“I can name at least three books about narwhals,” quips Annie Lyon, CAS/MA ’03. More books featured an animal protagonist than Black, Latinx, Jewish, Hindu, and Muslim characters-combined. And in the words of Mark Twain, they wrote what they know, with 42 percent of books centered on a Caucasian character. By 2019, the total stood at 6 percent.ĭiversity in children’s books is no longer a unicorn (13 books about which were published in 2019), but it’s still far from the norm.īased at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, CCBC reports that 83 percent of the 3,717 picture books, early readers, and chapter books (excluding nonfiction) published in 2019 were penned by white authors. Over the next 29 years, books by a Black author or illustrator never eclipsed 3.5 percent of annual publications, according to the Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC). Once upon a time, in a faraway land known as 1985, just 18 of 2,500 children’s books-less than 1 percent-featured an African American’s name on the cover. Source: Cooperative Children's Book Center
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