Are your bookshelves limited in cultural and ethnic diversity? Here’s how to check, plus our top picks of diverse children’s books for your child or classroom.
Have you “really” looked at the books on your shelves lately?
I mean really looked. Once you get past the kind turtles, quirky talking flies, and teaching trains,
- What books are on your shelves?
- Who are the characters in the story?
- What stories do they tell?
- What cultures do they represent?
- Are your books as globally unique as the people in our communities?
- Do the books in your library celebrate diversity?
- Sleeping Bear Press Books That Celebrate Diversity
- Diverse STEM Books
- Tales of Young Americans Books
- Tales of the World Books
- Discover the World Alphabet Books
- Sleeping Bear Alphabet Books
- Science Alphabet Series
- Sports Alphabet Series
- Black History Month Books
- Join In the Celebration for Multicultural Children’s Book Day
Multicultural Children’s Books
People have different eye colors, hair colors, and skin colors. Some people are tall, short, skinny, or stocky. There are people who speak other languages, eat different foods, and have other traditions.
Is this amazingly wonderful diversity represented in the literature we share with our children?
If your bookshelves are anything like mine, our school library, and our local library shelves, then they are limited in cultural and ethnic diversity.
Many of you may have read that my goal this year was to raise more globally aware children, to be the change and the catalyst our household needed to embrace the world beyond the walls of our home, beyond the roads in our neighborhood, beyond the lines that define our state.
Be the change and the catalyst our household needed to embrace the world beyond the walls of our home, beyond the roads in our neighborhood, beyond the lines that define our state.
We started by learning more about our Russian culture and heritage. Unfortunately, it is nearly impossible for us to find whimsical tales of Russia, historical fiction to read to our children, and modern-day Russian adventures in English to share with our children. This is disheartening.
Fortunately, as the years have passed raising our children, we’ve seen a growth in books that feature diversity and culture. Although I’d love to see more, we now have the beginning list of Russian Books for Kids.
How diverse are the books on your bookshelf?
Affiliate links are included in this post.
Diversity in Children’s Literature
Diversity in literature is one aspect of building a multicultural library.
For Multicultural Children’s Book Day we were partnered with Sleeping Bear Press Books to share with you several books to add diversity to your bookshelf at home and school. Their collection of diverse picture books has grown quite a bit in the past several years.
While looking for the best books that include culture and diversity in their stories and illustrations a few series published by Sleeping Bear Press Books caught our eye.
- Tales of Young Americans
- Tales of the World
- Discover the World
- Sleeping Bear Alphabets
- Science Alphabet Series
- Sports Alphabet Series
Here are their latest books with diversity that we’d recommend adding to your bookshelf.
Sleeping Bear Press Books That Celebrate Diversity
Looking at just the covers the illustrations of these adorable children’s books will catch your attention. The stories themselves capture your heart. Finding storybooks that share a storyline with your child that they connect with is important for books.
This collection of books from Sleeping Bear Press celebrates diversity through both art and text for your child to embrace the world around them. Here are our top picks!
Diverse STEM Books
One area of books that are beginning to grow over the most recent years are books focused on STEM Concepts. We loved seeing how diverse the characters are within these stories.
They have now been added to our popular STEM Books for Kids List.
Tales of Young Americans Books
As young children learn about our history in America, these Tales of Young Americans are important for our children to read. They also help them to work on learning how to read historical fiction to prepare for reading passages that are used in standardized testing in schools.
They may even inspire the selection of someone to feature in their own living history museum project.
One of my favorites for empowering our kids is to read stories written from someone’s own personal story. Here are some of my favorite Own Voices Books for Kids.
Tales of the World Books
This series impressed us with it’s ability to allow your child to walk in the shoes and lives of children around the world. Take a moment to explore this Tales of the World series of books.
We’ve added one to our India Book List.
Discover the World Alphabet Books
There are so many options with these alphabet books with a global focus from the series called Discover the World from Sleeping Bear Press. Your child can travel the world virtually from these pages as they celebrate the culture of specific countries and communities around the world.
Several of the World Alphabet Books have been featured in our Around the World in 12 Dishes Recipes.
Sleeping Bear Alphabet Books
We loved seeing the pages full of illustrations of diverse characters working into everyday concepta in the Sleeping Bear Alphabets Series for books.
Add to your First Day of School Books or Construction Books with your preschooler.
Science Alphabet Series
Every child needs to experience reading the collection of the Science Alphabet Series. A prefect addition to your collection of STEM books.
We’d suggest using these books with our STEM Activities or Creating an Inventor’s Box.
Sports Alphabet Series
Inspiring all to participate in sports is so important to young children, this Sports Alphabet Series does a great job of explaining all about various sports like basketball, ballet and even the olympics to inspire our youngest of athletes.
Black History Month Books
Sleeping Bear Press sent me two stunning books to read and share with you from their Black History Month Suggested Book List. All thoughts and opinions written below are my own. (THANK YOU!!!!)
Pappy’s Handkerchief by Devin Scillian, illustrated by Chris Ellison spins the tale of the Oklahoma Land Run in 1889 from a unique perspective. It is a story of perseverance and the American Dream. This story is written is such a way, that grade school children can relate to the historical event.
My seven year old and I had a great discussion about the time period, land ownership, and changes in the world since the 19 century as relating to travel, society beliefs, and what makes a “home.” “Pappy’s Handkerchief” would make a upper grade school classroom resource for learning US history.
Riding to Washington by Gwenyth Swain, illustrated by Dave Geister is another tale of a young American and how she internalizes and begins to understand the meaning behind Dr. Martain Luther King’s “I have a Dream,” speech during the 1963 civil rights march on the nation’s capital. Geared for older children to learn about this controversial time in history, Swain is able to capture the magnitude of this event and help children understand how strongly people felt about the need for change.
As a parent, I feel that this book would be best for third grade and up. It brought up a lot of thought-provoking questions that my daughter and I talked about.
Join In the Celebration for Multicultural Children’s Book Day
Will you join in this year in celebrating Multicultural Children’s Book Day? It’s January 26th!
Keeping in the spirit of this Multicultural Children’s Day Event, we have already passed these books on to our local school’s public library. For you see, when you stop to take a look at the bookshelves in your home, in your child’s school library, in your community library, you will notice a need for more cultures represented in children’s literature.
For you see, when you stop to take a look at the bookshelves in your home, in your child’s school library, in your community library, you will notice a need for more cultures to be represented in children’s literature.
AMANDA BOYARSHINOV
It is my belief that all of our children need to “see” themselves in stories as well as to be able to “hear” the stories of others and be able to “travel” to times and places around the globe, all within a book.
Will you join in?
- Read a book with your child
- Read to a classroom
- Host a book club
- Buy a new book for your personal collection
- Donate a book in honor of the day
Let us work together to celebrate diversity!
You may also enjoy these articles about culture and diversity…
Thank you for this. As an educator and a grandparent of an African American child I am looking for books like these.
Since I first found out I was pregnant, nearly 3 years ago, I decided that one of my goals was to read to my daughter a wide range of books that highlighted the experiences of people from many different backgrounds and cultures. While her shelf could always use more diversity, I'm pretty proud of what's there so far. She's got bilingual book in Spanish-English, as well as Navajo-English. She's got several books featuring Inuit culture. We have a growing collection of Jewish picture books (Including Ashkenazi, Russian, and Israeli populations). A Passamaquoddy tale. Japanese-American culture. Latino, African-American, and Indian (from India) protagonists in modern American tales. Books where there are many people with a wide range of appearances.
The list grows bigger when I count books that we borrow from the library. I make an effort to include at least one or two titles that highlight stories from other cultures when we bring books home.
Since there are significant Somali and Sudanese populations that have re-settled in Maine, I'd like to find more books that focus on their experiences. It's important to understand your neighbors. I'd also like to find more books that feature children with disabilities and same-sex parents (as well as other non-traditional family configurations, such as children raised by grandparents or an aunt).
I've been challenging myself to try to find more multicultural books written by authors who share that cultural heritage. In the US, at least, we have a history of white people giving voice to oppressed cultures, rather than letting the oppressed have a voice of their own.
Thank you so much for joining us for Multicultural Children's Book Day. I agree, I'd love to read a book that you author Amanda! And thank you for sharing wonderful picture books both with your readers and your school library!
I love your personal challenge and your graphic just sums it all up. We borrow a lot of our multi-cultural books from the library, but you make a good point about having them on your actual bookshelf.
This is awesome. My kids are half American/half Mexican, and I KNOW I need more multicultural books on our shelves.
I'm Jessica stopping by from our SITS Tribe, I'm really looking forward to reading your blog!
Love this topic! I'm a huge advocate for teaching children about other cultures and diversity… especially since I'm Indian and their father is Irish! Dropping by from SITS Tribe building! Excited to get to know you and your site better! 🙂
Im happy I stopped by your website! I am dropping by from the SITS Tribe Building. Can't wait to get to know you better and check out your blog some more.
Agreed! I am part of a children's picture book writing group as well and trying to inspire them to think beyond the walls of their homes, the streets of their neighborhoods, the lines of their states and write more culturally diverse manuscripts. It's a lot of fun to see so many people excited about celebrating diversity!
Thank you for the kind words, I think Sleeping Bear Press has a great collection of multicultural books too!
Me too! Although I try to be diverse in my toy and book choices, it is hard to find what I am looking for sometimes.
I am sure she could always find herself in a good book!
I'm so excited about this day. It's such an important topic to discuss. Thanks for highlighting these books!
Great books! 😀 I've marked both of them as TBR. You bring out some really great point in your post!
I'm starting to look more at our own bookshelves with a more discriminating eye with Multicultural Children's Book Day nearing. These books sound great (I want to read them for myself!).
That would be interesting! 🙂 Although, Neighbor Girl isn't a big traveler – she gets motion sickness, so those pets are probably limited to a small radius. 😉
You are so sweet to share! Maybe Katrina or Stanley will travel someday and you can help create some more multicultural literature as well!
What a fantastic post, Amanda! We do have some books that show diversity but they are more historical books than casual reading books, I have to admit. Both books sound fantastic. I love great picture books. Sharing your post now!
Cool Mom for
The Stanley & Katrina Gang
SJ – Rest assured, I think that it is impossible to have every country and culture represented in our home library (that's why we visit our public libraries often) and that it is important to keep this in the back of our minds when choosing books for family read-alouds. Hopefully a few will find their way into your home and heart soon!
YEAH! I am so glad that you will do this =)
Thank you for the recommendations! Will check them out and YES, I have several children's book manuscripts for Russian stories in the works! My personal goal is to have ONE of my many find a home with a publishing company =)
This is a wonderful post, Amanda. I think you should write some of those whimsical tales yourself, and I will partner with your husband to check for accuracy 🙂 I do want to recommend two books about more modern Russia for kids that we really enjoyed – one is called Sasha and Babushka and another is, I think, called Anna and Anya. I am looking forward to joining this MKB event!
I love this!!! We only have a couple and had to work hard to find those! I love following along on this journey with you Amanda. I will join in and donate a book to our local library too!
I am sad to say there is nothing on my shelves. Very sad. It's something that I need to invest in for my child. Lucky for this I now know a few to look out for 🙂
Thank you so much for your kind words @Frances Evans! Sleeping Bear has a huge selection of books – I would definitely recommend the letter stories for younger readers. I think we started reading them around 5 =)
Thank you Amanda for such a great and insightful post! You will definitely get a lot of people to really "look" on their shelves, and to accept your challenge. Great reviews! Will pin for one my 5 yr. old is older. Thanks again!