Why Diversity in Books & Curriculum Matters
Discussions about the immeasurable value of diversity and thoughtfully crafted representation in books are not new, but they are as vital now as they were half a century ago. The following resources will help you explore not only the enormous impact diverse books can have on readers, but also how to encourage and support diversity in books in your communities.
What Do Experts Say?
Take a look at what some children's book scholars, activists, and educators have to say about the importance of diverse books and curricula.
"Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors" by Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop (Perspectives)
#DisruptTexts Mission Statement and Publications
We Need Diverse Books Mission and Testimonials
Explore how Penguin Young Readers developed Thematic Booklists with Teaching Guides that showcase diverse stories and authors.
Watch the Black Books Matter video with Dr. Krista Aronson (Founder/Director of Diverse Bookfinder, Associate Dean of Faculty and Professor of Psychology at Bates College).
Bias and Books: Follow the Data!
The American Academy of Pediatrics tells us that discriminatory bias can not only take root in childhood but far earlier than you might guess. Researchers say:
As early as 6 months, a baby's brain can notice race-based differences.
By ages 2 to 4, children can internalize racial bias.
By age 12, many children become set in their beliefs.
This means caregivers get just about a decade to shape a child's learning process with the goal to decrease racial and other identity-based biases and enhance cultural understanding. The representations in the books with which a child engages can have enormous impact in either perpetuating or disrupting bias.
Read and explore these resources to learn more.
Messages Matter: Investigating the Thematic Content of Picture Books Portraying Underrepresented Racial and Cultural Groups (Sociological Forum)
The Representation of Social Groups in U. S. Educational Materials and Why it Matters (New America)
Investigating How Reading Enhances Empathy: A Longitudinal, Diary Study of Everyday Reading Habits (Dissertation)
Now, consider some of the ways that books can be used to directly challenge bias. Not all bias is bad, but the bias that associates difference with negativity or danger plays a large part in perpetuating discrimination. So let’s look at how books can break down bias where it lives. To start, watch this video from Franklin Covey:
Now, take a look at examples of how books and positive representation can disrupt bias:
Information Overload > Individuation
Individuation—gathering specific information about an individual or individuals—is one way to resist confirmation or anchoring bias and supersede group-based stereotypes with individually specific, accurate information. High quality nonfiction books and authentic representation in fictional books are great individuation tools.
Feelings Over Facts > Mindfulness & Empathy
Empathy is understanding the perspective (cognitive empathy) and sharing the feelings (emotional empathy) of others. Empathy is an excellent disruptor of emotion-driven bias, and one way to strengthen it is by reading stories with positive, meaningful representation of perspectives and experiences different than your own. Book challenges take away materials that teach about other experiences and perspectives.
Need for Speed > Slow Down & Counter-Imaging
Research strongly encourages using counter-images or counter-representations—like those in diverse books—to directly contradict stereotypes and implicit bias. Taking the time to read diverse books regularly allows your brain to become accustomed to the counter-images, and those positive representations become more cognitively accessible than any biased associations.
The State and Stakes of Diversity in Children's Books
Here’s Why Black Kids Need Black Books by Maya Pottinger (Word in Black)
Here's What Book Banning Means For Latinx Communities by Meg Medina (Parents)
These students helped overturn a book ban. Now they’re pushing for a more inclusive education. by Anne Branigin (Washington Post)
Reading the Right Books, Not Just the White Books, Will Help Black Students Succeed by Sharhonda Knott-Dawson (Ed Post)
Cooperative Children’s Book Center’s Diversity Statistics and On Books & Publishing
Discussions and Testimonials from librarians, educators, and caregivers
How Can You Show Your Support for Diverse Books?
Acquire or Support the Acquisition of These Books
A list of considerations when curating and strategies for acquiring diverse books for your local library, classroom, or community space:
Quality matters. Not just any “diverse book” will do
Seek out trusted expertise to help with curation
Who is writing and who is illustrating the books – and their lived experience – matters
Varied representation/storyline matters. It’s not just who’s in the story, but also how they are represented. Important to show kids/families in all different kinds of books, not just one type of storyline.
Diverse Bookfinder’s 9 categories: “Who is represented and how are they represented in the picture books on my shelves?”
CCBC’s Diversity Statistics Book Search (Sort the search results by “☆” to see CCBC Recommended books first)
Intersectionality! Look for characters living at the intersection of multiple under-represented identities.
THERE'S MORE!
Advocate for these books, related professional development, and necessary budget allocations at your school. (See Appendix for the Sample Advocacy Letter template)
Strategize fundraising. These are some examples of grassroots fundraising actions local communities can take to raise money for their books:
GSA sold pronoun pins as a fundraiser and used the funds to buy LGBTQ+ books for their local district’s elementary school.
An elementary school parent/teacher equity group held an auction to raise funding. The winner received a diverse books subscription and the school used funding raised to pay for their own diverse books subscriptions for the school library.
School district applied for district grant funding for diverse books and accompanying professional development.
School partnered with a local bookstore, and now when community members buy books, a percentage goes to school library to purchase additional books for its collections
Online wishlists for books can be shared for community members and organizations to support a library or classroom collection.
Donorschoose.org
Say thank you. Tell the organizations, administrators, educators, and librarians who currently promote and provide access to diverse collections how important they are and how much the community supports their efforts. (See Short-Course Appendix for the “Thank-You” Letter Campaign template).
Supporting Creators and Publishers
Why does supporting authors and illustrators of diverse books–especially those being challenged and banned–matter?
This is hard work – they deserve our explicit support!
They will likely receive negative attention grounded in bigotry so we must ensure they (and their publishers) hear more of the positive than the negative.
When deciding which future books to publish, publishers look at a variety of factors, including how the author/illustrator’s past books performed and how much support the particular author/illustrator has – factors that can be measured in many ways including social media following, positive reviews, etc. So supporting an author/illustrator in these ways can also impact publisher decisions about their future books.
Now, check out some high impact ways to show these creators your support:
Buy their books and/or request that your local library, classroom, etc. buy their books.
Leave reviews! Proactively support the authors, illustrators and publishers creating these books by leaving positive reviews. The volume of these positive reviews are also significant to counter negative reviews grounded in racism, homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, etc. Some places to spread the word about a great book and drown out hate:
Amazon.com
Goodreads.com
Storygraph.com
Bookshop.org or your local indie bookstore’s site
Barnes & Noble and other chain bookstores’ sites
Social Media (remember to include purchase or pre-order links in your posts!)
Your Library (check with your librarian about ways to review books)
Reach out to authors and illustrators. You can bet these creators are getting plenty of hate mail, which means messages of support are all the more important. And there are tons of ways to do it!
Request an in-person/virtual school visit or storytime (and if possible, compensate the author/illustrator for their time and labor)
Write to an author or illustrator to share how you appreciated their book:
Send a thank you directly to creators or post on their social media (See Short-Course Appendix for Author Thank-You Ideas)
Consider organizing an Author Thank-You campaign with children or teens in your home, your class, a book club, etc. who all read the same book
Contacting Authors:
Go to the author or illustrator website. You’ll often find their email address or contact form there. (Sometimes an author or illustrator will provide their agent’s contact information. In that case, contact their agent.)
Message the author/illustrator over their social media. Keep the message brief and clear–authors can get A LOT of messages. If you’re hoping to communicate further (about a possible author visit, for example), ask for an email address.
Short-Course Appendix
A. Sample Adaptable Advocacy Letter for Diverse Books and Related Professional Development in Your Community
In the below sample letter, we divide the letter into important sections (name of section in bold – this language would not be included in your actual letter), and we provide sample and adaptable language (non-bold) that you could adapt to include in your letter.
This letter assumes a context in which the “target” (the person to whom the letter is directed) has stated aligned values and now you’re writing to help realize these values through increased diverse books offerings, and related professional development, in the community.
Dear [Librarian/Teacher/Principal/Superintendent],
Start positively with a message of thanks and explicitly naming related values and messages the letter recipient or school/library community has named as important: Thank you for affirming values of [diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging] within our school community. We are grateful for your leadership in realizing these values in our children’s everyday lives at school.
State who you are: We are a group of [teachers, librarians, staff members, parents, guardians, etc.] who want to support you and partner with you in all ways we can to further the values of [diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging] that we share as critical parts of our children’s school community and educational experience.
Share why diverse books matter: Pull relevant data and talking points from above that will be most persuasive to your audience.
Name a concrete request: We are writing to request the addition of ___ diverse books for [each classroom/library/etc.] in our elementary school [for this upcoming school year or other time period – time period may coincide with budget cycles]. We anticipate that growing our [classroom/library] offerings of diverse books will cost approximately ____. We also request a budget allocation of ____ for professional development to support our teachers in best practices in sharing these books to further our collective values.
Name that you are here to help to realize this goal: We are committed to partnering with you and supporting you in this effort. We are gathering resources to assist with the curation and selection of these books as well as professional development options. We also want to help raise the initial money for this project as well as ensure future sustainable budget allocations for these books.
State the next step: Would you be willing to meet with us on a mutually agreeable date to discuss how we can work together to bring more diverse books and voices into our community? Please email us at _____ or call us at ____ to find a time that works best.
Show significant support from community through getting many signatures:
Sincerely,
Name signatories below
B. Sample Adaptable Thank You Note
In the below sample letter, we divide the letter into important sections (name of section in bold – this language would not be included in your actual letter), and we provide sample and adaptable language (non-bold) that you could adapt to include in your letter.
This letter assumes a context in which the “target” (the person to whom the letter is directed) has stated aligned values and has committed to at least some of what you have requested. If they haven’t, then the tone and approach would be different than the below letter. You will likely need to gather more support in your community and re-approach the target, anticipating their barriers to action.
Dear [Librarian/Teacher/Principal/Superintendent],
Start positively with message of thanks and explicitly naming related values and messages the letter recipient or school/library community has named as important: Thank you again for affirming values of [diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging] within our school community. We appreciated [share something positive about the meeting].
Name what was agreed upon in the meeting: Thank you for agreeing to [name agreements clearly and specifically, possibly in bullet points].
Name that your group is here to help/support/partner: Please know that we are here to support and partner with you in all ways we can. [Name examples if applicable.]
Name next steps and who will do each one and by what date: In the spirit of partnership and advancing our joint effort, our next steps include: [name next steps, who is responsible for each one, and by which date they will be done.]
Please let us know if we are missing any next steps.
Thank you again for partnering with us to realize in ever more deepening ways our jointly held values of [name values].
Show significant support from community through getting many signatures:
Sincerely,
Name signatories below
C. Author Thank-You Letter Ideas
Thank-you letters, emails, and messages are a wonderful way to show your support and appreciation to an author and let them know what their book means to you. What you say is entirely up to you, but always keep in mind that your message is just like a thank-you card for a gift, which means you’re not writing with the expectation of a response (though you might get one!) and you can write as much or as little as you want (simply writing “Thank you!” is more than enough).
Need some ideas to get started?
Why did you like the book (plot, characters, voice, style, cover art, etc.)?
What about the book excited/challenged you?
What did the book make you feel or think about?
What stood out to you the most about the book?
What is something new you learned from the book?
Why are you grateful for the book?
How did the book impact you/your life?
Check out “An Open Letter to an Author” by Kim Ukura for inspiration!
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