Preliminary diversity stats for 2020 compiled by UW–Madison’s Cooperative Children’s Book Center are utilized in a recent report from the Associated Press (AP). The AP also interviewed UW–Madison’s KT Horning, director of the CCBC, which is housed within the School of Education.
In the report, headlined “Racial diversity in children’s books grows, but slowly,” Horning explains that racial diversity in children’s books has picked up since 2014, reversing a 25-year plateau.
But despite the gains, she says, “progress has been slow.” The CCBC data referenced in the report finds that children’s books written by authors of color in 2020 increased by 3 percent (to 26.8 percent), compared with 2019, while children’s books written about racially diverse characters or subjects grew by only 1 percent (to 30 percent).
Meanwhile, Horning notes that books about Latino characters saw a slight decrease in 2020, from 6.3 to 6.2 percent, while the number of books both by and about Native people stayed flat. Books both by and about Black and Asian people saw small but steady increases.
Horning explains that “it can take years for a children’s book to be written, illustrated and published,” so progress made in 2020 may not be apparent until 2022 or 2023.
Still, Horning says in the report that “she would like to see more people of color writing about their own communities.”
“We want people to feel empowered to tell their own stories.”
Read the full article on apnews.com, here.