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Girl Empowerment Book Ideas

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The world's largest collection of books and movies for smart, confident, and courageous girls

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To inspire young girls to build self-esteem and resilience.

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The Umbrella Girls - illustrated by Maude Guesne, AUSTRALIA - maude guesne

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The Umbrella Girls - illustrated by Maude Guesne, AUSTRALIA November 20, 2015 Maude Guesne brings her imagination and world travelling cultural curiosity to the The Umbrella Girls. A series of eight books written to inspire young girls to build s...

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Cinderfella - We wouldn't show this to boys, so why do we show it to girls?

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Cinderfella - We wouldn't show this to boys, so why do we show it to girls?

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This perfectly sums up what's wrong with fairytales

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The global campaign to transform girls' lives through education, Because I am a Girl, ran from 2012 to 2018. Together with girls and our supporters we were able to raise hundreds of millions of euros, change laws in numerous countries and, most importantly, support millions of girls to get an education.
Check out the timeline below to see some of the highlights from Because I am a Girl.

2003 - Establishing a girls' rights focus

In 1997, former Plan International Germany Director Marianne Raven was in Nepal discussing the challenges faced by a rural community.

She saw a girl called Sharmila who didn't have enough clothes on to keep her warm.

When Marianne asked her mother why she wasn't being cared for, the mother replied, "Because she is a girl," and the idea for a campaign, focusing on girls, was born.

In 2003, Plan International Germany was the first office to start a campaign dedicated to girls.

This marked the start of a growing focus from Plan International on the needs and rights of girls that resulted in Because I am a Girl transforming girls' lives in over 70 countries.

2007- Tracking the state of the world's girls

Between 2007 and 2015, we released a series of annual reports focusing on girls and young women in the world.

The State of the World's Girls reports brought together leading thinkers, activists and policy makers to provide a wealth of data and the experiences of marginalised girls from around the world on the major issues facings them.

The reports highlighted the double jeopardy girls face for being young and female and the concerted effort needed for real progress.

2011 - Securing an international day for girls

While there has long been an International Women's Day and an International Day of the Child, neither recognise the unique position of girls who are discriminated against simply for being young and female.

Plan International campaigned alongside girls for an international day that celebrates their power and highlights the issues they face.

With support from the Canadian government, we took our call to the UN who adopted 11 October as International Day of the Girl in 2011.

It is now celebrated globally with girls, their allies, governments, charities, corporations and the media increasingly focussing on the power of girls on the day each year.

2012 - Because I am a Girl launches

The Because I am a Girl campaign launched on the first ever International Day of the Girl in 2012. The targets of the campaign were to:

Directly reach 4 million girls through programmes

Indirectly reach 40 million children through programmes

Reach 400 million children through policy changes

Raise €500 million

Watch our award-winning stop-motion film I'll take it from here which explains the importance of girls' education.

2012 - Landmarks turn pink for girls' education

Every year on International Day of the Girl, famous buildings and landmarks were lit up in pink to raise public awareness of the importance of girls' education.

Among the sights that were turned pink over the years were the Empire State Building, the London Eye, Niagara Falls, Pyramids in Egypt and Real Madrid's Bernabeu stadium.

London Eye, UK

Pyramids, Egypt

Empire State Building, USA

2013 - UN taken over by youth for the first time

In July 2013, Plan International supported 15 youth activists to join the first ever youth takeover of the UN.

They were part of a delegation of more than 600 young people led by Malala Yousafzai.

At the event, on the day of her 16th birthday, Malala made her famous speech calling for the urgent prioritisation of education around the world.

"One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world. Education is the only solution," she said.

2014

Smashing the barriers keeping girls out of school

As part of Because I am a Girl, programmes ran across the world to tear down the barriers preventing girls from getting an education.

We have been working directly to end child marriage and other forms of violence against girls, and to change communities' perceptions about what girls are capable of.

A number of our programmes have proved to be such a success that they have grown and are still improving girls' lives, such as our Safer Cities and Champions of Change initiatives.

Raise your hand

In 2012, Plan International launched the Raise Your Hand petition to put pressure on the UN to prioritise girls' education in the Global Goals.

In 2014, the petition was handed over to the UN with over 2.3 million people globally having raised their hands for girls' education.

Among those who supported the petition were youth campaigner Malala Yousafzai, actress Freida Pinto and UN Special Envoy for Education Gordon Brown.

Norwegian child bride blog goes global

In 2014, Plan International Norway created a fictional blog about 12-year-old Thea who was due to marry 37-year-old Geir.

The story soon went viral with celebrities such as actor Ashton Kutcher and global media outlets sharing the story.

The campaign highlighted how child marriage stands in the way of millions of girls being able to go to school and follow their ambitions.

2015 - Campaign smashes targets

Just 2 years into the campaign, Because I am a Girl had become a powerful force for change. In that period, it had:

Directly impacted the lives of over 3 million girls, over 75% of the initial target

Raised over €436 million, over 87% of the initial target

Contributed to changing laws or policies in 17 countries

2015 - Influencing the international development agenda for girls

Our work to influence the Global Goals began in 2011. We wanted to make sure the issues faced by the girls were properly addressed, including their right to an education.

When the goals were signed in 2015, we supported 15 girls to go to the United Nations and call on leaders to hold to their promise to ensure quality education for all children.

The Global Goals, which include a target of achieving gender equality by 2030, now frame all of Plan International's work. We are working with partners to influence governments to localise the Global Goals and meet the needs and rights of girls.

2015 - Girls take over the world

International Day of the Girl 2016 saw the first global #GirlsTakeover. Girls stepped into the shoes of leaders in more than 50 countries to call on their governments to remove the barriers that deny millions their rights and stop girls going to school.

The President of Nepal was taken over along with the Vice President of Paraguay as well as Mayors in Madrid and Dublin, and the heads of media outlets and major corporations across the world.

2016 - Making cities safe for girls

Girls' inability to move around cities safely is a huge barrier that stops them going to school.

That's why, in 2016, Plan International UK delivered a petition signed by people from over 90 countries to the UN calling on governments to improve the safety of cities for girls.

After the petition was handed over, UN member states signed the New Urban Agenda which commits them to guaranteeing girls' safety, access to public spaces and their ability to move freely in cities.

2017 - Influencing laws to end child marriage

Child marriage is a huge barrier that prevents girls from getting an education.

Throughout the Because I am a Girl campaign, we have been working to end child marriage and as a result of our influencing work with partners, the first ever resolutions on child marriage were adopted by the United Nations Human Rights Council and the General Assembly in 2013.

Later in the campaign our work helped to raise the legal age of marriage for girls to 18 in Zimbabwe, Malawi, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.

2018 - World leaders commit to fund education

In February 2018, $2.3 billion was pledged by donor governments to fund education in low-income countries between 2018 and 2020. This was an increase on the $1.3 billion pledged for the previous 3 years. In addition, developing countries increased their collective budget for education from $80 billion to $110 billion.

This pledge took place following our #WeAreTheNext campaign in which girls called on their governments to increase education funding.

The increased funding will support millions of girls to go to school and transform their futures.

2018 - Girls Get Equal launches

Plan International's new global campaign is Girls Get Equal. This youth-led social change campaign is about ensuring every girl and young woman has power over her life and the world around her.

Instead of focussing on a single issue, such as girls' education, we are aiming to change the way girls are valued in society so they no longer have to face injustice and oppression.

Girls Get Equal is about girls not holding back and conforming to what stereotypes dictate. It's about power, leadership and youth-led action to advance girls' rights and gender equality. And we're raising our voices to amplify theirs.

Will you join us?

Because I am a Girl has finished as a global campaign but will remain as a national campaign in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, USA and UK.

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The global campaign to transform girls' lives through education, Because I am a Girl, ran from 2012 to 2018. Together with girls and our supporters we were able to raise hundreds of millions of euros, change laws in numerous countries and, most importantly, support millions of girls to get an education.

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What does it mean to do something "like a girl"?

A popular ad from Always tried to answer that question by asking subjects to demonstrate running, fighting, and throwing "like a girl." Older subjects put on a weak performance, but when young girls were given the same instructions, they ran, threw, and fought as hard as they could. The ad asked, "When did doing something 'like a girl' become an insult?"

While close to 52 percent of professional jobs are held by women, we're substantially underrepresented in leadership roles. Only 14.6 percent of executive officers, 8.1 percent of top earners, and 4.6 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs are women. At this rate, it's estimated that women won't achieve leadership parity until 2085.

However, not all barriers facing women can be attributed to the glass ceiling imposed by the traditional workplace. Women often hold themselves back from advancement with self-imposed barriers.

After all, adult women in the ad performed "like a girl" with just as much mockery as men.
What Holds Women Back
In a conversation about the likelihood of the U.S. electing a female president, Hillary Clinton said, "There's still this built-in questioning about women's executive ability, whether it's in the corporate boardroom or in the political sphere."

Much of this questioning stems from women themselves. Women are held back in the workplace by:

A fear of failure. While men know their personal worth isn't determined by professional failures, young women often fear that workplace missteps will cost them their job, reputation, and success.

Family matters. Some women fear that employers will view them as vulnerable, inefficient, or unmotivated if they decide to start a family.

An inferiority complex. Some women still believe that men are stronger leaders, have better ideas, and are more equipped to achieve success.

Women can only break through these barriers by helping themselves. Here are three things every woman can do to propel herself forward, whether she's an intern or CEO:

Be yourself. When I started my company, I thought that if I acted tough, I'd achieve more success. I wore pants to work and rarely dared to talk about my family. But one day, I decided to stop pretending. I started talking about my family with customers, and to my surprise, people began relating to me, our relationships grew stronger, and the company culture became unbelievably transparent.

Trust your instincts. Women are wired with great intuition. It was a big risk for my husband and I to uproot our lives to move to America, but we trusted our ability to succeed in a new place, and we've never looked back.

Embrace mistakes. In my company's early years, I was afraid to talk about my mistakes. I thought my team would think I was weak - but I was wrong. This view led to a lack of transparency, inefficient processes, and a damaged bottom line. I realized that mistakes are an opportunity to learn and improve.
Lead Like a Girl
When women adopt leadership roles, they contribute a unique set of skills, ideas, and life experiences that can broaden the entire company's insight, strategies, and bottom line.

On average, Fortune 500 companies with more female board representation achieved a significantly higher financial performance than those with fewer female representatives.

So how can businesses - especially those led by women - recruit and nurture talented female leaders? The best way is by creating a supportive environment that actively empowers women to lead by:

Encouraging mentorship and collaboration. Women increase their chances of succeeding in business when they have mentors to provide real-life examples.

Letting family come first. Having a family should never deter anyone - man or woman - from pursuing a career. Create an atmosphere that nurtures family life with benefits like flexible work schedules, on-site childcare, and education.

Taking the pressure off. Women should feel comfortable vocalizing their ideas - not just agreeing with their male counterparts to protect themselves politically. Encourage everyone to speak up.

Women are great at building relationships, empowering others, tuning into people's needs, and balancing a staggering number of responsibilities - skills that are great assets, not liabilities, in the workplace.

Even if you fail, you'll fail like a girl. And there's nothing wrong with that.
Originally from Turkey, Zeynep Ilgaz and her husband co-founded Confirm BioSciences and TestCountry, where Ilgaz serves as president. Confirm BioSciences is committed to being on the cutting edge of offering new, service-oriented drug testing technologies.

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Lead Like A Girl: How To Empower Women At Every Level

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By Zeynep Ilgaz What does it mean to do something "like a girl"? A popular ad from Always tried to answer that question by asking subjects to demonstrate running, fighting, and throwing "like a girl." Older subjects put on a weak performance, but when young girls were given the same instructions, they [...]

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Why we need characters that look like us...

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Why we need characters that look like us...

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The Windows and Mirrors of Your Child's Bookshelf | Grace Lin | TEDxNatick

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Join the movement and captain a screening of Girl Rising in your town: http://girlrising.com Girl Rising is the feature-length film at the center of 10×10's global action campaign for girls' education. The film reveals the extraordinary stories of girls from around the globe, fighting to overcome impossible odds on the road to realizing their dreams of education.

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Article about children's book characters being very "white". Lots of data/statistics

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Article about children's book characters being very "white". Lots of data/statistics

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Spike Lee and Toni Morrison are two of my students' favorite authors. Of course, their inclusion on our syllabus is not without controversy. For instance, Morrison's beloved "Peeny Butter Fudge," a collaboration with her son Slade, includes a recipe on the last page, and my students really want to make it. While there are no peanut allergies in my class this year, the recipe is much too sugary.

My students are 4 and 5 years old, and finding excellent books for them featuring people of color, kids with two dads, kids with no dad, or girls who slay dragons is a persistent challenge. Like many educators, I find myself returning to a handful of treasured titles, including "Peeny Butter Fudge" and Lee's "Please, Baby, Please."

Annual statistics from the Cooperative Children's Book Center bear out what I know from visits to my local library. For three decades, the librarians at the center, a modest outfit at the University of Wisconsin, have tracked one dimension of diversity in books for children and young adults: racial diversity. Children's and young adult literature ("kid lit") represent a stubbornly white world even as U.S. children are increasingly people of color.

Since the center began tracking data in 1985, it has found underrepresentation of people of color both as authors and characters. Originally, it only tracked African-American authorship and content, finding just 18 new titles by African-American authors that first year. Over time, educators and other stakeholders requested data on other groups as well. So the center's librarians began counting books by or about American Indians, Asian-Pacific Americans, and Latinos. Going forward, they will add a new category: books featuring a character with a disability.

In any given year, the number of books about one racial group would go up slightly while the number of books about another group decreased. However, Kathleen Horning, the center's director, and other advocates for diversity in children's literature see indications that 2014 might be the year the trends began to change. In February, the center released its newest data, which for the first time showed a year-over-year increase in every category. The quantities remain tiny when considered as a percentage of children's books published in the U.S.

It, of course, remains to be seen whether the rise in the number of diverse books published in 2014 is a blip or an upward trend.

While the changes are slight, the efforts underway to change the face of kid lit are significant. In May, a group of authors and industry professionals launched a revived effort to change children's publishing using tools that were not available to previous generations of activists. The volunteer-led coalition known as We Need Diverse Books has raised more than $334,000, largely through crowdfunding, fueled in part by a campaign on Twitter using the We Need Diverse Books hashtag.

The efforts of We Need Diverse Books echo those of the Council on Interracial Books for Children, which formed in the 1960s in connection to civil rights work in Mississippi. Indeed, movements to change the faces of children's literature often come hand in hand with broader social movements. It may be no accident that the year that brought us #BlackLivesMatter also brought us #WeNeedDiverseBooks.

Advocates talk about the potential of kid lit to serve as both "windows" and "mirrors" - windows into life experiences of others and mirrors that reflect and affirm kids' life experiences. When whole groups of people appear as stereotypes or not at all, all children lose out. Zetta Elliott, author and advocate, and Christopher Myers, an author, illustrator, and recent addition to the We Need Diverse Books advisory board, have each made the case that these are matters of life and death. Elliott used that phrase in a 2009 open letter to the publishing industry. In a 2013 essay in The Horn Book, a children's literature magazine, Myers wrote: "The plethora of threatening images of young black people has real-life effects. But if people can see us as young dreamers, boys with hopes and doubts and playfulness ... perhaps they will feel less inclined to kill us."

Industry experts offer a variety of reasons for the lack of diversity in children's literature, and We Need Diverse Books is using a multipronged approach to address them. One of the group's initiatives aims to help change who is sitting at the desks of publishing houses reviewing incoming manuscripts. In 2014, Publishers Weekly's annual salary survey of the industry inquired for the first time about race; 89 percent of respondents who identified their race said they were white. Authors of color report that the overwhelming whiteness of the publishing industry can mute them. They hear again and again that their characters aren't relatable, or that their books aren't child friendly, or that they are for the wrong audience. S.E. Sinkhorn, publicity chair for We Need Diverse Books, said that the organization is in talks with many publishing houses, encouraging them to hire diverse interns, and that grants from We Need Diverse Books will support some candidates who could not otherwise afford to take those internships.

We Need Diverse Books is also sponsoring various contests, both to publish first-time diverse authors and to honor new books by those in the field. These efforts stem from the recognition that many diverse authors are already writing but may need help connecting to publishers or, if already published, to wider audiences. The Walter Dean Myers Award will recognize notable books by diverse authors, amplifying those books' impact and presumably their sales.

Sales, of course, are a big issue. "The market for your work just isn't there" is a line that authors of diverse books say they hear frequently. At the same time, some authors find that their books don't receive the same marketing push as books by white authors. They also find their books carted off to a separate section of the library, "multicultural literature," where they stand apart from general interest. Small publishers like Lee and Low have arisen to specifically publish and promote diverse books, attempting to disprove the notion that there's no market for them.

But when those in publishing say there's no market for diverse books, they may be right, in a sense, because at least one major market for diverse books has winnowed even as the appetite for them has stayed strong. "We have seen a real change as school and library budgets have been gutted," Horning said. Great Society funds in the 1960s supported school libraries and at the same time the rise of many authors encouraged by the Council on Interracial Books for Children. In the years immediately following the financial collapse of 2008, school library spending on books decreased by 10.5 percent. Authors like Nikki Grimes have noticed publishers' shifting toward " blockbuster-craving bookstore markets."

So far, We Need Diverse Books has not made library funding a focus. Instead, in addition to its internship program and writing contests, it's focusing on amplifying diverse books through publicity. The organization has created toolkits to help librarians select and promote diverse books, established an author visit program to bring diverse authors into classrooms,and begun organizing a Diverse Books Festival to take place in Washington, D.C., in 2016.

Whether We Need Diverse Books maintains its momentum will depend not only on the efforts of the coalition organizers but also on media attention and political momentum around equity more generally. "Our campaign would not have been as successful as it has been if the tone wasn't there in the general public already," Sinkhorn said. "We gave it the push and the outlet."

The librarians at the Cooperative Children's Book Center have begun surveying review copies of books for 2015. "We are not under any impression that that shift is going to happen immediately, not in the next year, not five or maybe 10," Sinkhorn said. Still, she said, she'll be keeping a close eye on the center's data.

The good news is that even a few great books can make big waves in the classroom. Recently, I introduced my students to two titles included in the center's 2014 data: Katheryn Russell-Brown's "Little Melba and Her Big Trombone" and Kathryn Otoshi's "Two." My students love these stories. They've been listening to recordings of Melba Liston's music and participating in dramatic retellings of "Two." That doesn't mean, of course, that they'll cease their campaign to make some of the Morrisons' peanut butter fudge.

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The World Of Children's Books Is Still Very White

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Spike Lee and Toni Morrison are two of my students' favorite authors. Of course, their inclusion on our syllabus is not without controversy. For instance, Morrison's beloved "Peeny Butter Fudge," a collaboration with her son Slade, includes a recipe on the last page, and my students really want to make it.

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Study finds huge gender imbalace in children’s literature

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New research reveals male characters far outnumber females, pointing to ‘symbolic annihilation of women and girls’

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Website where you can have strong girls in stories 

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Website where you can have strong girls in stories 

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Little super-women - Gender equality in small childrens story books.

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On World Book Day we take a closer look at Lab-elle, a non-profit association which promotes childrens story books that fight gender stereotypes and give girls more active, adventurous roles. (TSR/swissinfo.ch)

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Shy girl writes her own book about Catgirl

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Shy girl writes her own book about Catgirl

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An 8-year-old West Bloomfield girl publishes book, working on series

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Layah Vasser is only 8 years old and she's already a published author. She says it took her about two months to finish her first book "Cat Girl." The book is about the adventures of a young girl who becomes a superhero to save animals.

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Girl wrote her own book because she thought "only white girls could be princesses"

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Girl wrote her own book because she thought "only white girls could be princesses"

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A six-year-old girl from Greenville wrote her own children's book and it's now for sale at Barnes and Noble stores across the country.

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Ever think about writing your own children's book? I have, for many years, actually. Last year, I finally followed through and produced one called Smart Aleck. Here are the steps I took from concept to finished product (in the video below, you can see exactly what the finished product looks like in much more detail).

1) I took my story idea and wrote it down, trying to keep to under 1,000 words, which could work on the ideal page count for a picture book: 32 pages.
2) Working with a local university, I "auditioned" dozens of illustrators until I found the one whose style I thought best fit what I was picturing.
3) I settled on a price to pay my new illustrator, Gabe Lin.
4) Over a couple months, we worked out the look of the characters. Then we storyboarded the book, drawing little sketches of what we wanted to see on each page, leaving room for the text.
5) Once the characters and storyboards were done, Gabe roughed out the book at 10" X 8", which was the trim size I was aiming for.
6) Over the next few months, Gabe illustrated the book and we made small revisions to the text where we needed.
7) With the finished files in hand, I started looking for the best place to get the books printed. After an exhaustive search and many days on the phone with various companies and tech supports, I settled on two - ArtBookBindery.com to handle the 50 paperback copies I wanted and Blurb.com to handle the few hardcover copies.
8) The video below walks you through some details of those experiences, but overall it was simple, painless, and even fun!
9) Of course, the best part was reading the book in bed to my son during our normal booktime. He was floored that this very professional-looking book he was holding was written by his very own dad. Easily the highlight of the whole experience. I can't recommend it enough, especially if you can work into the story some inside jokes and phrases only your family knows about... that makes it very special for the kids.
10) If you'd like a copy of my book, I'm taking 50% of all the money I make from sales and donating it to FirstBook.org - a wonderful charity that puts new books in the hands of kids in need. Just e-mail me for details on how to order: triviahunt at gmail dot com.

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How to Self-Publish Your Very Own Children's Book

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Ever think about writing your own children's book? I have, for many years, actually. Last year, I finally followed through and produced one called Smart Aleck. Here are the steps I took from concept to finished product (in the video below, you can see exactly what the finished product looks like in much more detail).

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Is WNDB a non-profit?

Yes, WNDB is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. All donations made to WNDB are tax deductible.

Can I submit my book to WNDB for review or publication?

No, unfortunately. WNDB doesn't review books, and we don't publish them either. We do, however, provide a Resources for Writer s page that you may find useful on your publication journey.

Where did the #WeNeedDiverseBooks hashtag come from?

In a Twitter exchange on April 17th, 2014, Ellen Oh and Malinda Lo expressed their frustration with the lack of diversity in kidlit. This wasn't a new conversation for Ellen or Malinda, just the latest, this time in response to the all-white, all-male panel of children's authors assembled for BookCon's May 31st reader event. In a series of tweets, Ellen started talking about taking action. Several other authors, bloggers, and industry folks piped up saying they would like to be involved as well.

We planned a three-day event for May 1-3 to raise awareness, brainstorm solutions, and take action (Diversify Your Shelves). Aisha Saeed primed the pump on April 24th with the first tweet including the #WeNeedDiverseBooks hashtag.

After Aisha's post, the hashtag started taking off, officially trending for the first time on April 29th, around 9:30 pm EST.

Who is on the #WeNeedDiverseBooks team?

How can I get #WeNeedDiverseBooks swag?

We're working on setting up a shop where posters, buttons, etc., will be available!

Can I get permission to reuse images from your 2014 social media campaign?

While the images were submitted to our campaign for use on our tumblr, we do not own those images. You would have to contact the individuals who created them for permission.

Are you still looking for #WeNeedDiverseBooks images? How can I submit one of my own?

We are no longer accepting images, but thank you for your interest!

What are the statistics supporting the dearth of diverse literature?

On September 11th, 1965, an article was published in The Saturday Review titled "The All-White World of Children's Books." It revealed that of 5,206 children's trade books published by sixty-three publishers during a three year period, only 349 books, about 6.7 percent, had one or more African American characters in them. Eight of the publishers at that time published only all-white books.

Move forward to the year 2013 where out of 3,200 children's books published, there were only 93 about African American people. This led to a New York Times piece that asked the question, "Where Are the People of Color in Children's books?"

In June of 2013, multicultural publisher Lee and Low Books put together a graphic illustrating that although 37% of the population of the United States are people of color, only 10% of children's books published contained multicultural content. This gap has remained steady from 1994-2013-18 years!

The Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) further examined the issue with their study, Children's Books by and about People of Color Published in the United States. They answered an often asked question: What about the use of animals as stand-ins for human characters in children's books? How does that affect the statistics? The CCBC discovered that out of 1509 books published in 2013, 78.3% depicted human characters. When we subtract the 326 books with non-human characters, that leaves 1183 books with human characters. Only 124 of those books were of people of color, about 10.57% of the total. Even though the statistics only reflected the first six months of 2013, we see the same trend of underrepresentation.

What are the benefits of children seeing themselves in books?

Seeing Reflections of Themselves
Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop published an article in 1990 titled "Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors" that speaks about how our society has grown with culture, but our books don't reflect it. She describes that people of color see through windows, looking in at a world that isn't like their own.

Bishop noted, "When children cannot find themselves reflected in the books they read, or when the images they see are distorted, negative, or laughable, they learn a powerful lesson about how they are devalued in the society of which they are a part." Children are affected by what they see around them, and it helps them to grow.
Learning the True Nature of the World Around Them
For white children, they also suffer from not seeing the true nature of the world around them. It can distort the world around them and their connections to other humans. All children can learn from the richness of culture. As this School Library Journal blog post notes, non-white parents are three times more likely to talk about race to their children than white parents. Even at a young age, children do categorize themselves into groups. Children's books can be used as a resource to help with tough topics.
Seeing Themselves in Characters and Their Environment
Kids do search for themselves in books. While our population continues to grow and change, children do deserve to find connections with character they are looking for like themselves. Children aren't the only ones who are looking for themselves in books. In a survey of 2,000 schools, 90 percent of the educators believed children would become more enthusiastic readers if they had books reflecting their lives. Schools and libraries are searching to remedy this, however, it can be a challenge to find go-to books that remind them of their own students and want to share with them. Initiatives like First Book's Stories for All initiative can bridge that gap. Read more in the "Study on Children Are Not Colorblind: How Children Learn Race" from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee by Erin N. Winkler, Ph.D.

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Yes, WNDB is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. All donations made to WNDB are tax deductible. No, unfortunately. WNDB doesn't review books, and we don't publish them either. We do, however, provide a Resources for Writer s page that you may find useful on your publication journey.

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"We need more books," they would say.

"But of course!" I agreed beaming with a feeling of satisfaction and parental pride. "We'll go to the library tonight and you guys can get as many books as you want."

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"We need more books," they would say. "But of course!" I agreed beaming with a feeling of satisfaction and parental pride. "We'll go to the library tonight and you guys can get as many books as you want."

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Trade Books by Blurb are affordably priced to help you self-publish your next book at a marketable price. Use Blurb's free tools, Adobe InDesign and Adobe Lightroom, or upload a PDF.

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Importance of Cultural Diversity in Books

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Importance of Cultural Diversity in Books

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No matter who you parent or teach your children need diverse books. Let me help you understand why and find diverse books for your library.

Creating a home or preschool library that reflects the diversity in the world helps our children learn to respect and understand those differences. A child who has never had any exposure to someone who looks, or talks, or prays differently than their family does can not be expected to immediately accept that person. Adults may tell them "To love everyone." but those are just words and what many children see is that these groups of people are excluded from their lived experience which is a much more effective lesson than being told, "Love everyone." Inclusion matters, because it adds another layer onto the "Love everyone." lesson. Whether the children we raise and teach are part of a marginalized group or not diverse books are a must. Understanding is a key component for developing empathy, raising more empathetic open minded kids is the goal and books are one of the tools we can use to reach it.

Diversity on your bookshelf is not just a tool for breaking down prejudice, it is also a tool for reflecting the lived experience of children in marginalized groups. As Marieke Nijkamp author and founding member of We Need Diverse Books writes "..when our stories continuously erase those characters-we teach readers that their stories don't matter. We teach them that their voices don't matter. We teach them that they don't matter." Sadly that lesson is taught far too often simply because the number of books that reflect these lived experiences is few and far between. According to the Cooperative Children's Book Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2015 of the roughly 3400 children's books published 14.9% were about a non-white character, the breakdown looked like this; 7.9% African American, 1.2% American Indian or First Nations, 3.3% Asian Pacifics/ Asian Pacific Americans, and only 2.4% Latino. Compare those numbers to the racial statistics of children in the United States, where 48% of children are not white, and you can see there is a serious gap in representation. Whether the children we raise and teach are part of a marginalized group or not understanding is a key component for developing empathy, raising happy more empathetic open minded kids is the goal.

Why Diverse Books?

Books serve many purposes; they are tools for our children to learn about themselves as well as about the world around them. We often hear books being called mirrors and windows, mirroring the child's lived experience and opening the child up to experiences that they wouldn't otherwise have a chance to explore. Every child should have access to books that serve both purposes. Books are also a non-threatening way to introduce sensitive subjects whether they are ones that reflect on your students or child's life or not. Together cuddled on a couch, book nook or bed the adult can help a child through the material. A parent or teacher can help make that connection deeper by discussing the book as you read.

Recently at my home, we read "I'm New Here" and discussed what being an immigrant might feel like for children. Although my children live with an immigrant mother, they know that my experience has been very different than the experiences of the children portrayed in that book. We took the time to talk carefully about feelings and which situations they could relate to in the book despite never having had that same experience.

Children need to have books that support the idea that being different is a strength and that point out differences within their identity group. Accepting that being different is a strength is a benefit not only to the child himself but also to others. As I write in my post about teaching children to love themselves to be more empathic;" When a child is secure in their identity, there is no reason to belittle another for being who they are. A secure child recognizes their own uniqueness, and that opens the door to being able to recognize the uniqueness of others. " Diversity can be diversity of abilities, or family structure, language, and even things like wearing glasses. Kids already see these differences, and when we don't talk about them, kids create their own ideas which aren't always a path to acceptance.

Tips for Choosing Diverse and Inclusive Books

Here!
Diverse Books For Toddlers LGBTQ Positive Books Books About Poverty Diverse Books About Christmas Books About Immigration Multicultural Books For Kids Books About Divorce Books About Japanese Internment

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Why Young Children Need Diverse Books and Where To Find Them - No Time For Flash Cards

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No matter who you parent or teach your children need diverse books. Let me help you understand why and find diverse books for your library. Creating a home or preschool library that reflects the diversity in the world helps our children learn to respect and understand those differences.

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Elementary School Girls Think Boys Are Smarter

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Find out what a study published a Science found about how young girls perceive their intelligence as compared to boys.

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If you have a daughter, you need to see this.

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Our daughters deserve a new kind of fairy tale, that's why we created "Good Night Stories For Rebel Girls". Get it here: www.rebelgirls.co