Research over the past few decades has demonstrated how critical it is to the development and well-being of children that they see themselves represented in the books that they read. Sadly, most of 20th century children's literature is either completely devoid of diverse characters or outright racist in its depictions of children of color or indigenous people. Even books that were attempting to introduce a non-European narrative to the reader often succumbed to racial stereotyping and oversimplified perspectives. And while the numbers of diverse books have increased, the weight of our history prevails and the numbers are still in need of significant improvement. According to the CCBC's diversity statistics*, in 2019 over 75% of the books published were by white authors, whereas over half the children in the U.S. are of Black, Hispanic, American Indian, or Asian descent.

In their 2020 paper, Theorizing a Critical Race Content Analysis for Children’s Literature about People of Color, cultural theorists Lindsay Pérez Huber, Lorena Camargo Gonzalez, and Daniel G. Solórzano established a very useful rubric by which we can evaluate how well a book represents diverse cultures in children's books. Based on this work, Lindsay Perez Huber further distilled their paper into five questions that can guide our understanding of what we are reading:

--What roles do the characters of color play?

--Does the book contain racial stereotypes?

--Are characters represented in culturally authentic ways?

--Do the books include the bigger picture?

--Who has power and agency in the story?

As you explore the content of this website, we recommend you ask the aforementioned questions.

*Data on books by and about Black, Indigenous and People of Color published for children and teens compiled by the Cooperative Children’s Book Center, School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison.