A newspaper reporter from South Korea recently came to Madison to learn more about the Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC) and its efforts over the past several decades to track diversity in children’s books.
The article, written by Won-Hyung Choi from The Hankyoreh, examines how the CCBC has worked to document the representation of historically marginalized communities in children’s books. The report also notes the data that has been used to support the work of those who advocate for the importance of diverse books, including the CCBC.
Tessa Schmidt, the director of the CCBC, is quoted in the report saying, “… Children are the ones who can save the world. So helping them understand the world and each other is the most important thing we adults can do.”
The CCBC is administratively housed in the UW–Madison School of Education and also is supported by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. Since the mid-1980s it has been documenting and tracking the number of young adult and children’s books by and about people of color.
Publishers, librarians, and teachers have been taking note of the statistics — which have shown a significant increase in representation over time — as have major media outlets. Today, the CCBC fields about 100 media and research inquiries per year about its diversity statistics and the center houses a web page devoted to a range of diversity resources.
Check out the original article, in Korean, here.
