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A RT I C L E S

What’s on Our Bookshelves?

The Diversity of Children’s
Literature in Early Childhood
Classroom Libraries
T H O M A S C R I S P, S U Z A N N E M . K N E Z E K , M A RG A R E T Q U I N N ,
G A RY E . B I N G H A M , K R I S T Y G I R A R D E A U , & F R A N C H E S K A S TA R K S

This content analysis explores issues related to

representations of diversity in classroom libraries,
providing practical solutions for teachers seeking
to diversify their classroom book collections.

THE WORLD DEPICTED in children’s books is
overwhelmingly White. It is also a world that is predomi-
nantly upper middle class, heterosexual, nondisabled,
English-speaking, and male. In short, it may encompass
many different worlds, but those worlds share familiar
limitations: They are generally normative, limited in scope,
and exclusionary of those who fall outside “mainstream”
cultural identities. This is not to imply that exemplary
books that challenge dominant discourses and normative
representations do not exist; remarkable work has been
done and is available for young readers. However, in 2016,
this much we should be able to agree on: We need to do
more—a great deal more. After all, for more than 75 years,
librarians, scholars, critics, and creators of children’s
books have documented, described, and problematized
the ongoing lack of diversity in children’s literature (see,
e.g., Crosby, 1963; Larrick, 1965; Rollins, 1967). Although
others have attempted to dismiss, ignore, or justify these
disparities, the existence of these issues is overwhelmingly
well established and increasingly well documented in the
realms of publishing and academic scholarship.
Since 1985, for example, the Cooperative Children’s Book
Center (CCBC) at the University of Wisconsin–Madison
has provided yearly statistics about children’s books
published by and/or about people who self-identify as
members of various “parallel cultures” (a term coined by
Hamilton, 1993, p. 363). In their latest report, Horning,
Lindgren, Schliesman, and Townsend (2015) stated that
across approximately 3,500 books published in 2014 that
were received by the CCBC, only around 11% contained
significant content, topics, characters, and/or themes about
African or African American, American Indian, Asian/
Pacific or Asian/Pacific American, or Latino or Latino
American people. According to the CCBC, the number
of multicultural books has remained stagnant for more
than 20 years (see, e.g., Horning, 2013). Other researchers
have identified similar disparities across these and other
cultural identities, including race, religion, socioeconomic
status (SES) and class, gender, dis/abilities and develop-
mental differences, and sexual identity (see, e.g., Blaska,
2004; Chaudhri & Teale, 2013; Crisp, 2015).
Recently, a large-scale survey of the publishing and review-
ing industries provided much-needed baseline data that
contribute to our overall understandings of issues of
diversity and representation in the children’s literature
world (Low, 2016). The survey, conducted by Lee & Low

Journal of Children’s Literature, 42(2), pp. 29–42, 2016. ©Children’s Literature Assembly ISSN 1521-7779