Everyone develops role models when they are young. At the age of 4, my role model was probably Ariel the Little Mermaid because I love to swim. Later one as I looked at myself and began to digest what my physical features were I found myself in belle, because of her brown eyes and brown hair. I have many princesses and figures in children literacy that look like me, a white girl. I makes me question, who do little black girls look up to? Why is there such a lack of diversity in early children literacy and media?

Two decades ago only about 9 percent of children’s books published in the U.S. were about people of color. Things have changed since then, but not by much.

https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2017/02/17/515792141/authors-and-illustrators-of-color-accounted-for-22-percent-of-children-s-books

All children need to see themselves and their peers in the stories shared and discussed at school. Kids of color need diverse books because so often they do not see themselves in literature, and therefore feel marginalized, even invisible. White kids need diverse books because they see too much of themselves in literature and this may lead them to feel that they are the center of the world.  When kids are this young, it affects their brain in a different kind of way than it would affect you and I. We have real-world context, which means everything we see, read, or hear we can relate to our everyday life. Some of these kids who may be sheltered may only see black people in TV, or in books. Leading to an even bigger conversation on how that affects black people in everyday life.

I asked some of the teachers if I could look through their libraries and take some pictures for this blog post. They all agreed and let me ask all the questions I wanted! Inside the actual curriculum are some very interesting and well-rounded books. They feature all different kinds of families and cultural norms that lead to important conversations among these tiny humans. They know so much about the world around them and love to talk about it with their friends to compare and contrast, the teacher usually navigates the conversation but never takes control. Leaving kids with the freedom and validation to talk about whatever their norms are! Here are some of the books they read and digest as a class in preschool!