A lot of children's books feature predominantly animal characters, but today I want to look at the ways that the human characters can influence our children's understanding of the people around them.
When you consider the huge impact a book can have on any mind, but especially a young mind, it's easy to see that we've got to be deliberate in our choices. Not in a censoring, religious right kind of way or a PC Police way, but in deliberately expanding their horizons.
Without a keen eye, most people accidentally end up with books that are overwhelmingly starring white, male protagonists. There's still a lingering idea that boys won't read books starring girls, and we're so used to seeing Caucasian skin as default skin that if we're white ourselves, we often don't even notice the trend.
If you live in a community that lacks racial diversity, books might be the only experience that your children have to understand that children who look different from them have many of the same life experiences. Many children in today's day and age also live far from grandparents and might only interact with other young children and young families in their day to day life, which can make them fearful of the elderly who act differently than their parents. Those are just small examples of ways in which children often aren't exposed to differences of all kinds.
It's common for adults these days to mix up their annual reading challenges by reading more works by female writers, or reading their way across the US or the world, or even reading front covers of different colors.
So why not get deliberate for your kids and take on the role of home librarian curating a collection of both depth and breadth? Some great ways to mix up your collection: be deliberate in seeking out female protagonists, protagonists of color, books that are set in other countries, and that feature people of all ages. When in doubt, browsing lists of past Caldecott winners is a great start.
So, knowing that diverse books are a bit less common to come across and because I'm a bargain addict, I regularly browse the children's books at thrift stores to see what I might want to snatch up. I confess, I do already have 40 books for my nonexistent children because Goodwill is charging $1 a book right now and practically begging me to take them away.
Curious what I've been putting in our Family Library for the future littles? The following are all books that I've grabbed while thrifting, so it gives you a great sense for how many books with diverse perspectives are just sitting out there in circulation. I use the Libib app on my phone to keep track of whether or not I've already got a copy and try to focus on grabbing things that I haven't seen before anywhere else and might be a bit harder to get my hands on.
Books with non-white narrators:
Books with little girl narrators:
Books about other cultures:
Books with elderly protagonists:
I'd love to know, when you're giving gifts to nieces and nephews or shopping for your own littles what are the key things that you are looking for in a book? What types of perspectives or topics do you want to be especially sure that you hit?
Amazing cartoons and sketches featured here were all found on this massive Pinterest board of Book Art run by Three Bookends.
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