UW–Madison’s Tessa Michaelson Schmidt discussed racial and gender representation in children’s literature with Scientific American earlier this month.
Schmidt is the director of the Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC), which is administratively housed in the School of Education.
“There are just so many more choices of books (reflecting) the multifaceted complexity of individual lives,” Schmidt tells Scientific American.
But according to a recent study in the “Quarterly Journal of Economics” as well as CCBC statistics cited in the article, white men still dominate the children’s literature field.
“Kids crave exposure to stories about people like them, which build up their feelings of self-worth and help them maintain an interest in reading,” the article notes.
Supported by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, the CCBC serves as a resource to Wisconsin schools, teachers, librarians, and others interested in children’s and young adult literature. The center’s Diversity Statistics document books for children and teens it receives annually by and about Black, Indigenous, and people of color.
To learn more, check out the full article.