The Diverse Bookshelf

Introduction

Books that reflect different cultures and family experiences give all kids a window into the diverse world we live in. Exposure to a wide range of books helps build both empathy and background knowledge.

In this section you’ll get guidance on finding high-quality fiction and nonfiction books. And you’ll hear from children’s authors about their own experiences growing up and the books they write for young readers.

You’ll also find guidance on assessing and diversifying your classroom library and how to use diverse books in the classroom — throughout the school year.

I think the thing I try to do as a writer is to bring worlds to the page. What happens with readers is they step inside those worlds, and they experience them in a way that they might not in their real life, and it gives them a chance to think about a bigger society and the greater good.”
Jacqueline Woodson, author, MacArthur Foundation Fellow (2020), National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature (2018)

The importance of diverse books

In the clip below, education professor and author Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop talks about how diverse books allow children to see themselves in stories, as well as provide a window into the lives of people who may seem different from us.

Transcript

We need diverse books because we need books in which children can find themselves, see reflections of themselves. I wrote a piece maybe 1990 it was published which I called “Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors.” And I think that’s really why we — children need to see themselves reflected.

But books can also be windows. And so you can look through and see other worlds and see how they match up or don’t match up to your own. But the sliding glass door allows you to enter that world as well. And so that’s the reason that the diversity needs to go both ways. I mean it’s not just children who have been underrepresented and marginalized who need these books.

It’s also the children who always find their mirrors in the books and, therefore, get an exaggerated sense of their own self-worth and a false sense of what the world is like because it’s becoming more and more colorful and diverse as time goes on. So, I think that’s why.

Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors (Rudine Sims Bishop)
Why Diverse Books Matter: Mirrors and Windows (opens in a new window) (Colorín Colorado)
Why We Need Diverse Books (opens in a new window) (National Education Association)
Where Are the People of Color in Children’s Books? (opens in a new window) (Walter Dean Myers, New York Times op-ed)
More Nonwhite Characters Are Needed (opens in a new window) (Sharon Flake, New York Times op-ed)
Tell Me Another Story documentary (opens in a new window) featuring Andrea Davis Pinkney, Meg Medina, Grace Lin, and Christopher Myers (Ezra Jack Keats Foundation)

Voices of children’s authors

Children’s authors complete the phrase “We need diverse books because ….”

From our Meet the Author series, Video Interviews with Top Children’s Authors and Illustrators.

Transcript

We need diverse books because we need to have more compassion and more empathy. We need to be able to see everybody’s picture within a book. We need to hear everyone’s story to reaffirm over and over and over again that we are all kin, we are all the mixed blood stew, we are all one. So, loving others as you would love yourself is the golden rule. And I think literature, books, particularly diverse books, reinforce that.

Transcript

I think diversity in books for kids is vital because a child needs to see herself reflected in a story just as much as we need to learn about other people. It’s mirrors and windows, but I think the trend toward more diversity in books, own voices and seeing different cultures represented is fantastic because our country’s changing; our world’s changing, and kids need that.

Transcript

I guess what I’ve been thinking about lately is about kind of gaps I history, and as an Asian-American, you don’t always feel like you’re part of it. You don’t feel like you’re part of that history, but there are tremendous roles that Asian-Americans have played at different points in history, and I would say that you should challenge your students to look for the gaps and to look for the empty spaces, and they might be surprised at what they find.

Transcript

We need diverse books so that we can all connect together, we can all realize that we have a shared universal experience. We need diverse books not just for diverse readers, but for all readers, so we can understand our heritages, our backgrounds, our differences, our similarities, and we can join in solidarity and bridge the gaps between our communities.

Grace Lin: The windows and mirrors of your child’s bookshelf

Featured multicultural booklists

Themed Booklist

Diverse Books: Graphic Novels

Themed Booklist

Friendship, Family, and Culture

Themed Booklist

Multicultural Board Books

Find more books!

Explore all multicultural titles on Book Finder

2023–2024 School Year Calendar: Celebrating Diversity and Inclusion in STEM

Celebrating the scientists and inventors whose contributions have changed our world for the better. Theme months, religious observances, and dates with cultural or historical significance are also included. (From the First Book Accelerator project.) Celebrating Diversity and Inclusion in STEM calendar

I think that the more we read and the more widely we read, the more diverse authors we read, the more we understand the world. And to me that’s a really powerful aspect of literature — that it can create empathy in us in a way that’s really safe where we’re not always able to go out in the world and meet people who are having wildly different experiences than we are …”
Kekla Magoon, author

Reading 101

In the Classroom

Helping All Readers

Books & Authors

Literacy at Home

The Diverse Bookshelf

Introduction

The importance of diverse books

Transcript

Voices of children’s authors

Children’s authors complete the phrase “We need diverse books because ….”

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Grace Lin: The windows and mirrors of your child’s bookshelf

Featured multicultural booklists

Diverse Books: Graphic Novels

Friendship, Family, and Culture

Multicultural Board Books

Find more books!

2023–2024 School Year Calendar: Celebrating Diversity and Inclusion in STEM

The Diverse Bookshelf

Introduction

The importance of diverse books

Voices of children’s authors

Children’s authors complete the phrase “We need diverse books because ….”

Grace Lin: The windows and mirrors of your child’s bookshelf

Featured multicultural booklists

Diverse Books: Graphic Novels

Friendship, Family, and Culture

Multicultural Board Books

Find more books!

2023–2024 School Year Calendar: Celebrating Diversity and Inclusion in STEM

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