Intentional Diversity: Program Ideas from the Field

Authors

  • Africa Hands

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5860/cal.13n3.19

Abstract

The year 2014 was a watershed one for bringing awareness to the issue of diversity in children’s literature. The late author Walter Dean Myers wrote a stirring opinion piece for the New York Times about the Cooperative Children’s Book Center’s (CCBC) report revealing that of the thirty-two-hundred children’s books published in 2013, only ninety-three were about black people.

Author Biography

Africa Hands

Africa Hands is a contract librarian in Louisville, Kentucky. She is the author of Successfully Serving the College Bound (ALA Editions, 2015) and chair of the ALSC Library Services to Special Population Children and Their Caregivers Committee. You can find her sharing news and resources related to youth services and higher education on Twitter @africahands.

References

Walter Dean Myers, “Where Are the People of Color in Children’s Books?,” New York Times, March 15, 2014, accessed April 13, 2015, www.nytimes.com/2014/03/16/opinion/sunday/where-are-the-people-of-color-in-childrens-books.html?_r=1.

Cooperative Children’s Book Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, “Children’s Books by and about People of Color Published in the United States,” accessed April 13, 2015, http://ccbc.education.wisc.edu/books/pcstats.asp.

Christopher Myers, “The Apartheid of Children’s Literature,” New York Times, March 15, 2014, accessed April 14, 2015, www.nytimes.com/2014/03/16/opinion/sunday/the-apartheid-of-childrens-literature.html.

We Need Diverse Books, “Annual Report, 2014,” accessed April 15, 2015, http://weneeddiversebooks.org/annualreport2014.

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Published

2015-08-31

Issue

Vol. 13 No. 3 (2015): Fall

Section

Features

License

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