Finding and Sharing Diverse Voices in Children’s Books

The National Center for Education Statistics estimates that by 2027, 55% of elementary and secondary students will be minorities. Students of color already total a little more than 50% of school enrollment across the nation.

As our student population evolves, our education resources must evolve as well. One way to support students of all races and ethnic backgrounds is through diverse voices within the books in our classroom libraries.

In choosing diverse books, many educators use a framework set up in Shadow and Substance by Rudine Sims Bishop, former professor at Ohio State University Columbus. Bishop’s work postulates that books can be “windows, offering views of worlds that may be real or imagined, familiar or strange.”

“These windows are also sliding glass doors, and readers have only to walk through in imagination to become part of whatever world has been created and recreated by the author,” she continued, as quoted in a 2019 OSU article.

These same windows, with different lighting, can become mirrors, she explained. In that case, “Literature transforms human experience and reflects it back to us, and in that reflection we can see our own lives and experiences as part of the larger human experience.”

As educators of the next generation of students, we can use this metaphor to guide our choices of the children’s books we share with students, and gear our selections towards including all voices and all experiences.

But we can’t just populate our class library shelves with books about Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., Pocahontas, or César Chávez. As University of Pennsylvania associate professor Ebony Elizabeth Thomas pointed out in a 2019 EdWeek article by Sarah Schwartz, too often, our books with minority main characters deal only with historical events and injustices.

“The white child gets all kinds of mirrors of the self in literature. Endless, countless adventures. The full range of history — the good, bad, and the ugly. Whereas other children only get a very narrow slice of that history,” Thomas said in the article.

Luckily, books by and about minorities and multicultural populations have burst onto the literary scene in recent years. And that is important because our students of color finally have books that can speak to them on a deeper personal level.

“When I think about the books that have resonated most with my students, it’s the books that help them feel seen, heard, and valued. As a teacher and librarian, I always want to help my students find their own stories,” Mary Ann Scheuer explained in Larry Ferlazzo’s June 2020 EdWeek article. “We need books that show many different experiences, so our readers can see themselves reflected in the pages. Our characters must represent polylithic experiences, made of many different elements to their identities.”

Principals and district leaders should bolster and encourage teachers’ efforts to bring these historically silenced voices into their classrooms. The perspectives found in some diverse books may be new to white children and their parents and may even challenge them on a cultural level – but that is a part of learning.

When district leaders don’t support teachers in this effort, it diminishes the learning experience, as Carly Muetterties and Laura H. Darolia explained in the beginning of their 2020 NCSS article, Considering Different Perspectives in Children’s Literature: An Inquiry Approach that Promotes Civic Learning.

Also, as we read these books with our students, we need to discuss the importance of perspective and voice. Hearkening back to Bishop’s guidance, we should ponder whether a story is a window or a mirror — or maybe even both.

“This depends on the perspective of the reader, of course. It’s important to discuss this question as a classroom community so that students can find meaning in their own perspective and the perspective of others,” Don Vu, an elementary principal, explained in a November 2019 Edutopia article.

Finally, for some students, the books they see in the classroom may be the only ones they ever really pick up and read.

“The only way to truly know which books will resonate with students is to put books out there — lots of them,” said author ReLeah Cossett Lent in Ferlazzo’s June 2020 EdWeek article. “Reading is a journey based on aspects as varied as interests, background, fears, imagination, curiosity, desire, or need — and that is why a book often resonates with readers for reasons we’ll never know. Sometimes, the most we can do is open the door and encourage them to enter.”

Here are just a few picture book suggestions to get you started opening those doors:

Black Voices

Sulwe

By Lupita Nyong’o
Illustrated by Vashti Harrison

2020 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Award

Sulwe’s skin color is darker than everyone in her family, but she wants to be beautiful and bright, like her mother and sister. “Then a magical journey in the night sky opens her eyes and changes everything.”