opportunity to develop empathy and respect for cultural differences. Children’s representation is important to how kids build their perspectives on their own ethnic-racial group , as well as that of others (Rogers, 2021). In this sense, children’s representation has a double dimension: on one hand, it support the discovery of an external dimension, and on the other, it provides inputs for the discovery of the inner dimension.

But what happens if children don’t find representations about themselves or the reality in which they live? 

The consequences of the lack of representation

“Children, especially in the early years, are like little sponges, absorbing all the information around them and then actively making sense of it.” – Hunter, 2018

In this sense, the lack of representation of the reality in which they live may also affect them in a long-term perspective and under many points of view. For instance, research shows that a lack of representation in media can lead to negative psychological outcomes for those with identities that are underrepresented or negatively portrayed (Tukachinsky, Mastro, &Yarchi, 2017). Exposure to negative media depictions of their own ethnic-racial groups can undermine children’s sense of self, whereas high-quality children’s media can promote positive ethnic-racial attitudes and interactions (Rogers, 2021).

A study on the effects of television on elementary-aged children shows a negative correlation between TV exposure and lower self-esteem for Black girls and boys and White girls, but it also emphasized a positive correlation between TV exposure and higher self-esteem for White boys (Martins & Harrison, 2012).

The same findings are shown by the research that underlined how identifying with popular characters with the same identities in mainstream media leads to higher self-esteem on several dimensions (Ward, 2004). The scientific literature about the effects on children’s well-being supports the importance of realistic, diverse and inclusive representation in children’s media.

Moreover, if children do not perceive themselves as represented by the media or the literature they consume, they may also begin to feel invisible, unimportant (Levinson, 2020) or less important than others. The risks related to this aspect play along with the reaffirmation of a single narrative which is based on stereotypes , and which hinder the possibility for individuals to achieve their goals and dreams on the basis of their personal capacities and aspirations. And if children do not perceive themselves as architects, teachers or engineers they may not perceive these carriers in the future. 

If children do not have the possibility to see people with their identities and features being portrayed in a positive way, they may rely on the assumption that their identity is fully represented by those stereotypes which define who they are. The “problems with stereotypes is not the fact they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story”. That is what Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie defines by the “danger of a single story” (Adiche, 2019). 

The state of art in children’s literature

The affirmation of the importance of children’s representation in literature can be linked to one important milestone which goes back to 1990 when Rudine Sims Bishop codified the “Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors” metaphor in order to describe the role of children’s literature. According to Bishop, window books “[offer] views of worlds that may be real or imagined,” and “are also sliding glass doors, and readers have only to walk through in imagination to become part of whatever world has been created by the author” (1990). 

In mirror books, “we can see our own lives and experiences as part of the larger human experience,” which, Bishop argues, is a “means of self-affirmation” (Bishop, 1990). In this sense, children’s literature can represent a mirror for the society, both reflecting the reality we live in and “projecting how we want our children to be” (Dahlen, 2020). 

Since then, children’s representation in literature has gained more and more importance and the definition of “representation” has changed over time according to the reality which it was changing, too. For a long time, the children’s literature world has been what Nancy Larrick called “all-white” (Larrick, 2020), but with time, more and more characters representing different ethnicities started to enter the scene of children’s books as a response of the lack of representation.

This was possible thanks to the increase in demand on the part of the consumers, but also thanks to an entire generation of authors who grew up with no reference to such diversity and who wanted to contribute to a shift in culture.

The Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Education analysed the percentage of children’s books written by and/or about non-white people from 1985 till today. In the period between 1985 and 2015, the percentage of children’s books written by and/or about non-white people fluctuated between 9 and 14 percent (Dahlen, 2020).

In 2016, the “about” percentage reached 22 percent, but this increase in representation also showed a dark side: as many white authors created more characters of colour and with ambiguous ethnicities, e.g. brown-skinned, they promoted also stereotyped characters which fostered false perceptions about the ethnicities they represented. This aspect was also underlined by the 2016 “by” percentage which amounted to only 13 percent, significantly lower than the 22 percent “about.” 

In the period between 2018 and 2020, the percentage of children’s books written by non-white people fluctuated between 23.79 (2018) and 28.56 percent (2020), whereas the “about” percentage fluctuated between 29.64 (2018) and 30.25 percent (2020) (CCBC’s website). 

The CCBC statistics show a slow increase in diverse books over the past decade, with more drastic changes in more recent years. According to Lee & Low’s 2018 infographic, the numbers rose from 10 to 14 percent between 2013 and 2014, and then “jumped” to 20 percent in 2015, 28 percent in 2016, and 31 percent in 2017 (Corrie, 2018). These data depict a positive trend which is still far from representing the reality American children live in which half of the country’s children are non-white (Dahlen, 2020).

Lee & Low’s infographics demonstrate that the “diversity gap” is not a problem specific to children’s literature, but to power and media industries generally. Their Lee & Low’s 2018 infographic used the 2017 CCBC data and communicated that only 7 percent, or 288 of 3700 books surveyed, were written by Black, Latinx, and Native writers (Corrie, 2018). In this sense, literature and media have a common element which hinders a truthful representation of the reality that children live which is represented by power. 

The role of the media in children’s representation

Media play a key role in the life of children and young people which has increased over time. In 2019, young people spent an average of 2 hours per day watching television shows (Rideout, 2019) and by the Covid-19 pandemic , the use of media contents has increased given its multiple purposes: entertainment, connection, education , creativity and link with the external world (Rideout, 2021). 

Given this context, it is important to consider the main effects of such early and constant media exposure in relation to the positive or negative impacts of children’s representation. An important contribution to answering this question is offered by the Cultivation Theory which states that exposure to media helps to shape thoughts, perceptions, and behaviours, and viewers adopt the assumptions and beliefs of media content as reality (Gerbner & Gross, 1976).

Children are particularly vulnerable to media messages and use what they see in media to create their beliefs about themselves and others. Therefore, the media industry holds great power over the socialization and self-concept of young people (Levinson, 2020) and they play a significant role in children’s representation. 

An interesting report on North American children’s (up to age 12) television content highlighted the recurrent use of stereotypes and the scarce correspondence to the reality in which children live (Lemish& Johnson, 2019). For instance, 65 percent of characters were white, and female characters were more likely to be non-white or racially ambiguous than male characters. Also, 38 percent of characters were women or girls, while almost 51 percent of the US population is female.

Apart from that, female characters were twice as likely to solve problems using magic while males were more likely to solve problems using science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) or their physicality (Levinson, 2020). Moreover, only 1 percent of the characters showed signs of physical disability or chronic disease , even if 20 percent of the population lives with a disability (Okoro et al., 2018) and only 2 percent of the characters presented a lower socioeconomic status, whereas about 20 percent of the American children live below the poverty line (NCCP). 

The latest report at Common Sense, “The Inclusion Imperative: Why Media Representation Matters for Kids’ Ethnic-Racial Development”, has highlighted the underrepresentation and the stereotyping of people of colour in movies and TV roles(Rogers, 2021). For instance, despite accounting for 18 percent of the population, Latinos only make up 5 percent of speaking film roles. Characters of colour in shows most watched by children between 2 and 13 are more likely to be depicted as violent and women of all ethnic-racial groups in adult programming are more likely to appear in sexualized roles (Rogers, 2021).

According to the perceptions of the parents and caregivers involved in the research, white people are often portrayed in a positive light in the media their children are exposed to, whereas one in four believe that portrayals of Black, Hispanic and LGBTQIA+ people are more likely to be negative (Rogers, 2021).

The above-mentioned studies show how children’s representation in the media does not reflect the reality in which children live but, on the contrary, it promotes a narrative which is based on stereotypes and predefined roles in which children may identify. Once again, the media risk promoting a “Single story” (Adiche, 2019). 

Who are the main stakeholders to promote a shift in culture?

Promoting a shift in culture in children’s representation in literature and media is essential in order to fulfil children’s right to “discover and develop their personality, talents and mental and physical abilities to their fullest potential” ( Article 29 (1), lett. a) CRC ). To achieve this goal, all the actors involved in the life of a child play a significant role.

First of all, publishers and librarians contribute to the cause by selecting which books to print and sell. In this way, they can influence the possible choices that consumers can make. In a globalized and interconnected world , it is easier and easier to have access to different sources of information, but this also depends on the open-mindedness and awareness that these actors have about the importance of children’s representation. 

With this respect, also consumers have the power to influence what the market offers them, both in terms of books and media content. In particular, parents are more and more attentive to the content their children consume and they ask media creators to deliver content that better reflects the diversity of the world in which their kids are growing up (Rogers, 2021). 

In this sense, also authors and creators have the power to influence the contents they produce in order to better represent the reality in which children live and to inspire them thanks to their privileged role. They provide “windows” (Bishop, 1990) to the external world and they guide children to the discovery of the world and themselves, too. 

Last but not least, children are the key actors to promote a shift in culture which is more representative of the reality in which they live and more respectful of their identities , needs, thoughts and aspirations. The best way to achieve this goal is to start talking about their stories and to include themselves in the stories they imagine, because each single story is important and needs to be told. 

Humanium is at the forefront in supporting the diversity and inclusiveness of all children all in order to make their voices heard. We advocate for a world where children’s rights are respected and protected, and we work to assure that children of all backgrounds, genders and ethnicities are represented by the media and the literature equally! Discover how to stand up for children’s rights,  join our community ,  interact with our work , and share our mission through our  website ,  Facebook page  or  newsletter !

Written by Arianna Braga [1]

For More Information:

Books by and/or about Black, Indigenous and People of Color (All Years)

Lee & Low’s 2018 infographic

References:

Adichie, C. (July, 2019). The danger of a single story. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story?language=en , accessed on 16 February 2022.

Convention on the rights of the child (1989) Treaty no. 27531. United Nations Treaty Series, 1577, pp. 3-178. Retrieved from https://treaties.un.org/doc/Treaties/1990/09/19900902%2003-14%20AM/Ch_IV_11p.pdf , accessed on 16 February 2022.

Corrie, J. (10 May, 2018). The Diversity Gap in Children’s Book Publishing, 2018. Retrieved from https://blog.leeandlow.com/2018/05/10/the-diversity-gap-in-childrens-book-publishing-2018/ , accessed on 15 February 2022.

Dahlen S.P. (2020). “We Need Diverse Books”: Diversity, Activism, and Children’s Literature. In: op de Beeck N. (eds) Literary Cultures and Twenty-First-Century Childhoods. Literary Cultures and Childhoods. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32146-8_5 , accessed on 16 February 2022.

Gerbner, G., Gross, L., (June, 1976). Living with Television: The Violence Profile,  Journal of Communication , Volume 26, Issue 2, June 1976, Pages 172–199. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.1976.tb01397.x , accessed on 17 February 2022.

Hunter, E. (January 18, 2018). Children are like little sponges’: early learning can set them up for life. Retrieved from https://theirworld.org/news/early-learning-sets-up-young-children-for-life , accessed on 16 February 2022.

Huyck, D., Park Dahlen, S., Griffin, M. B. (September 14, 2016). Diversity in Children’s Books 2015 infographic. Retrieved from https://readingspark.wordpress.com/2016/09/14/picture-this-reflecting-diversity-in-childrens-book-publishing/  

Huyck, D., Park Dahlen. (June 19, 2019). Diversity in Children’s Books 2018. Created in consultation with Edith Campbell, Molly Beth Griffin, K. T. Horning, Debbie Reese, Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, and Madeline Tyner. Retrieved from https://readingspark.wordpress.com/2019/06/19/picture-this-diversity-in-childrens-books-2018-infographic/ , accessed on 15 February 2022.

Larrick, N. (1965). The All-White World of Children’s Books. Retrieved from https://brichislitspot.files.wordpress.com/2017/08/384larrick.pdf , accessed on 15 February 2022.

Levinson, J. (March 5, 202). Why Diversity in Children’s Media is So Important. Retrieved from https://www.psychologyinaction.org/psychology-in-action-1/2020/3/5/why-diversity-in-childrens-media-is-so-important , accessed on 16 February 2022.

Martins, N., & Harrison, K. (2012). Racial and Gender Differences in the Relationship Between Children’s Television Use and Self-Esteem. Communication Research , 39 (3), 338–357. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650211401376 , accessed on 16 February 2022.

NCCP | Child Poverty. (2019). Retrieved February 28, 2020, from http://www.nccp.org/topics/childpoverty.html , accessed on 16 February 2022.

Okoro, C. A., Hollis, N. D., Cyrus, A. C., & Griffin-Blake, S. (2018). Prevalence of Disabilities and Health Care Access by Disability Status and Type Among Adults — United States, 2016. MMWR. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report , 67 (32), 882–887. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm6732a3 , accessed on 16 February 2022.

Rideout, V., and Robb, M. B. (2019). The Common Sense census: Media use by tweens and teens, 2019. San Francisco, CA: Common Sense Media.

Rideout, V. and Robb, M. B. (2021). The role of media during the pandemic: Connection, creativity, and learning for tweens and teens. San Francisco, CA: Common Sense.

Rogers, O. (October 20, 2021). Why Representation Matters in Kids’ Media [Blog Post]. Retrieved from https://www.commonsensemedia.org/kids-action/blog/why-representation-matters-in-kids-media# , accessed on 16 February 2022.

Rogers, O., Mastro, D., Robb, M. B., & Peebles, A. (2021). The Inclusion Imperative: Why Media Representation Matters for Kids’ Ethnic-Racial Development. San Francisco, CA: Common Sense

Sims Bishop, R. (1990). “Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors.” Perspectives: Choosing and Using Books for the Classroom, vol. 6, no. 3, 1990 summer.

Statistics compiled by the Cooperative Children’s Book Center, School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison:  https://ccbc.education.wisc.edu/literature-resources/ccbc-diversity-statistics/books-by-about-poc-fnn/ , accessed on 15 February 2022.

Tukachinsky, R., Mastro, D., &Yarchi, M. (2017). The Effect of Prime Time Television Ethnic/Racial Stereotypes on Latino and Black Americans: A Longitudinal National Level Study. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media , 61 (3), 538–556. https://doi.org/10.1080/08838151.2017.1344669 , accessed on 16 February 2022.

[1]  I would also thank Professor Sarah Park Dahlen for her valuable insights and comments on the topic which enriched this article.

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30 Inclusive Children’s Books About Disabilities

Thoughtful representation is essential.

Including children’s books about disabilities in our classroom libraries is as essential as any other type of diversity representation. It’s also important to have books that incidentally feature disabled people in the stories and illustrations; in the same way we need books about Black joy and stories about LGBTQ+ kids and adults in our “Family Books” bins, we need books about characters who use mobility aids that aren’t about the challenges of using a wheelchair. We also need to make sure that our books that celebrate the diversity of the human experience—like odes to bodies, families, homes, and favorite pastimes—include representation of disabled people within their pages.

How We Chose These Titles

When researching the best children’s books about disabilities to share in the classroom, we learned a lot from children’s publishing agents James and Lucy Catchpole. They are disabled, and they give great tips for teachers on their blog . (See their own picture books below too!) To create this list, we took their advice and prioritized books written by disabled authors—or at least positively reviewed by disabled individuals or their families. We looked for books that tell the stories of disabled people from their own points of view. We were cautious about books that include stereotypical tropes about disabled people (like assuming that all disabled people welcome personal questions about their disability or want to be considered “amazing” or “inspirational”).

Let’s also actively choose children’s books about disabilities that promote anti-ableism. University of San Diego professor Suzanne Stolz talks about “building an anti-ableist pedagogy” in schools as a social justice effort, in the same vein as striving toward anti-racism. “Ableism” means assuming that one-size-fits-all approaches to moving, communicating, learning, and using spaces and facilities are the best ways. An ableist outlook may view a disability as an unfortunate or inconvenient deficit. Anti-ableism focuses on the abilities of disabled individuals and celebrates chances to adapt the environment to best fit those abilities.

Children’s Picture Books About Disabilities and Including Disabled Characters

1. we move together by kelly fritsch and anne mcguire.

This gem celebrates human connection and calls for collective anti-ableist activism. The resource section at the back of the book helps classes talk about ableism, accessibility, and more. It’s an all-ages book with many layers.

Buy it: We Move Together on Amazon

2. What Happened To You? by James Catchpole

Joe is deep into a game of pirates at the playground when other children begin asking him questions about why he has one leg. Joe deftly keeps the focus on play, teaching his playmates about empathy and privacy. This is an important book for talking about respectful responses to (any) differences. Definitely check out the free lesson plans from the author’s website and his personal reasons for writing the book .

Buy it: What Happened to You? on Amazon

3. You’re So Amazing! by James and Lucy Catchpole

Joe’s back in this sequel to What Happened to You? , enjoying his large crew of buddies on the playground. The trouble is, adults keep interrupting his fun to comment how “amazing” it is that he can play despite his disability. In an interview, author James Catchpole shares : “Joe’s second adventure asks: Does Joe have to be Amazing Joe or Poor Joe? Can’t he just be … Joe?” Kids and adults need to hear this story that challenges commonly assumed narratives about people with disabilities.

Buy it: You’re So Amazing! on Amazon

4. Bodies Are Cool by Tyler Feder

This catchy and ultra-inclusive celebration of bodies celebrates the many ways people look, move, and enjoy life. The illustrations include—but don’t call out—representation of mobility devices, limb differences, prosthetics, glasses, service animals, and medical devices such as a diabetes pump.

Buy it: Bodies Are Cool on Amazon

5. Mama Zooms by Jane Cowen-Fletcher

Add this joyful title to your collection of books about families! A young boy zooms through the day on his mom’s lap in her wheelchair.

Buy it: Mama Zooms on Amazon

6. Little Senses series by Samantha Cotterill

Written by an author with autism, these stories encouragingly highlight common experiences for neurodivergent kids. Many children can relate to having to cope at noisy places, manage schedule changes, try new foods, or figure out another’s feelings.

Buy it: Little Senses series on Amazon

7. Come Over to My House by Eliza Hull and Sally Rippin

Playdates can be so exciting for kids as many kids are intrigued by other peoples’ spaces and families. This invitation to learn about friends’ homes includes adults and kids with and without disabilities. It touches on accommodations disabled people may use at home, such as different furniture, tools, or help from others. The back matter has more detailed “introductions” to the children in the book, which could help answer students’ questions.

Buy it: Come Over to My House on Amazon

8. Can Bears Ski? by Raymond Antrobus

A young bear shares his early experiences with deafness. Others keep asking him something that sounds like “Can bears ski?” When his family learns more about how to best communicate with him, he’s joyfully able to understand (and answer) the question “Can you hear me?”

Buy it: Can Bears Ski? on Amazon

9. Lone Wolf by Sarah Kurpiel

Here’s an example of a children’s book that’s not about disabilities but can increase representation in your classroom library. People ask Maple, a family husky, if she’s really a wolf … so often that she starts to wonder. The author uses a power wheelchair and shows one of the family members in the illustrations using one too.

Buy it: Lone Wolf on Amazon

10. Logan’s Greenhouse by JaNay Brown-Wood

Logan needs carrots for his upcoming “pet playdate.” He looks all over his greenhouse, noticing lots of other plants before he finally finds the crunchy orange snacks he wants. Logan uses his wheelchair to move around his accessible greenhouse and collect produce, but those details aren’t the focus of the story—the veggies are!

Buy it: Logan’s Greenhouse on Amazon

11. I Talk Like a River by Jordan Scott

This personal narrative explains how the metaphor of a flowing river helped the author feel less alone with his stuttering. This title would be a powerful addition to your collection of personal narrative writing mentor texts .

Buy it: I Talk Like a River on Amazon

12. I Am a Masterpiece! by Mia Armstrong

Mia Armstrong made history as the first child with Down syndrome to voice a cartoon character on Netflix. She’s an accomplished artist and activist too. This story celebrates some of her everyday experiences like shopping for shoes, hanging out with her friends, and navigating a school art project.

Buy it: I Am a Masterpiece! on Amazon

13. Brilliant Bea by Shaina Rudolph and Mary Vukadinovich

Reading and writing in class is stressful for Bea, but her teacher helps her unleash her brilliance by introducing her to an old-fashioned tape recorder for capturing her stories and ideas. Not only is this an expert-vetted and thoughtful representation of possible experiences of someone with dyslexia, it can help frame conversations about the value of any accommodations in the classroom that help someone thrive.

Buy it: Brilliant Bea on Amazon

14. My Three Best Friends and Me, Zulay by Cari Best

Zulay is a blind first grader. She’s already learned to read and write braille, climb trees, swim, and has a fun crew of friends. She’s learning to use a cane, and she works determinedly to run a race on Field Day. We like how the rhythmic text and Vanessa Brantley-Newton’s illustrations make this book feel fresh and fun, and not overly teach-y.

Buy it: My Three Best Friends and Me, Zulay on Amazon

15. More Than Words: So Many Ways To Say What We Mean by Roz MacLean

Nathan doesn’t say many words, but he notices a lot about the people around him and how they share their ideas and feelings. Whether it’s through talking, making sounds, moving, writing, using braille, sign language, or AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication) tools, everyone has something valuable to say. This is an ideal elementary classroom read-aloud about the many ways people can express themselves.

Buy it: More Than Words: So Many Ways To Say What We Mean on Amazon

16. Mara Hears in Style by Terri Clemmons

This book about starting at a new school stars Mara, who wears hearing aids, reads lips, and uses sign language. Her first day has some tricky parts, but as she and her classmates learn more about each other, friendship grows. This is a straightforward and empowering title to open conversations about how a hearing-impaired person might experience a busy, noisy school setting.

Buy it: Mara Hears in Style on Amazon

17. Daisy the Daydreamer by Jennifer P. Goldfinger

Daisy’s imagination definitely makes life more interesting for her, but sometimes it takes on a life of its own—and can make it look like she’s not listening at school. Inspired by the author’s own experience as someone with ADHD, this story and its whimsical illustrations give kids a concrete way to talk about how people’s brains work differently and benefit from different ways to show what they know.

Buy it: Daisy the Daydreamer on Amazon

Informational Children’s Books About Disabilities

18. not so different: what you really want to ask about having a disability by shane burcaw.

The author uses photos and examples from his own life to answer FAQs and normalize disability for kids. He has a great sense of humor, which makes for an accessible, lighthearted tone. Just give it a read-through first to make sure your students with disabilities would feel comfortable hearing the book shared in a group. Also, point out that while Shane is eager to share personal details, not all disabled people feel the same.

Buy it: Not So Different: What You Really Want To Ask About Having a Disability on Amazon

19. Rescue & Jessica: A Life-Changing Friendship by Jessica Kensky and Patrick Downes

If you’re looking for children’s books about disabilities featuring service dogs, choose this one! Jessica Kensky, an amputee, shares how her black lab is both a service dog and a treasured companion.

Buy it: Rescue & Jessica: A Life-Changing Friendship on Amazon

20. All the Way to the Top: How One Girl’s Fight for Americans With Disabilities Changed Everything by Annette Bay Pimentel

As an 8-year-old with cerebral palsy, activist Jennifer Keelan-Chaffins crawled to the top of the Capitol steps. This Capitol Crawl protest helped spur Congress to pass the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990. The resource section teaches readers more about the history of the ADA as well as the work still to be done.

Buy it: All the Way to the Top: How One Girl’s Fight for Americans With Disabilities Changed Everything on Amazon

21. I Am Not a Label: 34 Disabled Artists, Thinkers, Athletes and Activists From Past and Present by Cerrie Burnell

The author explains that this collection of mini-bios is a children’s book about disabilities she wishes she had as a kid. A fantastic classroom resource for browsing and sharing.

Buy it: I Am Not a Label: 34 Disabled Artists, Thinkers, Athletes and Activists From Past and Present on Amazon

22. Tenacious: Fifteen Adventures Alongside Disabled Athletes by Patty Cisneros Prevo

Two-time Paralympic gold medalist Patty Cisneros Prevo collected stories, reflections, and advice from a diverse list of disabled athletes past and present for this book. Kids who love sports will love learning about these athletes’ individual trials and achievements.

Buy it: Tenacious: Fifteen Adventures Alongside Disabled Athletes on Amazon

Middle Grade Children’s Books About Disabilities and Including Disabled Characters

23. & 24. the chance to fly and cut loose by ali stroker and stacy davidowitz.

Ali Stroker was the first person in a wheelchair to be cast in a Broadway show, so she’s well suited to write about 13-year-old Natalie, whose biggest dream is to be a musical theater star. Natalie’s experiences—with friends, seeking independence, sticking up for herself, and pursuing her passion—will be relatable and empowering for many kids.

Cut Loose! follows Natalie into eighth grade at a new school and her second big production. Fans of the series are thrilled to have a sequel to enjoy.

Buy it: The Chance to Fly Series on Amazon

25. El Deafo: Superpowered Edition! by Cece Bell

Upgrade to the more recent edition of this classroom library staple! It has new back matter with photos from the author’s life and early sketches from the book. Cece Bell based this graphic novel on her own experiences with deafness—her “superpower.” The author’s note can help kids learn about varied experiences in the Deaf community.

Buy it: El Deafo: Superpowered Edition! on Amazon

26. & 27. Frankie’s World and Finding My Voice by Aoife Dooley

In these graphic novels by popular Irish comedian Aoife Dooley, who was diagnosed as autistic as a young adult, Frankie goes through the typical ups and downs of being a tween. People think Frankie talks too much, is too sensitive, and has weird tastes. In the first series installment, she navigates finding her birth father and an autism diagnosis. In the second title, she must tackle the challenges of collaborating in a group to work toward her dream of earning a spot in a Battle of the Bands competition.

Buy it: Frankie’s World series on Amazon

28. The Many Mysteries of the Finkel Family by Sarah Kapit

Tween sisters Lara and Caroline start a detective agency and end up taking a closer look at their own family mysteries. Each sister has different characteristics on the autism spectrum. This is an affirming title for kids with similar experiences, written by an autistic author. It’s also a great discussion book to explore characterization and relationships.

Buy it: The Many Mysteries of the Finkel Family on Amazon

29. Honestly Elliott by Gillian McDunn

This highly relatable coming-of-age story includes details about Elliott’s experiences having ADHD. It’s mostly about finding yourself and finding a friend though. Kids who love cooking will especially enjoy this story.

Buy it: Honestly Elliott on Amazon

30. The Deadly Daylight by Ash Harrier

This quirky (but not scary) mystery series opener introduces Alice, who helps out after school at her family’s funeral home. Alice stumbles into an intriguing quest to figure out how one of the deceased people, who had a rare allergy to sunlight, died. Alice has muscular atrophy of one leg, which impairs her mobility; this detail gets recurring mentions but isn’t the focus of the plot.

Buy it: The Deadly Daylight on Amazon

Have more great children’s books about disabilities to add to this list? Let us know in the We Are Teachers HELPLINE on Facebook.

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How to Critically Select Children’s Books with Representations of Disability Experiences

In this guest blog post,  Monica Kleekamp , a PhD candidate in the department of Learning, Teaching & Curriculum at the University of Missouri-Columbia, discusses the importance of inclusive children’s literature and how to critically select texts with regards to representations of disability experiences.

What is inclusive children’s literature? What is it not? Why is it important?

  As students look to the shelves in their classrooms and school libraries, they seek representations of themselves— characters who look, feel, and experience the world in similar ways . The field of children’s literature continues to problematize the ways our bookshelves perpetuate representations of white, cisgender, heterosexual, and middle-class characters . A term often added to the end of this list is “able.”

Inclusive children’s literature that features characters who are either physically and/or intellectually diverse—characters who have been labeled as disabled—remain few and far between. Additionally, those texts that do exist often follow tropes of pity or dehumanization. These texts have also been heavily critiqued for their over-representation of white male characters who access prosthetics.

Educators, librarians, parents, and others interested in getting high quality literature into the hands of children must give critical attention to representation in texts that feature characters with disability labels. Disability labels placed on children by school or medical professionals are never neutral. Rather, these labels bring with them histories of exclusion and a tendency to universalize the disability experience. “Disability” is an umbrella term that carries many different meanings to those in the larger public and individuals with labels. However, we tend to use the word often—without really unpacking what we mean by it, which ends up suggesting that there is only one experience of disability.

Sharing high quality inclusive literature offers an opportunity to talk with and through books that challenge ableist norms—or the standards that have been normalized over time for how bodies and minds “should” function and perform. If we seek to thoughtfully select children’s literature with characters who may look, know, and act in diverse ways, it is first imperative to describe what this kind of literature is.

How can I make an informed decision about which books to select that include disability experiences?

Here, I offer 4 Guiding Questions to consult in your selection process. They are meant to guide your interrogation of the written and illustrated narrative. These questions are not exhaustive, but they do offer entry into making informed decisions when critically selecting inclusive children’s literature.

• Does the author/illustrator present the character with a disability label as multidimensional?

A disability label is one identity marker—and often not one a character has necessarily chosen for themselves. Memorable main characters are multidimensional and complex. Additional layers of identity are presented in a variety of ways over the course of a story. This might be through decisions characters make, the situations they find themselves in, or the relationships they build. If characters with labels do not develop over the course of the story or do not demonstrate themselves as dynamic and varied, the reader is left with little information other than a label itself.

• Whose story is this and who gets to tell it?

There is currently an over-abundance of texts that feature disability from the perspective of a sibling or friend. These characters speak for the individual with a label. In these instances, the story does not belong to the character with a disability label but rather is a narrative about them. Humanizing texts are written from a first-person perspective, centering the voice of the character with a label. There are instances when a third person narrator might also offer the character’s thoughts through ideas embedded in the story.

• As a reader, how have you been positioned to think about feel about the character with a disability label in this book?

Representations of disability experiences often position characters as individuals worthy of pity who need to be cared for, without offering any insight into the contributions the character makes to their community. This is especially true in texts that feature school settings, where characters with disability labels may be positioned as class pets while other students take turns supervising the individual. Humanizing inclusive children’s literature may tackle moments of marginalization, but they do so in complex ways. These texts acknowledge lived moments of exclusion but also include character agency and perseverance in addressing difficult circumstances.

• What opportunities does the character with a disability label have in the book to engage in authentic relationships?

Many texts with disability experiences feature one-dimensional friendships—such as the idea of individuals as class pets. In these instances, the character with a disability label is positioned as having a flat identity whose only role is to require support from those around them. This is dehumanizing and suggests that individuals with disability labels do not and cannot contribute in meaningful ways to the relationships in their lives. High quality texts offer representations of relationships in which both individuals contribute to fostering or maintaining that relationship. Humanizing literature may tackle complicated relationships in which characters grapple with peers or adults in moments of exclusion, bullying, or adversity but might also serve as models for friendships that do exist and are possible for individuals with labels.

But if I want to start selecting humanizing inclusive literature to add to my collection, where can I turn for high quality titles?

Each year, the Schneider Family Book Award , in partnership with the American Library Association , awards inclusive literature winners in the categories of teen books, middle grade texts, and books for young readers. While this is a great starting place if you are just beginning your collection, there are other places you can go to read important reviews by #ownvoices such as Disability in KidLit , or the Indigo Project , sites and blogs reserved for inclusive book reviews by individuals who identify as disabled. You might also check out the Disability Visibility Project , which addresses issues of disability representation across media including news, film and television series, etc.

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4 thoughts on “how to critically select children’s books with representations of disability experiences”.

Thank you for your article. I’d like to know if you have any book lists or recommendations for children three to five. I have struggled to find books for my children that are multi-dimensional and foster the beginnings of a conversation around disability as a social construct. Thank you for your ideas.

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Open Access

Peer-reviewed

Research Article

Sixty years of gender representation in children’s books: Conditions associated with overrepresentation of male versus female protagonists

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, United States of America

Roles Validation, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Department of Psychology, Emory University, Druid Hills, Georgia, United States of America

Roles Conceptualization, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

* E-mail: [email protected]

• Kennedy Casey, 
• Kylee Novick, 
• Stella F. Lourenco

• Published: December 15, 2021
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260566
• Reader Comments

As a reflection of prominent cultural norms, children’s literature plays an integral role in the acquisition and development of societal attitudes. Previous reports of male overrepresentation in books targeted towards children are consistent with a history of gender disparity across media and society. However, it is unknown whether such bias has been attenuated in recent years with increasing emphasis on gender equity and greater accessibility of books. Here, we provide an up-to-date estimate of the relative proportion of males and females featured as single protagonists in 3,280 children’s books (0–16 years) published between 1960–2020. We find that although the proportion of female protagonists has increased over this 60-year period, male protagonists remain overrepresented even in recent years. Importantly, we also find persistent effects related to author gender, age of the target audience, character type (human vs. non-human), and book genre (fiction vs. non-fiction) on the male-to-female ratio of protagonists. We suggest that this comprehensive account of the factors influencing the rates of appearance of male and female protagonists can be leveraged to develop specific recommendations for promoting more equitable gender representation in children’s literature, with important consequences for child development and society.

Citation: Casey K, Novick K, Lourenco SF (2021) Sixty years of gender representation in children’s books: Conditions associated with overrepresentation of male versus female protagonists. PLoS ONE 16(12): e0260566. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260566

Editor: Jennifer Steele, York University, CANADA

Received: April 1, 2021; Accepted: November 12, 2021; Published: December 15, 2021

Copyright: © 2021 Casey et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: All data and materials are publicly available on the Open Science Framework ( https://osf.io/97gfk/ ).

Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

Despite roughly equal numbers of males and females across the world’s population [ 1 ], women are underrepresented in a variety of consequential domains. For example, men outnumber women in STEM disciplines [ 2 , 3 ], politics [ 4 , 5 ], and top-ranking corporate jobs [ 6 ]. Such male overrepresentation is especially pervasive in media, including primetime television programming and television commercials [ 7 , 8 ], virtual platforms [ 9 , 10 ], and sports news coverage [ 11 ]. Often referred to as ‘symbolic annihilation’, disproportionate gender representation negatively impacts women (and men alike) by sustaining explicit and implicit biases against the female gender and diminishing women’s sense of self-worth and belonging [ 12 ].

Symbolic annihilation is also readily apparent in media targeted towards children, where the negative consequences on self-worth and belonging may be especially detrimental [ 13 ]. Accumulating evidence suggests that, in children’s literature, male characters are more prevalent than female characters [ 14 – 20 ], including in titles and illustrations [ 21 ]. In the largest study to date, McCabe et al. [ 22 ] examined the gender representation of central characters as indicated by the title, book description, and/or storyline. Their analysis included 5,618 books published between 1900 and 2000 from three sources: Caldecott award-winning books, Little Golden Books, and the Children’s Catalog. McCabe and colleagues found that male protagonists were overrepresented compared to female protagonists across all sources. There was some improvement in the frequency of female characters across the twentieth century, but even the more recent books in their sample (i.e., 1990–1999) depicted male characters with greater frequency (male-to-female ratio ≈ 1.2:1).

Importantly, McCabe and colleagues also found that specific book features affected the proportion of male and female central characters. In particular, the gender bias was larger when central characters were depicted as non-human animals instead of humans, or as adults instead of children. In another study, Hamilton et al. [ 23 ] examined the role of author gender on the proportion of male and female protagonists. Across a sample of 200 children’s books published between 1995 and 2001, they reported that female authors depicted male and female characters in comparable numbers, whereas male authors overrepresented male characters. Such findings are consistent with a broader literature suggesting that women are paramount in promoting diversity. For instance, female role models in STEM encourage more female representation [ 24 , 25 ], and the presence of women in key positions, including hiring and colloquium committees, improves institutional performance and results in more diverse employees and speakers [ 26 ].

Other studies, however, have failed to find an effect of author gender on gender representation of characters in children’s books [ 27 – 29 ], raising questions about the robustness of this potential moderator. It is worth noting that these studies included books published prior to 1995, during which time female authors may have been underrepresented [ 15 ]. Thus, it is an open question whether author gender impacts the gender bias in children’s books, as might be expected, and importantly, to what extent such an effect may have changed over time, particularly in more recent years when the number of female authors is likely to have grown.

The differential frequency of male and female characters in media might be less consequential if the accompanying content counteracted the disproportionate numbers. However, studies examining the content of children’s literature report stereotypical portrayals of male and female characters [ 17 , 30 ]. For example, males are more likely to be the bread-winners across a broad range of professions and to be depicted outdoors and as adventurous. By contrast, females are typically depicted indoors and as filling domestic roles, such as performing household chores and caring for children [ 23 , 29 , 31 , 32 ].

Despite ample evidence of gender bias in children’s books prior to 2000, there is a dearth of evidence post 2000. Moreover, the evidence that does exist post 2000 is contradictory, with some data suggesting little or no improvement in the frequency of female characters [ 33 ] and other data suggesting that the numbers of male and female characters have reached parity [ 34 ]. A potential explanation for the discrepancy is that these studies have been limited in scope, with potentially confounding variables, such as character type and author gender, not accounted for in the analyses. Previous studies have also typically focused on award-winning books or restricted their sample to only those books available in a single library or school [e.g., 23 , 32 , 35 ], potentially leading to unrepresentative estimates of gender distribution.

Present study

In addition to the impact on reading ability and language development [ 36 ], children’s books have long been considered an important source of enculturation [ 37 , 38 ]. With increasing accessibility of children’s books [ 39 ], questions related to trends in gender representation are of special importance, especially if we are to understand the early forces of gender bias and how best to overcome their cognitive and affective consequences. Thus, the present study sought to provide an updated account of the gender representation in the literature targeted towards children within the last 60 years: 1960 to 2020, with a particular focus on books published post 2000 and on books featuring a single protagonist to allow for direct comparison of the rates of appearance of male versus female central characters.

In order to obtain a representative sample of the books available to children, we analyzed books accessible online for hard copy purchase or digital reading. This approach was used to gauge widespread trends in gender representation across the 60-year period of interest, and it is an approach that overcomes limitations of previous studies, which have typically restricted their analyses to award-winning titles or books available in a specific library or school setting. Although the current approach does not guarantee a direct link to reading rates, it nevertheless addresses a critical question about publication—namely, whether books featuring male versus female protagonists are more likely to be published. Addressing this question is a crucial first step in increasing our understanding of gender bias and the potential impact on cognitive and emotional development.

As noted above, previous research points to the importance of considering moderating variables when characterizing bias in the representation of central characters. We would argue that the potential influence of moderators is especially critical when considering trends across time. Following previous research, we analyzed potentially relevant variables, including author gender (male vs. female) and character type (human vs. non-human). We also included age of the target audience as well as book genre (fiction vs. non-fiction), which, to our knowledge, have not been previously examined. Books targeted to children include those suitable for infants and young toddlers, which may feature more non-human than human characters and may more often be fiction than non-fiction. Given other research suggesting that males are overrepresented when characters are non-human, at least in fiction, the prediction was that books targeted to young children might be less equitable in the representation of male and female characters than books targeted to older children, which could be particularly consequential for our understanding of the early roots of gender biases.

To summarize, the primary aims of the present study were two-fold: (1) to provide an up-to-date estimate of the rates of gender representation in books published within the last two decades, relative to earlier years; and (2) to examine the effect of potential moderators of gender representation across this timeframe. By analyzing trends in the publication of books featuring male versus female protagonists over the last 60 years, while also considering the influence of previously unexamined variables, such as age of the target audience and book genre, we can better understand where (if at all) progress towards gender parity has been most successful and identify where future work may be needed to achieve equitable gender representation in children’s books.

All data and materials are publicly available on the Open Science Framework ( https://osf.io/97gfk/ ). We report all measures collected, along with exclusion information below.

Web search.

We conducted an entirely web-based analysis of the gender representation of central characters in children’s books published between 1960 and 2020. In order to obtain a large, representative sample of books available to children, we included titles from a variety of sources: award winners, best sellers from top retailers at the time of collection (e.g., Amazon and Barnes & Noble), specific recommendations to parents or teachers, and publishing catalogs. As an indicator of representativeness, there is substantial overlap between the current sample and existing children’s book corpora, including all titles from the Wisconsin Children’s Book Corpus [ 30 ] and the Montag corpus [ 40 ], as well as over 300 titles from the Infant Bookreading Database [ 41 ].

Inclusion criteria.

Following the convention established in previous work [e.g., 22 ], we restricted the present analyses to only those books with a single identifiable protagonist. We chose to maintain this approach because this is arguably the most blatant indicator of gender bias in publication, and when considering the potential influence on children’s perception of gender in children’s books, the impact of a single gender is more straightforwardly interpreted than the genders of multiple characters. Recent work suggests that the central character’s gender strongly influences young children’s learning of gender stereotypes [ 42 ], while the relative influence of multiple gendered characters has not been established. Additionally, we only included books for which the gender of the book author was identifiable and matched for all authors if there was more than one (see below for details).

Our search parameters included books, primarily written in English (<1% written in multiple languages) and available for purchase in the United States, that: (1) featured a single protagonist, (2) were published between 1960 and 2020, and (3) were targeted to children ranging in age from 0 to 16 years. All search queries were conducted in Summer 2019 and yielded 6,580 unique hits from 67 sources (see OSF for links). However, a large proportion of books ( n = 2,998) captured by these sampling methods failed to meet our pre-defined inclusion criteria, most often due to the fact that the books featured multiple central characters ( n = 2,801) or were published outside the 60-year window of interest ( n = 196). For transparency, we report the full list of these unanalyzed titles (see OSF).

Additional exclusions were required for the following reasons: ungendered central character ( n = 161), multiple authors with different genders ( n = 68), ungendered author ( n = 37), indeterminable author gender ( n = 3), adult target age range ( n = 1), or indeterminable target age range ( n = 33). Thus, the final sample consisted of 3,280 children’s books published between 1960 and 2020 with either a male or female central character (see OSF for full dataset). The sample includes multiple books in a given series. This decision was made to account for the fact that the central character could theoretically change across publications (e.g., The Baby-Sitter’s Club ). The majority of books ( n = 2,638) were published in the year 2000 or later, ensuring an up-to-date sample. Given the range of publication dates, the size of our dataset was comparable to that of McCabe et al. [ 22 ], currently the largest study on gender representation of central characters in children’s books.

Of the titles meeting inclusion criteria for analysis ( n = 3,280), we coded for: (1) gender of central character, (2) publication year, (3) gender of book author, (4) age of target audience, (5) character type (human vs. non-human), and (6) book genre (fiction vs. non-fiction).

Coding decisions for each variable were made based on information provided in the title, description, front or back cover, and/or dust jacket. As needed, further clarification was sought from the book itself (when freely accessible online), or additional Google searches were conducted to supplement the information found in the book description (e.g., to determine author gender if pronouns were not provided or to determine the original publication year if the book was a reprint edition). A detailed description of the coding guidelines is available on OSF, and a breakdown of the characteristics of our sample by variable of interest is provided in Table 1 .

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260566.t001

Gender of central character.

After identifying each book’s protagonist (i.e., the character highlighted in the book description and/or featured in the book title), the central character’s gender was categorized as male or female based on available information. Critically, gender coding was based solely on textual information, as in previous research. We avoided reliance on visual cues since gender judgments from illustrations are particularly susceptible to cultural assumptions as well as personal conceptions of gender stereotypicality [ 15 ]. Gender coding decisions were made based on normative understandings of gendered nouns (e.g., boy , girl ) and pronouns (e.g., he , she ). If no explicit, text-based gender identification was provided other than the name of the character, then we determined gender based on whether the name was commonly recognized as masculine or feminine (as done by [ 23 ]). For instances in which the central character’s name was gender-ambiguous, where no name was provided, or where the character was ungendered or identified as non-binary, books were excluded from further analysis ( n = 161, or 2.45% of the dataset).

Publication year.

We coded publication year as the original publication date. In the case of reprints, the publication year was coded as the original, so long as the author and content of the book did not change in the newer edition. Conversely, for adaptations of classic stories, the latest publication year was coded, and author credit was given to the adapter, rather than the original author, since more recent publications could involve updates to the gender of the protagonist or other variables of interest (e.g., character type or target audience). As noted above, all books were published or reprinted between 1960 and 2020.

Gender of book author.

As for the gender of the central character, author gender was coded as male or female according to the gender pronouns, and if necessary, based on the author’s name. For books with multiple authors, books were excluded from all analyses if both male and female individuals held authorship ( n = 68, or 1.03% of the dataset) but were retained if all authors identified with the same gender. For books where the author was listed as a publishing company or an organization, or when the author used gender-neutral pronouns, books were excluded from further analysis ( n = 40, or 0.61% of the dataset). Illustrator gender was not coded since the present investigation relied solely on textual information to examine gender representation.

Age of target audience.

We coded the minimum and maximum age of children (in years) for which the book was recommended. We then characterized target audience using six age groups and determined coding according to the minimum age recommendation since some sources used the form ‘X and up’ to specify the target age range: infant/toddler (0 to 2 years), preschool (3 to 5 years), early elementary (6 to 8 years), middle elementary (9 to 10 years), late elementary (11 to 12 years), and teen (13 to 16 years). All analyses reported below use minimum age to categorize target audience group, though the results are qualitatively similar when categorized according to the average of the minimum and maximum ages, or when age is instead treated as a continuous variable. Because of the smaller number of books for teens in our sample, as a robustness check, we ran all analyses on the full set (including teens) and the subset of books targeted to children under age 13. All reported effects hold when the books for teens are excluded, unless otherwise indicated.

Character type.

Character type was coded as either human or non-human . Following [ 43 ], the non-human category not only included animals but also inanimate objects (e.g., vehicles, toys, plants).

Genre was coded as either fiction or non-fiction . Coding was determined based on the explicit genre classification (when provided), or based on the presence of fantastical elements ( fiction ) versus facts about a real-life individual or stories based on true events ( non-fiction ).

Reliability

The primary coder performed the initial exclusion and coded all remaining titles. To ensure satisfactory coding reliability, a randomly selected 30% of books meeting inclusion criteria were re-coded by a second coder, blind to the primary coder’s responses. Inter-rater reliability was high (α > 0.90 for all variables of interest). Additionally, the second coder re-coded a randomly selected 30% of excluded books to confirm reliability in determining whether books met inclusion criteria for analysis (α > 0.95). Discrepancies were resolved by discussion between the two coders. Additional arbitration by a third party was only needed for three items.

Descriptive analyses

In preliminary analyses, we examined whether the distribution of children’s books for the variables of interest varied across time. Binomial logistic regression revealed that the proportion of female authors, relative to male authors, increased between 1960 and 2020 ( B = 0.02, Z = 5.04, p < .001, OR = 1.02, 95% CI = [1.01, 1.02]; Fig 1A ) and so, too, did the proportion of non-fiction books, relative to fiction ( B = 0.04, Z = 8.48, p < .001, OR = 1.04, 95% CI = [1.03, 1.05]; Fig 1B ). The proportion of books targeted to older children (ages 9+), compared to younger children, did not vary during this time period ( B = 0.004, Z = 0.98, p = .327, OR = 1.004, 95% CI = [1.00, 1.01]; Fig 1C ), nor did the proportion of books with human versus non-human protagonists ( B = 0.005, Z = 1.53, p = .127, OR = 1.005, 95% CI = [1.00, 1.01]; Fig 1D ).

Individual points reflect proportion estimates for each year. Shaded regions show standard errors of binomial logistic regression model fits.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260566.g001

These analyses also revealed that the books written by male authors included relatively more non-human characters than did books written by female authors ( B = 0.61, Z = 6.98, p < .001, OR = 0.55, 95% CI = [0.46, 0.65]; S1A Fig ). There were also more non-human characters in fiction ( B = 2.60, Z = 11.77, p < .001, OR = 13.44, 95% CI = [8.94, 21.33]; S1B Fig ) and in books targeted to younger children ( B = 1.32, Z = 18.07, p < .001, OR = 3.74, 95% CI = [2.25, 4.32]; S1C Fig ).

Male-to-female ratio of protagonists across time

In subsequent analyses, we addressed our first question of interest: has the gender representation in children’s books become more equitable over time? A binomial logistic regression analysis revealed that the ratio of male to female central characters changed significantly over the sampled time frame, such that the proportion of male protagonists decreased between 1960 and 2020, reflecting a trend towards parity, B = -0.02, Z = -4.63, p < .001, OR = 0.99, 95% CI = [0.98, 0.99] ( Fig 2 ). Because a critical contribution of the present study was the examination of gender representation in books published post 2000, we also ran this analysis on this most recent subset of books. In the time period from 2000 to 2020, we found the same significant trend towards parity, suggesting that progress towards equitable representation has continued rather than plateaued in the last two decades, B = -0.02, Z = -3.35, p < .001, OR = 0.98, 95% CI = [0.96, 0.99]. Nevertheless, female protagonists remain underrepresented in the most recently published books ( male-to-female ratio = 1.22:1 for the last decade, and 1.12:1 for the last five years).

Individual points reflect proportion estimates for each year. The dotted line at 0.5 denotes parity. The shaded region shows the standard error of the binomial logistic regression model fit.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260566.g002

Moderators of the male-to-female ratio of protagonists

The next set of analyses targeted our second question of interest by examining the extent to which author gender (male vs. female), target audience (age of children), character type (human vs. non-human), and genre (fiction vs. non-fiction) affected the male-to-female ratio of central characters. First, we tested whether each variable independently predicted the male-to-female ratio. A binomial regression model with the four potential moderators as predictors (publication year not included in this analysis) revealed a significant effect for each of the variables tested. Our results clearly demonstrated that the male-to-female ratio was larger for books authored by men compared to women, B = 1.27, Z = 15.63, p < .001, OR = 3.57, 95% CI = [3.05, 4.20] ( Fig 3A ). As in previous studies, we also found that the male-to-female ratio was larger when the central character was non-human compared to human, B = 0.96, Z = 10.01, p < .001, OR = 2.60, 95% CI = [2.16, 3.15] ( Fig 3B ). We found a larger male-to-female ratio for non-fiction compared to fiction books, B = 0.29, Z = 3.46, p < .001, OR = 1.33, 95% CI = [1.13, 1.57] ( Fig 3C ). Moreover, we found that the male-to-female ratio was larger for books targeted to younger children than older children, B = -0.13, Z = -3.86, p < .001, OR = 0.88, 95% CI = [0.83, 0.94] ( Fig 3D ). See the next set of analyses for additional context in relation to these main effects.

The dotted line reflects parity (1:1 male-to-female ratio). Error bars denote 95% confidence intervals for ratio estimates.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260566.g003

We then tested a binomial logistic regression model with all four moderators (i.e., author gender, target audience, character type, genre) and publication year included as predictors. These analyses revealed four significant two-way interactions, described in detail below. No other two- or three-way interactions reached statistical significance (all p s >.05). Notably, these null interactions included those with publication year, suggesting persistent effects of the moderators of the male-to-female ratio across time.

First, we found a significant two-way interaction between author gender and target audience, B = 0.39, Z = 4.64, p < .001, OR = 1.48, 95% CI = [1.26, 1.76] ( Fig 4A ). Male authors overrepresented male protagonists across all age groups, and there was a trend of increasing male overrepresentation as a function of the age of the target audience in books authored by males, though this effect did not reach statistical significance ( B = 0.11, Z = 1.81, p = .071, OR = 1.12, 95% CI = [0.99, 1.27]). Conversely, female authors showed significantly less male overrepresentation as the age of the target audience increased ( B = -0.25, Z = -5.88, p < .001, OR = 0.78, 95% CI = [0.71, 0.84]).

The dotted line at 0.5 denotes parity. Error bars denote 95% confidence intervals for proportion estimates.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260566.g004

Second, there was a significant two-way interaction between author gender and character type, B = 0.52, Z = 2.35, p = .019, OR = 1.68, 95% CI = [1.09, 2.59] ( Fig 4B ). Male authors depicted more male protagonists regardless of character type ( male-to-female ratio : human = 2.95:1, χ 2 = 107.98, p < .001; non-human = 4.19:1, χ 2 = 66.87, p < .001). By contrast, female authors only showed male overrepresentation for non-human protagonists (2.27:1, χ 2 = 17.75, p < .001). When the characters were human, they depicted more female protagonists (0.75:1, χ 2 = 28.32, p < .001).

Third, there was a significant two-way interaction between character type and genre, B = 1.64, Z = 3.54, p < .001, OR = 5.13, 95% CI = [2.06, 12.86] ( Fig 4C ), such that there was male overrepresentation in fiction but only if the characters were non-human ( male-to-female ratio = 3.09:1, χ 2 = 93.24, p < .001). Importantly, there was also male overrepresentation in non-fiction when the characters were human (1.73:1, χ 2 = 28.02, p < .001). By contrast, there was gender parity in fiction when the characters were human (0.95:1, χ 2 = 0.51, p = .473) and in non-fiction when the characters were non-human (1:1, χ 2 = 0.00, p = 1.00).

Fourth, there was a significant two-way interaction between genre and target audience, B = 0.20, Z = 2.01, p < .001, OR = 1.22, 95% CI = [1.26, 1.76] ( Fig 4D ). The overrepresentation of male protagonists in non-fiction increased as age of the target audience increased, though this effect did not reach statistical significance ( B = 0.15, Z = 1.79, p = .074, OR = 1.16, 95% CI = [0.99, 1.36] except when books for teens were excluded from the analysis ( B = 0.21, Z = 2.34, p = .019, OR = 1.23 [1.04, 1.47]). However, male protagonists tended to be overrepresented in fiction books targeted to younger children, and overrepresentation decreased as the age of the target audience increased ( B = -0.21, Z = -5.65, p < .001, OR = 0.81, 95% CI = [0.75, 0.87]).

Moderators across time

The aforementioned effects did not indicate any interactions with publication year, suggesting stability of these effects across time. However, these previous analyses do not address whether the individual moderators were associated with reduced male overrepresentation across time, as suggested by the main effect of publication year ( Fig 2 ). To this end, we examined each moderator, and the corresponding interactions, across time. Moreover, as a robustness check, and given the focus of the present study, we also conducted all subsequent analyses on the subset of books published between 2000 and 2020. The reported effects hold for the most recent decades unless otherwise indicated.

First, to better understand the effect of author gender, we compared male and female authors when books were written for younger versus older children ( Fig 5A ) and when the books involved human versus non-human protagonists ( Fig 5B ). We found that, across time, both male and female authors decreased their overrepresentation of male characters in books targeted to younger children, but only the effect for male authors reached statistical significance ( B = -0.02, Z = -2.52, p = .012, OR = 0.98, 95% CI = [0.97, 1.00]). However, in more recent years (i.e., 2000–2020), only female authors were found to significantly decrease their overrepresentation of male characters in books for younger children. Although male authors consistently overrepresented male characters in books for older children across the entire 60-year period, female authors decreased their overrepresentation of male characters in these books over time ( B = -0.03, Z = -2.76, p = .006, OR = 0.97, 95% CI = [0.95, 0.99]). Additionally, we found that only female authors significantly decreased their overrepresentation of male human characters across time ( B = -0.01, Z = -2.32, p = .021, OR = 0.99, 95% CI = [0.98, 1.00]); however, this effect did not hold when books targeted to teens were excluded from this analysis. Neither male nor female authors significantly decreased their representation of male non-human characters, but when books targeted towards teens were excluded from this analysis, we found a significant trend towards parity for male authors ( B = -0.02, Z = -1.96, p = 0.0499, OR = 0.98, 95% CI = [0.96, 0.99]) and a marginal trend for female authors ( B = -0.02, Z = -1.77 p = 0.077, OR = 0.98, 95% CI = [0.95, 1.00]). Altogether, these analyses revealed that the changes over time were largely consistent for male and female authors. The main difference is that female authors showed less male overrepresentation, except when writing books featuring non-human central characters.

The dotted line at 0.5 denotes parity. The shaded regions show standard errors of binomial logistic regression model fits.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260566.g005

Next, we further examined the effect of book genre. We compared fiction and non-fiction books when they involved human versus non-human characters ( Fig 5C ) and when the target audience was younger versus older children ( Fig 5D ). We found that, across time, overrepresentation of male characters in fiction books significantly decreased for human ( B = -0.02, Z = -4.73, p < .001, OR = 0.98, 95% CI = [0.97, 0.99]) and non-human characters ( B = -0.02, Z = -2.45, p = .014, OR = 0.98, 95% CI = [0.97, 1.00]), but these effects did not hold when considering only the subset of books published within the last two decades. By contrast, overrepresentation of male characters in non-fiction books, both human and non-human, did not decrease significantly across the entire 60-year period, though there was a significant decrease in male overrepresentation in non-fiction books featuring human characters when only considering the last two decades ( B = -0.03, Z = -2.35, p = 0.019, OR = 0.97, 95% CI = [0.94, 0.99]). We found a similar effect of book genre in relation to age of the target audience, where only changes for fiction books reached statistical significance for the entire 60-year period. That is, male overrepresentation decreased in fiction books for both younger ( B = -0.02, Z = -4.21, p < .001, OR = 0.985, 95% CI = [0.98, 0.99]) and older children ( B = -0.02, Z = -2.63, p = .008, OR = 0.98, 95% CI = [0.96, 0.99]) across the last 60 years, though the effect for younger children did not hold in the most recent subset of books (i.e., 2000–2020). Altogether, these analyses revealed that trends across time were largely consistent in fiction and non-fiction books, but that statistically significant changes in gender representation were seen only in fiction books across the full 60-year period.

How has gender representation changed in the last 60 years?

Our findings demonstrate that the male-to-female ratio of central characters has improved in the children’s books published between 1960 and 2020. During this time, there has been an increasing trend towards parity, though male protagonists remain overrepresented compared to female protagonists. Our findings are consistent with other research suggesting androcentrism in media, even post 2000 [ 44 ].

Importantly, we also found that particular combinations of author gender, target audience, character type, and genre impacted the male-to-female ratio throughout this 60-year period. Previous studies have investigated character type and author gender, but the impact of book genre and target audience on gender representation has remained largely unexplored. Our findings reveal important effects of all the variables of interest. We found that non-human characters are overrepresented as male, but only in fiction books, though overrepresentation has decreased across time. Moreover, human characters are also overrepresented as male, at least in non-fiction books. Thus, it appears to be the combination of character type and genre that results in significant male overrepresentation, rather than character type or genre alone.

Finally, although previous findings have suggested that female authors represent male and female characters at equitable rates [ 23 , 34 ], no study to date has discussed the interaction between author gender and other important variables, namely character type and target audience. Our findings revealed that male authors showed improvement in the male-to-female ratio of central characters across the 60-year period, but this was limited to books targeted to younger children. Female authors also showed improvement during this time and even depicted more female protagonists, at least with human characters and in books for older children, though there was no significant improvement in books with non-human characters (where male overrepresentation remains). Taken together, the results from the current study suggest important multiple confluences of gender representation in children’s books.

Patterns of gender representation explained

Although significant progress towards gender parity was observed, it is notable that, overall, male protagonists have been overrepresented in children’s books across the last 60 years, between 1960 and 2020. During this time, women have made great social and economic strides. There have been multiple waves of feminist movements [ 45 ], and social media has emerged as a mechanism by which to promote feminist doctrine broadly and expediently [ 46 ]. So, why does the gender bias in the literature targeted towards children persist?

One straightforward reason is that gender stereotypes persist in society. Even if explicit gender discrimination occurs less frequently today than in the past, implicit attitudes about females being submissive and less worthy than males remain pervasive [ 47 , 48 ]. Consistent with this possibility is the observation that males are considered more prototypical than females when categorizing humans [ 49 ]. Such attitudes could result in male overrepresentation in children’s books, with male characters appearing as the default. They may also explain why ambiguous contexts are more likely to be interpreted as male [ 50 ]. For example, mothers refer to gender-unspecified animal characters as male when reading or discussing books with their children [ 51 ], as do children themselves [ 52 ].

Persistent overrepresentation of male characters could also be a historical artifact. Older books, which may reflect the cultural dominance of male figures of years past, have remained popular and continue to be published, such that the overrepresentation of male characters may reflect an earlier perspective. Older books may be adapted and reprinted, and in the current dataset, some of these books were coded according to their most recent publication date. Future research should consider analyzing these books separately to determine the extent to which the reprints of older books (and persisting popularity of classic stories) contribute to continued male overrepresentation.

Another potential explanation for the greater male representation in children’s books is that books with male central characters sell better, such that publishers will be motivated to produce more books featuring male protagonists because of their wider appeal [ 53 ]. That such books sell better is consistent with research showing that parents prefer media with male characters and believe that their sons prefer male-oriented books [ 54 ]. Parents’ preferences for books with male characters may stem from their own experience with older, classic books [ 55 ]. Additionally, parents’ assumptions about their sons’ preferences may come directly from boys responding more favorably to books with male characters [ 54 , 56 ] and/or adults’ resistance to boys engaging in stereotypically feminine activities [ 57 ].

Yet another potential reason for male overrepresentation is that it reflects linguistic properties. In English, female is the marked (irregular) category because the affix “fe” is added to the unmarked (standard) form of “male”. Thus, authors may default to using male characters because male word forms are considered the norm. Even children default to using male word forms indiscriminately [ 58 , 59 ]. The challenge with the male generic is that even when intended to inclusively refer to all genders, the gender bias in prototypicality may lead people to interpret the male generic as referring specifically to males [ 60 ].

Although the aforementioned explanations do well to account for general male overrepresentation in children’s books, what is needed is an account that illuminates the variation across the different combinations of variables. In particular, explanations are needed for why there is greater parity for human characters when the books are fiction and for non-human characters when the books are non-fiction. Moreover, why do female authors show greater parity than male authors, especially in books targeted to older children and in books featuring human protagonists?

We suggest that although there are historical, linguistic, and economic forces working in favor of male overrepresentation, there is also cultural awareness of gender bias. With such awareness, there may be a motivation to ensure parity in the gender of children’s book characters. Yet, implementation of such parity may be more straightforward in specific contexts. Our data point to two such contexts: with human characters in fiction and with non-human characters in non-fiction. It may be easier to depict female human characters in fictional stories because authors need not adhere to real events in which there is greater prevalence of men in particular professions or scenarios. Similarly, when the stories are non-fiction, authors may have greater flexibility in representing characters when they are non-human (e.g., by describing facts about a female animal, such as A Mother’s Journey by Sandra Markle).

It is also important to note that some of the aforementioned effects depend critically on author gender. From 1960 to 2020, male authors consistently overrepresented central characters as male in books targeted to children of all ages. The overrepresentation of male characters (e.g., superheroes) in such contexts may reflect male authors’ own preferences for male fictitious characters. By contrast, female authors represented the gender of protagonists more equitably and even overrepresented female characters in books targeted to older children. This trend may reflect their beliefs that older children are better able to understand gender inequities and so may benefit from greater female representation. Such a perspective is consistent with other research showing that women (and other minorities) play a significant role in promoting diversity and may be integral in ensuring equity across genders [ 61 ].

Remaining considerations and conclusion

The underrepresentation of female characters in children’s books, and media more generally, has been referred to as ‘symbolic annihilation’ because it is believed to promote the marginalization of women and girls by suggesting that they play a less significant role in society. In the present study, we investigated gender disparity in children’s literature in its most blatant form—the male-to-female ratio of central characters. However, other research suggests that stereotypes permeate children’s books at multiple levels, including text [ 14 , 30 , 62 ] and illustrations [ 32 , 63 ]. Even when female characters appear as protagonists, they are often portrayed as more emotional [ 19 , 30 ], less active [ 64 ], and less associated with STEM [ 63 , 65 ]. Thus, it is not only necessary to strive for equitable representation in the numbers of male and female characters, but also for non-stereotypical depictions of these characters. In fact, recent work suggests that exposure to counter-stereotypical protagonists in books can reduce children’s endorsement of gender stereotypes [ 66 ] and promote less stereotypical behavior [ 67 ].

A notable caveat of the present study is that our analyses do not reflect actual reading rates. In other words, we analyzed children’s books available on the internet to estimate general trends in publication, but some books will be more popular than others, with variation across ages. For example, although we did not find that the male-to-female ratio of central characters depended on an interaction between character type and age of the target audience, it is nevertheless possible that younger children are read more books with non-human characters than older children, and thus may experience greater exposure to male characters. Future research might track which books children of different ages are exposed to in order to determine the conditions under which younger and older children are differentially exposed to unrepresentative samples of book characters.

It is also worth noting that the gender coding in the present study was based on a strict dichotomy of male versus female. Given the limited number of books with non-binary central characters, we did not formally assess this category. However, future research would do well to examine trends in the representation of non-binary protagonists to better understand gender diversity in children’s books. Additionally, the present study focused only on books with a single identifiable male or female protagonist and therefore does not address gender representation at all character levels. In future research, it will be important to examine the relative rates of appearance of gendered characters in shared protagonist (or supporting) roles, as well as how these dynamics may influence children’s perceptions of gender. For instance, female characters may be more likely to appear in stories with multiple protagonists, perhaps reflecting endorsement of stereotypical beliefs about women and girls being more community-oriented [e.g., 68 , 69 ], or may be more likely to be featured as supporting characters [e.g., 21 ]. It is also possible that patterns of representation may differ across cultural contexts [e.g., 70 ], highlighting a need for further characterization of gender representation in children’s books from sources outside of the United States.

In conclusion, our analysis of the frequency of male and female central characters clearly demonstrates that although female representation has improved over the last 60 years, parity has not yet been achieved in all types of books or by all authors. Moreover, and perhaps surprisingly, the determinants of gender representation—author gender, target audience, character type, and book genre—are largely unchanged over this period. Yet, the persistence of these predictors, as indicated by the present study, provides crucial data about where disparities in gender representation remain. Knowledge of these effects may allow publishers and authors to increase their awareness of the susceptibility to gender bias and strive to achieve gender equity in children’s books. Even before trends in publication reach parity, knowledge of these effects may help parents and educators to select less biased samples of books for individual children.

Supporting information

S1 fig. proportion of non-human protagonists in (a) books authored by males vs. females, (b) fiction vs. non-fiction books, and (c) books targeted to specific age ranges of children..

Error bars denote 95% confidence intervals for proportion estimates.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260566.s001

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Children's Literature with Negative Portrayals and Stereotypes for Curriculum

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40 Excellent Children’s Books About Physical Disabilities

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Why do we need good children’s books with characters who have physical disabilities? Because the representation of physical disabilities and physical differences in children’s books IS SO IMPORTANT! Kids need to see themselves as heroes of stories –> mirrors. And other kids need to step into the lives of someone else to build empathy and understanding –> doors and windows. 

It’s absolutely essential that we respectfully talk about physical disabilities with children, especially with children who don’t have a disability.

If we don’t, disabilities become the elephant in the room. And as a result, children mistakenly interpret that having a physical disability is taboo. It’s not. Adults know that disabilities are NOT wrong. Nor taboo. But what message do we send kids if we don’t talk about real issues like this one? 

As we’ll see in the following stories, everyone notices differences. Especially curious children. So it’s up to us to discuss and help our children learn about disabilities without stigmas.  

It’s up to us to answer questions and to help kids see what it might feel like to have a physical disability.

This is the way to ensure that we raise compassionate, empathetic, and kind children.

And, for kids with disabilities — these are good children’s books ( picture books , chapter books , middle grade books , and YA books ) that show disabled kids who are the heroes of their stories. We need more representation like this!

What Are Physical Disabilities?

Physical disabilities are impairments in a person’s body structure or function, according to the CDC . These include hearing loss, spinal cord injury, Cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy, Multiple sclerosis, Epilepsy, Blindness, and Cystic fibrosis.

Teach Kids to Be Kind

I recently saw a great idea on Facebook that recommended instead of saying, “Don’t stare,” say to your kids, you say to them, “Say hello.” I love that!

Let’s read stories that help us become empathetic to other people’s experiences and our own; stories that show not just our differences but, more importantly, our similarities.

*originally published 3/2016, updated 7/2023

Children’s Books About Physical Disabilities

• Picture Books
• Chapter & Middle Grade Books for Ages 6 to 18

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Picture Books About Physical Disabilities

What Happened to You? by James Catchpole, illustrated by Karen George Joe loves playing pirates. Sharks and crocodiles are easier to deal with than kids who ask questions like “What happened to you?” or “Did it fall off?” or “Was it a lion?” Joe tries to avoid their questions. The other kids finally stop asking about his leg and ask about the crocodiles and join Joe in playing pirates, which is much more important!

You’re So Amazing!  written by James & Lucy Catchpole, illustrated by Karen George Adults and other kids see Joe playing with friends and say that he’s amazing When he doesn’t play, they see him as pathetic. Joe doesn’t want to be either– he just wants to be Joe! And that’s what his friends see. Just Joe, a kid who loves to play soccer and monkey bars and pirates with his friends. This book reminds readers that disability is normal and disabled kids don’t want to be framed as inspirational or pitiful. We’ve needed this book in the world. Highly recommended.

Monster Hands written by Karen Kane and Jonaz McMillan, illustrated by Dion MBD Milo is scared of the monster under his bed so he asks his neighbor Mel in sign language what to do. Mel signs back that Milo should try shining a light on the wall and making monster hands. Mel keeps giving Milo ideas and Milo continues to make monster shadows on the wall, finally combining all the monster hand moves at once. Eventually, the monster is gone. Milo signs a big hug to his friend. The artwork beautifully captures the nighttime hues illuminated by flashlights as well as the sign language communication and emotions of the characters.

Just Ask! Be Different, Be Brave, Be You  by Sonia Sotomayor, illustrated by Rafael Lopez A must-own lavishly illustrated book that is both eye-opening and empathy-building as it increases the reader’s understanding of people with physical disabilities and neurological differences.  Each two-page spread features a different kid who introduces themselves and then asks a question to the readers. For example, Rafael has asthma and sometimes has trouble breathing. He asks, “ Do you use a tool to help your body? ” The book features kids with autism, a wheelchair, dyslexia, Tourette’s syndrome, ADHD, food allergies, Down syndrome, and more. It shows all these kids working together to plant a garden, showing that just like the variety of plants in the garden, our differences make the world more interesting and richer.

When Charley Met Emma by Amy Webb, illustrated by Merrilee Liddiard When Charley feels different, his mom teaches him that “ Different isn’t weird, sad, bad, or strange. Different is different. And different is OK! “ His mom suggests that Charley introduce himself to Emma because everyone wants friends. Charley apologizes for what he said at first and asks Emma questions. Emma helps Charley know that even though she’s a little “differenter” than he is, she’s a lot the same, too. For example, Emma likes to play on the playground, swing, play tag, and just like Charley, draw! This compassionate story models the importance of accepting differences with kindness and open-heartedness.

We Move Together by Kelly Fritch, illustrated by Anne McGuire Sometimes we wait, and sometimes we get stopped in our tracks. “We plan, we solve problems, we build something better.” This book shows how people work together to understand each other, even when they they disagree. It shows mixed-ability kids moving in their own ways maybe on bikes, strollers, or buses and with assisted devices like walkers, wheelchairs, and canes. Moving together we can make changes in the world.

Awesomely Emma: A Charley and Emma Story  by Amy Webb, illustrated by Merrilee Liddiard Self-confident Emma not only loves art, but she knows a lot about it. So she’s thrilled to go on the art museum field trip…until she can’t go in the front door because there’s no ramp for her wheelchair. Later, she feels mad when Charley does things for her, like pushes her chair or gets out her stuff without asking. Emma helps Charley understand that it’s HER choice to ask if she wants help. The story ends with the museum’s positive response to the class’s letter asking for accommodations for all kinds of bodies.  I love how this story enlightens and educates readers to not just limb differences but respect for others. 

Come Over to My House by Eliza Hull and Sally Rippen, illustrated by Daniel Gray-Barnett You’re invited to come to your friend’s house where they speak sign, need headphones to block out noise, read Braille with fingers, or pet a working dog on break. All the homes in this rhyming story have a family member with a disability. Normalizing disabilities, we see that friends love to spend time with friends, and they always have fun at their friends’ houses.

Boy   by Phil Cummings, illustrated by Shane Devries A king and his knights battle a dragon, ruining the forest. Nearby, a deaf village child named Boy can’t hear the battle cries but he senses his parent’s fear. One day, Boy races to rescue a small lizard in the middle of a battle, interrupting the fighting. He draws a picture that helps the two sides decide to stop fighting. Everyone in the village feels relieved. They tell Boy thank you “ with dancing hands ” (sign language).  This is a story of communication and peace with warm, fairytale-like illustrations.

Emmanuel’s Dream: The True Story of Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah  by Laurie Ann Thompson and Sean Qualls Emmanuel’s mom helped Emmanuel be strong and believe in himself even though he only had one leg.  He hopped 2 miles to attend school. He learned to ride a bike. He worked to support his family. He does daily activities with only one leg. As an adult, Emmanuel rode 400 miles across his country of Ghana to spread the message that disability is not an inability. This is an inspiring true story that is a film called  Emmanuel’s Gift .

Rescue and Jessica: A Life-Changing Friendship  by Jessica Kensky and Patrick Downes, illustrated by Scott Magoon Based on Jessica’s real-life situation when she was an adult, read how after her leg was amputated, she connected to a service dog named Rescue.  It’s important for kids to understand the work that service dogs do. I’ll admit to getting misty-eyed reading this sweet story of friendship and resiliency.

Outside Amelia’s Window  by Caroline Nastro, illustrated by Anca Sandu Budisan Amelia doesn’t think she can go outside again. She’s not ready.  Newly in a wheelchair, she stays inside and studies the birds outside her window called Redstarts.  When they fly south for winter, she thinks that maybe she can be brave, too. Amelia thinks she can be brave like the birds, so she goes outside and plays with the new friends she meets. Beautiful watercolor illustrations.

Catherine’s Story by Genevieve Moore, illustrated by Karin Littlewood Catherine can’t talk, but she can listen. This book shows the many special attributes of Catherine, a young girl like any girl who likes friends and family.

Different is Awesome by Ryan Haack, illustrations by Wes Molebash It’s the boy’s turn to bring something for show and tell so he brings his brother Ryan. Ryan has limb differences; he was born without his left hand. Ryan and his brother are used to lots of questions so it’s not a problem to show them everything he can do, just differently. The class realize that they’re all different in some way and that what makes us different, makes us awesome.

Listen: How Evelyn Glennie, a Deaf Girl, Changed Percussion by Shannon Stocker, illustrated by Devon Holzwarth Evelyn loves music and learned piano and clarinet as a child, but her hearing started to fail, so she found a way to keep laying music. She listened for the vibrations in her body and became a drummer!

Chapter Books

Aven Green Sleuthing Machine by Dusti Bowling, illustrated by Gina Perry Aven is a girl who was born without arms. She loves solving mysteries, so when her great-grandma’s dog goes missing, she knows she must help find it!

Middle Grade Books About Physical Disabilities

The Chance to Fly  by Ali Stroker and Stacy Davidowitz Musical theater kids , get ready for your next favorite book filled with singing, theater puns, and inclusivity.  Nat, a thirteen-year-old girl in a chair, moves to a new town where she auditions for her favorite musical, Wicked telling her parents. She thinks that Nessa is her perfect role since Nessa is also in a chair. The group of kids also involved in the musical are welcoming and accepting. But she needs to show the director just how much she can do — that she can dance in her own way– and it works. Then, when a fire burns the theater down, the show is canceled. Nat rallies the cast to find a solution. (Grit is Nat’s middle name.) (And singing.) Add in a bit of romance, friendship troubles, and a surprising new role for Nat to make this is one gem you won’t want to miss.

Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus  by Dusti Bowling LIMB DIFFERENCE Aven Green is used to making up creative stories for why she doesn’t have any arms.  Especially now that she’s the new kid in school having moved to a new town in Arizona where her parents are the managers a Western theme park. She is an amazing girl — she can do anything without arms that her peers can do with. And, she has incredible parents who love her and push her to be her best self. She befriends a boy at school who also feels different and isolated from the other kids. His name is Connor and his Tourette Syndrome makes him hide in the library and not go out in public. But he and a new friend, Zion, hang out with Aven at the theme park where they investigate a mysterious woman who looks just like her and a hidden storage shed. This story is about restorative friendship, facing your fears, and discovering your true (significant) potential.

Lumbering Giants of Windy Pines by Mo Netz Excellent writing and pacing! When Jerry’s mom disappears into the woods, it’s up to Jerry to find her. Before the disappearance, Jerry’s mom got a job at the motel where they just landed — but it doesn’t seem like it’s a cleaning toilets kind of job. Alone in their room at night, Jerry hears a mysterious radio transmission. She learns that people in the area have been vanishing without a trace for years, according to her new friend. Jerry doesn’t let being in a wheelchair stop her from finding her mom. She rolls into the woods, following their car tracks. Little does she know that her new friend is following behind and will be an asset to the rescue mission. Or that she’s about to roll right into dangerous demons and ghosts!

Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick PHYSICAL DIFFERENCE This is a moving story of a friendship between a large boy with learning disabilities and a very small boy with physical disabilities . Together, they overcome the bullying at school. It’s a sad but powerful story of friendship and resilience.

Annie Sullivan and the Trials of Helen Keller  by Joseph Lambert DEAF, BLIND Excellent!  The book shows both Annie and Helen’s strengths and weaknesses as well as really significant character arcs.  If you don’t know the story, or even if you do, read this book. You’ll be entranced with how laborious it was to teach Helen and how Annie’s persistence paid off in the end.

Show Me a Sign  by Ann Clare LeZotte  DEAF Set in the Martha’s Vineyard community of Chilmark where a high percentage of Deaf individuals live, Mary’s a smart girl who speaks sign language. But when a researcher arrives with preconceived notations of the “infirmity” of Deaf people, he kidnaps Mary as a “live specimen.” For months she’s imprisoned and forced to work, then locked in a room to be studied with no way to communicate by signing or writing.  Not only will you learn about this interesting historical community and life as a Deaf person, but you’ll also fall in love with the admirable heroine in this compelling story.

Marshmallow & Jordan by Alina Chau PARALYZED This is an excellent graphic novel set in Indonesia about a basketball player named Jordan who had an accident that paralyzed her from the waist down. She meets an injured elephant (diety-in-training) who helps her find a new sport. Their friendship helps both of them to grow in different ways. Jordan sees herself differently and Marshmallow becomes more confident.

Wonderstruck   by Brian Selznick DEAF Parallel stories about two different people — Ben and Rose — who each secretly wish their lives were different. Ben longs for the father he has never known. Rose dreams of a mysterious actress whose life she chronicles in a scrapbook. When Ben discovers a puzzling clue in his mother’s room and Rose reads an enticing headline in the newspaper, both children set out alone on desperate quests to find what they are missing. One story is told completely in illustrations.

YA Books About Physical Disabilities

Autism Books

Melissa Taylor, MA, is the creator of Imagination Soup. She's a mother, former teacher & literacy trainer, and freelance education writer. She writes Imagination Soup and freelances for publications online and in print, including Penguin Random House's Brightly website, USA Today Health, Adobe Education, Colorado Parent, and Parenting. She is passionate about matching kids with books that they'll love.

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21 Comments

Amazing range of books! Do you by any chance have one for a child in a body cast for scoliosis? Something to help my 2 1/2 yr old grandson understand whats about to happen to him? If not, does anyone know of a book on this subject please?? Thank you.

There is a middle grade book for kids who are 9 to 12 called Braced by Alyson Gerber. Let me reach out to the author to see if she knows about a picture book. Two is pretty young for a book on this but I’ll search around.

Thank you for your list. I cannot wait to add some of these to my classroom library.

You’re very welcome!

Love this list!

Also have one more to add! ?

“Hiya Moriah” by Victoria Nelson

thanks for the book suggestions!

It seems that sometimes there is a printable/download option for your lists and sometimes not, maybe I am missing it but I love to share these great lists digitally and also in hard copy. Thanks!

I will get to this first thing on Monday!

Here you go — https://imaginationsoup.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Childrens-Books-with-Characters-Who-Have-Physical-Differences.pdf

“The Man Who Loves Clowns” is perfect for understanding Down Syndrome. But beware, tissues are needed!

thanks for the suggestion!