Books for little kids are … a problem. Reflecting the power structures of the world we live in, they’re too often a sea of whiteness and boys, or male-gendered trucks. I don’t want any child seeing only himself and his privilege reflected on the pages of the books he reads. I don’t want boys or girls thinking only boys get to have adventures. I don’t want whiteness at the center of everything. I certainly don’t want any of those things for my more-or-less white son. But too many of the books intended to push back and provide some diversity are leaden, didactic disasters too clearly written for parents rather than kids. (One key exception on the educational front, for kids slightly older than my own 3-year-old, is Kwame Alexander’s spellbinding, poetic The Undefeated, illustrated by Kadir Nelson.)
For quite a while I’ve been trying to put together a list—make that A List—of diverse books for little kids, but the scope of the task means it’s gone unfinished. So I’m done trying to be definitive in any way. Here are some books that in one way or another have broken through for my family, satisfying the adults that we’ve provided at least some diversity, of whatever kind, while appealing to the kid at one age or another. These are good stories with diverse characters—like Ezra Jack Keats’ classic The Snowy Day—not books lecturing babies and toddlers on the importance of diversity.
We have two books illustrated by Marla Frazee, and they are both beautiful and populated with a large and diverse set of babies and kids and families. Check out Everywhere Babies and All the World.
Please Baby Please, by Spike Lee and Tonya Lewis Lee, is funny, gorgeously illustrated by Kadir Nelson, and for several months when he was around two years old, my son couldn’t get enough of it. We still come back to it sometimes.
Jane Yolen and Mark Teague’s How Do Dinosaurs books, unlike so many others, include both male and female pronouns. The dinosaurs may be bold and occasionally badly behaved, but kids don’t get the message that dinosaur = boy, which is a welcome change.
In the girls-getting-to-do-stuff-too vein, Dave Engledow’s books The Little Girl Who Didn’t Want to Go to Bed and The Little Girl Who Wanted to Be Big feature wild photos of the author’s daughter in funny scenarios—and doing stuff. It’s a white main character, but good for making sure your child’s personal library passes a toddler version of the Bechdel test.
Jessica Love’s Julián is a Mermaid combines dazzling illustrations with a lovely story of dreams and unexpected acceptance—and mermaids—ending with Julián and his Abuela at the Mermaid Parade.
Every Mo Willems books I’ve encountered to date has been a fantastic read for kids and parents, but for the purposes of this piece, a special flag to Because, which he wrote but is illustrated by Amber Ren. It’s evocative of the joy of artistic inspiration but also attentive to all of the unheralded people who make art—in this case, a symphony—happen, and writes a brown girl-then-woman into the string of inspiration from Beethoven to Schubert to the present.
While these are books for young kids, reflecting the age of my own, I have to mention Daniel José Older’s Dactyl Hill Squad books for middle grades.
More:
Red is a Dragon, by Roseanne Thong
What Should I Make, by Nandini Nayar
Lola Plants a Garden, by Anna McQuinn