The Cooperative Children's Book Center Releases Their 2018 Diversity Publishing Statistics

With the caveat (brought up in an excellent #KidLitCon2019 panel on Diverse Fantasy in the Real World) that quantity tells us some things, but we shouldn't forget about quality, these 2018 numbers from The Cooperative Children's Book Center, School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison are informative.

Over the past five years, while there's been a modest growth in the number of overall books submitted for consideration (2014 had 3,500 compared to 2018's 3,617) there was significant growth in the number of books about African/African Americans (2014 had 181 and 2018 had 401), Asian Pacific/Asian Pacific Americans (2014 had 112 and 2018 had 308) and Latinx (2014 had 66 and 2018 had 247). Feels like progress.

Less growth in the books about American Indians/First Nations (2014 had 38 and 2018 had 52).

And in 2018, only about half of the books about African/African Americans were by African/African American creators (401 about, 202 by).

Asian Pacific/Asian Pacific Americans were the only group who created more children's books than there were children's books about their own stories (308 stories about, with 339 stories by.) Which does feel like progress, that there are stories outside of their Asian Pacific/Asian Pacific American identities/communities that these creators are telling, and that are being heard and published by our industry.

What do the numbers tell you? Click here for the full chart. And here for the background on CCBC's Publishing Statistics on Children's Books about People of Color and First/Native Nations and by People of Color and First/Native Nations Authors and Illustrators

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

Sometimes a picture (or an infographic) says it best: Diversity in Kid Lit in 2015

We have a long way to go...

Read all about this great infographic, the data behind it, and the team that made it happen here.

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

"Where Are The People Of Color In Children's Books?" and "The Apartheid of Children's Literature": Walter Dean Myers and Christopher Myers Raise Their Voices

Of 3,200 children’s books published in 2013, just 93 were about black people, according to a study by the Cooperative Children’s Book Center at the University of Wisconsin.

Here are two important responses for us each to consider: Walter Dean Myers' opinion piece in the New York Times is "Where Are The People Of Color In Children's Books?"

He speaks, so eloquently, of how

"TODAY I am a writer, but I also see myself as something of a landscape artist. I paint pictures of scenes for inner-city youth that are familiar, and I people the scenes with brothers and aunts and friends they all have met. Thousands of young people have come to me saying that they love my books for some reason or the other, but I strongly suspect that what they have found in my pages is the same thing I found in “Sonny’s Blues.” They have been struck by the recognition of themselves in the story, a validation of their existence as human beings, an acknowledgment of their value by someone who understands who they are. It is the shock of recognition at its highest level." 

And then, Christopher Myers (Walter Dean Myers' son) responds to the same jarring statistical evidence of the lack of characters of color in children's books in his own New York Times piece, "The Apartheid of Children's Literature. 

Christopher writes about books as maps for a child's sense of possibility, and how, in a world where children of color aren't well represented in all types of children's literature, "The cartography we create with this literature is flawed."

 He also speaks about the villain in this,

"The closest I can get to the orchestrator of the plot — my villain with his ferret — is The Market. Which I think is what they all point to because The Market is so comfortably intangible that no one is worried I will go knocking down any doors. The Market, I am told, just doesn’t demand this kind of book, doesn’t want book covers to look this or that way, and so the representative from (insert major bookselling company here) has asked that we have only text on the book cover because white kids won’t buy a book with a black kid on the cover — or so The Market says, despite millions of music albums that are sold in just that way."

This is an important conversation to have - both externally in our industry and internally, as creators of works for children. How are WE representing the worlds of our stories? What scenes - what maps are we drawing?

Good questions to ask - and then act upon.

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

ps - My thanks to Lesley for the heads-up on these opinion pieces!