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Teaching Tolerance

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A third-grade teacher shares how she uses diverse picture books to surround her students with mirrors and windows-and to combat implicit biases.

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The Toast Blog

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Noah Cho's previous work for The Toast can be found here.
There are few things a biracial 16-year-old growing up in Southern California has in common with Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of The Scarlet Letter. There are even fewer experiences in the life of that 16-year-old that have much if anything to do with the events that unfold in that novel. So it's unsurprising that I have never liked The Scarlet Letter.

Like many people who grew up in the American school system, I first read Hawthorne's novel as a high school sophomore. Our English teacher led us enthusiastically through the book as I struggled to stay awake. "You see," she said to our class, " Hawthorne keeps comparing little Pearl to a bird. It means that she, symbolically, wants to..." [Dramatic pause.] "... Fly free!"

Looking back on that class, I often find it incredible that I became an English teacher.

Nine years after I first slogged through The Scarlet Letter in high school, I found myself back at that same school, this time as a certified teacher. I was, as most young teachers are, idealistic and filled with grand ideas about what I could accomplish in the classroom.

In my English courses at UC Irvine, I had fallen in love with novels, stories, and writers that I could never have dreamed of back in my high school English class. I found myself powering through Gabriel Garcia Marquez's entire oeuvre after Love in the Time of Cholera appeared on my reading list for a Magical Realism course. Langston Hughes' The Ways of White Folks featured breathtaking prose and stories that opened my eyes to a vast world of racial dynamics far more complicated than the bubble in which I had grown up in Orange County. James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time, which I read with one of my most beloved college professors, inspired in me a desire for justice. Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies spoke to me in a way that no short story collection ever had before.

But it was with Chang Rae-Lee's Native Speaker that my thirst for multicultural literature was fully awakened. Never before had I read a novel that so directly, powerfully, and immediately connected with my own life experience. The protagonist was a father mourning his biracial Korean son, and I was a biracial Korean son still mourning the loss of his father - to see that in a novel triggered something deep within me. I had never read a novel with a Korean protagonist, nor one that mirrored my own experience as someone caught between two cultures and trying to navigate their identity.

I always had trouble connecting with the novels I read in high school - The Scarlet Letter, Pride and Prejudice, Heart of Darkness - because I saw so little of myself in those works, and was in consequence less motivated to read and study them. The writing I produced in response to these books was poor as well. My English teacher constantly berated me for not caring more or trying harder; I felt like I was a terrible writer. But once I started reading works in college that spoke to me, sang to me, suddenly I couldn't stop writing. I fell in love with literature again.

When I was hired to teach tenth-grade English at my alma mater, I ended up replacing my own former teacher, inheriting her very classroom. Unfortunately, I also inherited the same curriculum. I was a new teacher, unproven, and felt I had to play ball. I accepted that I would not be able to change how things were done in my first year.

The first novel atop the sophomore curriculum reading list was The Scarlet Letter.

There I was, a biracial teacher in Orange County with a roomful of students, 80% of whom were of East Asian, Southeast Asian, South Asian, and Middle Eastern descent. Not one novel written by an author of color or an LGBTQ author existed on the American Literature curriculum. The World Literature curriculum had just one: Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart. My tenth-grade Intro to Literature course could have been referred to as "Intro to White, Western Literature."

So there I was, trying to make Scarlet Letter interesting to students, many of whom were actually from abroad and studying in the U.S. on student visas. We struggled through it together, but I couldn't resist taking jabs at it. I'm the type of person who finds it difficult to hide emotions, so it was with great amusement that my students watched me attempt to teach The Scarlet Letter. One student, one of my sharpest, said, "You totally hate this book. You should switch it out for something else."

She was right.

The next unit was a short story unit. We had one of those terrible short story collections, the ones with no discernible theme or pattern, like so many execrable textbooks in this country. But as I flipped through it, trying to find the prescribed set of stories, two in particular caught my eye. The first was Jorge Luis Borges' incredible "Book of Sand," a short story about a book with endless pages that drives its readers mad. The next story was by a writer I loved, Gabriel García Márquez, and it was one of my favorites of his: "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings."

I decided I would teach both the Borges and García Márquez pieces, even though they weren't on the list I was supposed to be working from. The students, perhaps sensing my love for these weird and wonderful stories, responded well. Emboldened by their response, I started adding more: "TV People" by Haruki Murakami. The titular story from Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies. "Home" by Langston Hughes. Parts of Maud Martha by Gwendolyn Brooks.

My students loved them all. For the first time, they were all genuinely engaged and interested in what we were reading. In reading these books, so many issues that I'd never discussed with students began to surface. White students also enjoyed the stories, but started realizing that they had some trouble connecting with experiences of diasporas, whether African, Asian, or South American.

Since diversifying my curriculum, there is one particular conversation I've had at least once a year, up to and including this school year. The first time it happened, I was reading Gene Yang's American Born Chinese with my twelfth-graders. One student, a white student, was discussing a scene in which the protagonist, Jin, changes his hairstyle to look more like a more popular white boy in his school.

"In this scene," my student said, "Jin is trying to become American."

I paused. "So you don't think he's American?" I asked.

"Well, no. I mean, he wants to be, but he's not."

"Even though he was born in the U.S., he's not American?"

A strange look slowly spread across his face as he realized what he'd said. "Well, I mean...he wants to be..." His voice dropped to a whisper. "...White?"

I don't think it even occurred to my student that his own teacher fit into the same nebulous "are you American or what" category.

A few years later, I had been at the school long enough to change things around even more. I had been handed English classes for twelfth grade, an age I miss teaching a bit now that I'm at a middle school. It was during those years teaching twelfth-graders that I developed a more multicultural set of readings. I introduced more authors from Asia, Africa, Central and South America; international films; poems and lyrics by musicians from around the world. I added a literature-to-film adaptation course, and we looked at Wong Kar Wai's In the Mood for Love, vaguely adapted from a short story that I had to crawl across the reaches of the Internet to find. I added a graphic novel course in which I taught Alison Bechdel's Fun Home and the aformentioned American Born Chinese.

The IB Literature course I taught allowed me room to add whatever authors I wanted. The one course I couldn't touch was the AP Literature course, which needed me to keep teaching "the Classics" (i.e., literature mostly by straight, white, and dead men). Several of my colleagues balked at the changes I made to the other courses. Some of them lamented losing a few of the aforementioned "Classics." Some of them didn't even know the depth of the diversity they did have in their own courses - I remember one teacher getting angry with me when I told him about speculation that Langston Hughes was gay.

There were skeptical parents, too, aware that the AP and SAT exams often favor straight white authors. Some of these parents were immigrants whose sons and daughters were finally connecting with the literature assigned. Even if they were pleased that their kids identified with these works of literature, some also feared that the knowledge of such diverse books wouldn't help them on their next standardized test.

I have, of course, had many students who do love and identify with the classics. Many of my students enjoy Pride and Prejudice, and I enjoyed teaching parts of Wuthering Heights. I'd never advocate for removing all of these novels, but I also think it's important that students of color, LGBTQ+ students, and students at other intersections see themselves in what they read. I do not want students to think they can't be writers or engaged in literature simply because they don't see themselves being portrayed in their coursework.

When I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2010, I lucked into a job at an exceptionally progressive school, and I - along with two other English colleagues - have been able to develop a diverse and ever-evolving curriculum. We teach LGBTQ+ authors; we teach African American, Asian American, Latino/Latina American, and Native American and Indigenous authors; we read novels and stories that deal with ableism and sexism; we look at pieces that allow us to discuss economic inequality. We try to find an "I" perspective for every single student in every one of our classes. A gender-fluid student shouldn't have to struggle to find literature they identify with. With a growing contingent of multiracial students, I also know that I need to add more books that reflect their experiences.

I talk about race and gender openly with my students, and they respond openly. They are passionate about the stories we read, always looking for connections to their own lives and experiences. As for the cis straight white students at my school, I believe it is also important for them to see me, a multiracial teacher, deeply in love with the texts I teach. It's important for them to realize that most of the books they're going to encounter in other English literature classes were written by white authors for largely white audiences, and that it's necessary to look and read beyond that.

In a way, I owe a debt to Nathaniel Hawthorne and The Scarlet Letter. That book, which nearly turned me against studying English back in high school, ultimately helped inspire me to change and diversify my own curriculum. For that, and for the chance to have introduced brilliant authors to the thousands of kids that have passed through my classrooms over the years, I am grateful.

Not long ago, I found myself again teaching American Born Chinese to my seventh-graders. It's a fairly quick read, so I usually assign it to be read over a weekend, and then we spend a few weeks discussing it. The students were excited to be reading a graphic novel, and they went home happy.

On Monday morning, one of my East Asian students walked into the room excitedly. He pulled his book out and showed it to me, stuffed with Post-it note annotations. He broke into a wide grin.

"This book was about my life," he said, beaming.

"I know," I said. "Mine, too."

Noah Cho teaches middle school English in the San Francisco Bay Area and spends most of his free time taking photos of his dog, Porkchop. His essays have been published by The Atlantic, The Toast, and NPR's Code Switch.

@multiahjussi

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Noah Cho's previous work for The Toast can be found here. There are few things a biracial 16-year-old growing up in Southern California has in common with Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of The Scarlet Letter. There are even fewer experiences in the life of that 16-year-old that have much if anything to do with the events that unfold in that novel.

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"I Read Books by Only Minority Authors for a Year..."

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"I Read Books by Only Minority Authors for a Year..."

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The Washington Post

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April 24, 2015
In 2014, I decided that for the entire year, I would not read books written by white authors. My goal was to address the reading practices I developed growing up in Australia, where white authors have dominated the literary world. My high school reading list was filled with the "classics" - Shakespeare, Austen, the Brontes, Euripides - and well-known modern writers such as Margaret Atwood and T.S. Eliot. After school, my pleasures came from bestseller lists, which also were filled with Anglo names: John Grisham, Peter Carey, Hilary Mantel. Then I read Questions of Travel by Sri Lanka-born Michelle de Kretser. It moved me so deeply that I decided to evaluate the literature I was reading. I quit my standard diet to expose myself to new perspectives.

But it was much harder than I expected to discover books by nonwhite authors. The resources most readers use to find good literature left me with all the usual suspects. White authors reign in book reviews, bestseller lists, literary awards and Amazon.com recommendations. In a survey of New York Times articles published in 2011, author and cultural commentator Roxane Gay discovered that nearly 90 percent of the reviewed books were authored by white writers. Among Amazon editors' top 20 picks of 2014, just three authors were minorities.

I stopped browsing bookstore shelves and crowdsourced my search online, writing about my project in a Guardian article and asking for suggestions. I found like-minded people with diverse reading lists on Goodreads and Twitter. Ultimately, the books I read were written by authors from various cultural backgrounds, across a broad range of genres: science fiction, fantasy, young adult and "chick-lit." Some, like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's modern opus "Americanah," I might have read anyway. But I doubt I would have seen most others without making a conscious decision to find them.

Research shows that my anecdotal difficulties result from a systemic problem in the literary and publishing world. From MFA programs to publishing houses to critics' circles, the industry is suffering from a lack of diversity. The problem exists in children's literature, too, where just 14 percent of books published in 2014 were by or about people of color, according to the Cooperative Children's Book Center. Authors of color encounter agents who dismiss or don't understand cultural references in their books. Publishing houses whitewash book covers and blame market demands; as author Christopher Myers has pointed out, publishers insist that young white readers won't buy books with black characters on the covers, "despite millions of music albums that are sold in just that way." Stores segregate books with nonwhite characters into "ethnic" sections. And the consequences are clear: One review found that just three out of the 124 authors who appeared on the New York Times bestsellers list in 2012 were people of color. On Amazon last week, just two of the top 20 bestsellers were written by minorities. Among bestsellers in literature and fiction, there was just one nonwhite author.

The most frustrating part of my year of reading diversely was not being able to access e-books for works published in other countries. In the United States, five of the books on my 2014 reading list are not available through Amazon's Kindle store. Krishna Udayasankar's fantasy series, the Aryavarta Chronicles, can be purchased as an e-book through Amazon.in, but it is unavailable on Kindle outside India. While this could be partly a result of licensing rules, it also reflects what books the publishing world chooses to translate and make available outside the country of origin: Less than 1 percent of literary fiction and poetry books published in the United States are translations, and more than 60 percent of those are from Europe and Canada.

Of course, brick-and-mortar bookstores are even more limited. Even in Australia, it took a lot of searching to get my hands on the Tribe series by Aboriginal author Ambelin Kwaymullina - dystopian young-adult science fiction featuring a young female lead of indigenous heritage. Everywhere I checked, no one had heard of it. The United States is no better. Calls to Washington's two largest independent bookstores - Kramerbooks and Politics and Prose - were fruitless. A Barnes & Noble employee this month said Kwaymullina's "The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf" was in stock - 1,100 miles away in Minnesota. In the end, I had to ask a friend to order the books through a specialist educational bookseller.

Technology has opened up our literary options, giving readers access to more international books and more diverse authors than could be stuffed into any local bookstore. But if online retailers and the publishing industry continue to rely on old habits - seeking out the same kinds of books and promoting the same kinds of authors - readers will be denied the richly varied experiences that literature offers. Particularly in the era of globalization, when we must increasingly interact with and understand cultures other than our own, the status quo is simply unacceptable.

Reading diverse authors for a year introduced me to some new things, such as the Aboriginal art in Anita Heiss's "chick-lit" novels "Manhattan Dreaming" and "Paris Dreaming" (about two art curators, who happen to be Australian indigenous women, posted to new jobs in the United States and France). In those books, as well as in "All That Glitters" by Hispanic author Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez, I enjoyed reading about brown girls dealing with dating dramas and #firstworldproblems - and it made me feel much less guilty about my own.

But beyond zooming in on those authors' culturally specific experiences, my reading list also showed that writers everywhere are concerned with the same universal themes. Generally, the most well-known books by writers of color in the English-speaking world focus on "othered" experiences. While white authors are valued for having "normal" experiences, black authors, for instance, are most valued when writing about slavery or poverty. This limits their talent and leads to what Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie calls " the single story," in which the work of minority authors is used merely to highlight differences and reinforce stereotypes.

Reading more diverse literature has the power to convey the universality of human experience and show that we really have more in common with one another than expected. One of the best books I read last year was Indonesian author Dewi Lestari's sci-fi epic "Supernova: The Knight, the Princess and the Falling Star," a story presented through the eyes of two Indonesian men who meet while studying in Washington. The story is brilliant, and it proves that the West does not have a monopoly on technology, philosophy and love. Lestari's novel could be set in any country with characters from any background; her ideas about modern lives and relationships truly transcend nationality. But unfortunately, while very popular in Indonesia, "Supernova" was largely absent from Western book reviews and literary circles.

The problem of representation and diversity stretches beyond book publishing. All forms of art and culture - visual arts, music, performance - need to reflect the increasingly diverse society in which they exist or risk irrelevance. We've seen some recognition of that recently in television and in film. Shonda Rhimes, the creator of "Scandal," "How to Get Away With Murder" and "Grey's Anatomy," notes that these trends aren't about "diversifying" entertainment but rather "normalizing" it. Including nonwhite characters as leads with complex motivations, and showing homosexual relationships matter-of-factly, are more honest reflections of reality than what we've traditionally seen in prime time.

Campaigns like We Need Diverse Books, which launched last year, can create significant change. The nonprofit organization VIDA: Women in Literary Arts publishes an annual gender study of book reviews in several major publications. This year's report noted progress by several outlets, including the New York Times, where 47 percent of authors reviewed last year were women, compared with 38 percent in 2010.

I realize now that in declaring I would spend a year reading books written by nonwhite authors, I became part of a movement calling for a pretty modest transformation: better representation of who we are in books that are published, reviewed and read. We no longer live in a time when marginalized people are voiceless. Instead, we have the opportunity to ensure that those voices are amplified. People of all cultures and backgrounds have valuable experiences and universal ideas to share, and we all stand to gain when those voices are heard.
Amazon.com chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos owns The Washington Post. Books read:
"Americanah," Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

"Throne of the Crescent Moon," Saladin Ahmed

"Another Country," James Baldwin

"Kindred," Octavia E. Butler

"Foreign Soil," Maxine Beneba Clarke

"Open City," Teju Cole

"Saree," Su Dharmapala

"Tiddas," Anita Heiss

"Manhattan Dreaming," Anita Heiss

"Paris Dreaming," Anita Heiss

"The Book of Unknown Americans," Cristina Henríquez

"Butterfly Song," Terri Janke

"The Disappearance of Ember Crow," Ambelin Kwaymullina

"The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf," Ambelin Kwaymullina

"The Lowland," Jhumpa Lahiri

"Supernova," Dewi Lestari

"The Astrologer's Daughter," Rebecca Lim

"Twilight in Jakarta," Mochtar Lubis

"Mullumbimby," Melissa Lucashenko

"Who Fears Death," Nnedi Okorafor

"Here Come the Dogs," Omar Musa
More from PostEverything: The case against e-readers: Why reading paper books is better for your mind Confession: I'm a feminist academic who loves sexist novels We don't need more STEM majors. We need more STEM majors with liberal arts training.

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I read books by only minority authors for a year. It showed me just how white our reading world is.

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April 24, 2015 In 2014, I decided that for the entire year, I would not read books written by white authors. My goal was to address the reading practices I developed growing up in Australia, where white authors have dominated the literary world.

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"Why We Need Diverse Literature and How to Find It"

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"Why We Need Diverse Literature and How to Find It"

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Rich In Color

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Why do we need diverse literature?
First, we need to know and understand ourselves. People need literature that helps them see others like them - to know they are not alone. We need literature that reflects many ways of being and ways of living in our world so we all have a chance to see someone like us. Second, to interact respectfully with others in society, it's helpful to realize that there are people in the world who have another perspective. We can explore our differences and similarities through literature. There is a quote on the Lee & Low website attributed to both Rudine Sims Bishop & Ginny Moore Kruse "A single book can be a mirror for some people and a window for others." Those mirrors and windows help us understand and connect with people in the world around us, but we need more than just one story. We need a multitude of stories.

In the following TED Talk, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie speaks about the "Danger of the Single Story." Adichie explains that many individuals only know one story about a people and that may lead to stereotyping. When we know only one story about a culture, the risk is that we assign that story to all the people we believe are part of that group. Adichie provides an amazing and at times amusing presentation that speaks to the need for more stories about each other. This video is from 2009, but even if you have viewed it previously, it's worth a second or even third look. Photographer Matika Wilbur also touches on this idea in her TED Talk. She's concerned about the single picture that many people may have in their minds about Native Americans due to media exposure. Her current project is photographing individuals from 562 federally recognized Tribal Nations with a goal to "unveil the true essence of contemporary Native issues, the beauty of Native culture, the magnitude of tradition, and expose her vitality" (quoted from her blog). She is not only creating portraits, but is collecting their many and varied stories to share. This video is also well worth the few minutes it takes to watch.

Wondering where to find a multitude of stories?
It's no secret that there is a serious lack of diversity in Young Adult and Children's Literature. There have been a large number of blog posts and articles recently to that effect. But there are some diverse books being published. They are not in the numbers I would like to see, but they do exist. They can be hard to find, so we have some resources on our blog to help make it easier. In the tabs at the top of this page, we provide a release calendar that displays titles scheduled to be published in the coming months. In addition, we have a resource page with links to many excellent websites/blogs that review and share diverse literature along with links to publishers focusing on diverse materials. We created a Goodreads profile with a growing list of titles and there are also blogs in our blog roll on the right-hand side of the page that focus on diversity.

But how can we know which stories are accurate representations?
Matika Wilbur noted in her TED Talk that some Native American images and stories from the media have been damaging to Native people. As a school librarian, I want to provide many diverse stories for my students, but not all stories are helpful. Just look at some of the early Newbery Award winners. There were a few books with cultural diversity, but several fed into stereotypes (one I highlight below). As an educator, I have to evaluate the resources I am providing to our staff and students. I am clearly not an expert on every culture in the world, but here are a few questions* that help guide me in my selection process for school and also as a reader:

Who is the author and what experience or knowledge do they have as they write from this cultural perspective? (This helps me understand the lens the reader will be looking through)

If they are not a native of that culture, is it published by a publisher from that culture and/or has it been favorably reviewed by someone from that culture?

Are the characters distinct, fully developed and free of bias and/or stereotypes?

If there are illustrations, are they free of bias and/or stereotypes?

Is it a well developed and engaging story?

It can be helpful to know the lens of the author. In the case of Shen of the Sea: Chinese Stories for Children (1926 Newbery winner), the stories were filled with broken English, verbal caricatures and misinformation. I read Shen last year and was horrified. As I investigated his knowledge base of Chinese culture, I found a post from a blogger named Amanda. She pointed to the April 1, 1994 issue of School Library Journal. In it Margaret Chang wrote, "Chrisman had never been to China, did not read Chinese, and claimed to be aided by two Chinese speakers, but gave no sources for the stories in his book" (p 42). According to the book's description Shen is comprised of "Sixteen stories reflecting the spirit of Chinese life and thought." Chrisman appears to have taken what he knew about Chinese culture, consulted a Chinese shopkeeper or two in California about some of the details and proceeded to create original stories. He may have even been doing this in some way to "honor" Chinese culture, but this is not a book I will be purchasing or sharing with my students.

I tend to specifically seek out books that are written from an insider's perspective like No Crystal Stair, Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, and Since You Asked, but there are also people born outside a culture who have provided authentic representation. Debby Dahl Edwardson is not Inupiaq (Eskimo) by birth, but she's been a part of that culture for many years. She has written powerful stories with fully developed, realistic characters in her YA historical novels, My Name is Not Easy and Blessing's Bead. My Name is Not Easy is a look into the effect of the residential schools on Native students and their families. She did not rely on stereotypes, but created complex and unique characters. On her blog, American Indians in Children's Literature, Debbie Rees shared Beverly Slapin's very favorable review. I would recommend Edwardson's books without hesitation and there are many other talented authors that learn about a culture and successfully represent it in their novels.

We may not have balanced representation in publishing yet, but there are some fabulous pieces of literature that can be our mirrors and windows. Let's seek them out and share them.

Chang, M. A. (1994). Chinoiserie in American picture books: Excursions to Cathay. School Library Journal, 40(4), 42.

*Some of my questions were developed with influence from Full Circle's Criteria for Authentic Native American Books & Oyate's comprehensive evaluation criteria

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Why We Need Diverse Literature and How to Find It

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Why do we need diverse literature? First, we need to know and understand ourselves. People need literature that helps them see others like them - to know they are not alone. We need literature that reflects many ways of being and ways of living in our world so we all have a chance to see someone like us.

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Understanding how school discipline policies can contribute to the school-to-prison pipeline is essential for educators and families. Harsh punishments, automatic out-of-class time and police involvement for discipline can push young people out of classrooms and into the criminal legal system. But educators, parents and caregivers can help to change this harmful system by advocating for and implementing practices that prioritize mental health and well-being.

We offer this new resource page that highlights LFJ articles and content to open dialogue, shift practices and foster change to benefit all young people.

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Learning for Justice | Education Resources

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Learning for Justice provides free resources to educators-teachers, administrators, counselors and other practitioners-who work with children from kindergarten through high school. Educators use our materials to supplement the curriculum, to inform their practices, and to create civil and inclusive school communities where children are respected, valued and welcome participants.

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Awards that Celebrate Diversity in Children's Literature

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Awards that Celebrate Diversity in Children's Literature

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Children's and Adolescent Book Awards Quick Reference List

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Children's and Adolescent Book Awards Quick Reference List

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A 501(c)(3) nonprofit, WNDB aims to create a world where every reader can find themselves in the pages of a book. To reach this goal, we've created programs to mentor diverse writers and illustrators, support diverse publishing professionals, and provide books to classrooms nationwide.

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About Us

Lee & Low Books is the largest multicultural children's book publisher in the country. We are also one of the few minority-owned publishing companies in the United States.

Founded in 1991, we have always been family-owned and independent, which means we publish what we want and aren't afraid to take risks. Our books have won major awards including the Coretta Scott King Award, the Pura Belpré Award, the NAACP Image Award, and many more.

Lee & Low Books is committed to publishing diverse books that are about everyone, for everyone. We are dedicated to cultural authenticity, and we make a special effort to work with new authors and illustrators of color.

We publish multicultural children's books for every age, including leveled books for beginning readers, picture books, early chapter books, middle grade, and young adult books. We also publish a wide selection of bilingual and Spanish language books.

Visit our testimonials page to see some of the people and organizations who support our work!

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Lee & Low Books is the largest multicultural children's book publisher in the United States. We are your diversity source.

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Teaching Tolerance

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Our searchable library of short texts offers a diverse mix of stories and perspectives. This multigenre, multimedia collection aligns with the Common Core's recommendations for text complexity and the Learning for Justice Social Justice Standards. Choose from informational and literary nonfiction texts, literature, photographs, political cartoons, interviews, infographics and more.

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Diverse Literature Options