By now you’ve probably heard a lot about We Need Diverse Books, the campaign that began in April 2014 with a single tweet containing the #weneeddiversebooks hashtag. We Need Diverse Books shined a light on the fact that much of children’s literature portrays a quite narrow view of our world. We first talked about it here.
A lot of the discussion around WNDB focuses on the right of all children to see themselves reflected in the stories they read. I agree with that, wholeheartedly.
But my particular interest is in the idea that all children (including white children) benefit by seeing our rich, beautiful differences reflected in the books they read. It’s important to me that my 3-year-old daughter sees faces in her books that don’t always look like her, and instead look like the faces of her friends at school and the children in our neighborhood.
When she was a baby, we received some popular children’s books from the 1940s and 50s, which are actually often quite charming stories (We love Mister Dog, “the dog who belonged to himself”). But those books show a version of the world that is so Norman Rockwell it’s laughable. This is not the way our world looks here in Brooklyn, or in most places.
That’s why when my daughter was a baby I read her books like Smile! (Roberta Grobel Intrater), which shows a beautiful range of human faces. Babies LOVE looking at faces. (My copy had the added benefit of being a bilingual edition, so I practiced my Spanish, too!)
It’s important to me that diverse books are available for all children, and I am glad the WNDB campaign pushes me to be extra mindful about what I choose for her to read. (And I would add that for older children, diversity can be explored in an increasingly sophisticated way by reading middle-grade and young adult books.)
If you’re interested in diversifying your home or classroom library, Scholastic has put together a helpful title list, as well as a Pinterest board showing a wide range of covers. Also, check out Scholastic's Education/Library Marketing Director Lizette Serrano’s take on WNDB, including her thoughts on the beautiful middle grade title, Esperanza Rising.
