What's on Our Bookshelves? the Diversity of Children's Literature in Early Childhood Classroom Libraries

THE WORLD DEPICTED in children's books is overwhelmingly White. It is also a world that is predominantly upper middle class, heterosexual, nondisabled, English-speaking, and male. In short, it may encompass many different worlds, but those worlds share familiar limitations: They are generally normative, limited in scope, and exclusionary of those who fall outside "mainstream" cultural identities. This is not to imply that exemplary books that challenge dominant discourses and normative representations do not exist; remarkable work has been done and is available for young readers. However, in 2016, this much we should be able to agree on: We need to do more-a great deal more. After all, for more than 75 years, librarians, scholars, critics, and creators of children's books have documented, described, and problematized the ongoing lack of diversity in children's literature (see, e.g., Crosby, 1963; Larrick, 1965; Rollins, 1967). Although others have attempted to dismiss, ignore, or justify these disparities, the existence of these issues is overwhelmingly well established and increasingly well documented in the realms of publishing and academic scholarship.Since 1985, for example, the Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has provided yearly statistics about children's books published by and/or about people who self-identify as members of various "parallel cultures" (a term coined by Hamilton, 1993, p. 363). In their latest report, Horning, Lindgren, Schliesman, and Townsend (2015) stated that across approximately 3,500 books published in 2014 that were received by the CCBC, only around 11% contained significant content, topics, characters, and/or themes about African or African American, American Indian, Asian/ Pacific or Asian/Pacific American, or Latino or Latino American people. According to the CCBC, the number of multicultural books has remained stagnant for more than 20 years (see, e.g., Horning, 2013). Other researchers have identified similar disparities across these and other cultural identities, including race, religion, socioeconomic status (SES) and class, gender, dis/abilities and developmental differences, and sexual identity (see, e.g., Blaska, 2004; Chaudhri & Teale, 2013; Crisp, 2015). Recently, a large-scale survey of the publishing and reviewing industries provided much-needed baseline data that contribute to our overall understandings of issues of diversity and representation in the children's literature world (Low, 2016). The survey, conducted by Lee & Low Books, revealed that at all levels measured (e.g., executive, editorial, sales), 77-89% of respondents self-identified as White/Caucasian, 86-91% as straight/heterosexual, and 88-96% as nondisabled. The greatest diversity was found in the area of gender identity, where 59-87% of respondents identified as woman/ciswoman (terms such as ciswoman and cisfemale are used to describe individuals who self-identify as woman/female and were also assigned that identity at birth), 12-40% as man/cisman (terms such as cisman and cismale are used to describe individuals who self-identify as man/male and were also assigned that identity at birth), and less than 1-2% of respondents as intersex, gender nonconforming, or transwoman or transman.It is essential that these industries are diverse, as the cultural identities of those involved in children's book publishing have a direct impact on the types of books created for children. As Reese (2007) noted, much of what we bring to bear on our readings and understandings of children's texts emanates from our own cultural lenses, experiences, and identities. It is fundamentally important that those shaping the creation and dissemination of children's books have the knowledge and cultural intuition needed when working with texts, as it makes it less likely that children's books with problematic, inaccurate, and dishonest treatments continue to make their way into classrooms and the hands of young readers. …