Diversity in Children's Literature

Image Source: School Library Journal

The books featured in this section include characters from specific cultures around the world. These books are culturally and linguistically responsive, and generally provide a deep focus on one single culture within the book.

• Culture is a central focus of the story's overall plot, themes, and meanings in these books. A good question to ask is: "If the characters of this story were replaced with those from another culture (or identity), would it fundamentally change the whole story?" If the answer is YES, it's culturally authentic (or specific)!

Search Tip:

Find books like these by searching keywords or subjects with the names of specific countries or cultures, or specific surface level parts of cultures (holidays, clothing, food, etc). Be as detailed as possible!

• For example, you might look for a culture such as "Mexico" or "Mexican"... or a specific aspect of this culture: "Day of the Dead", "mariachi", "tamales", etc.
• You could also combine the specific name of a culture with a more general term: "Mexico AND music", "China AND holidays", etc