What are Some Good Children's Books to Use to Teach Diversity?

Question

Answer

• I'm Like You, You're Like Me: A Book About Understanding and Appreciating Each by Cindy Gainer and Miki Sakamoto. This is a really colorful, inviting book where you can learn about diversity through hair that's straight or curly, families with many people or few people, and bodies that are big or bodies that are small. It's all about the ways that people are different and people are alike.
• What's the Difference? Being Different is Amazing by Doyin Richards is another one of my favorite ones. This is a book about diversity and acceptance. It talks about how what matters most is not our differences, but what we do together as friends and families and colleagues, and as citizens. It's perfect for sharing as a family or as a whole group classroom activity.
• The Great Big Book of Families by Mary Hoffman and Ros Asquith. I really love this one as well. This book features all kinds of families and how they live together. Each page of the book is one aspect of home life from houses and holidays, schools, pets, and feelings. It has family trees in it. It's really humorous. The illustrations are humorous and what I found is that kids love, love, love to go through this book and try to find families just like theirs.
• The Colors of Us by Karen Katz. This is about a little girl named Lena. Lena's going to paint a picture of herself. She wants to use brown paint for her skin, but when Lena and her mother take a walk through their neighborhood, she sees that there are many different shades and tones of brown. This book is written from an artist’s point of view and talks about how there are so many different colors in the palette. I thought that was really interesting and my kids really used to love that book.
• Global Babies board book by the Global Fund for Children. This one is so cute and it's all about meeting babies from around the world. There are babies from Guatemala to Peru to South Africa. It shows how they're held by their mothers and their fathers. It shows what they eat and all of those things that infants and toddlers would find very, very important. If it has to do with food, infants and toddlers are all about it.
• Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman. This is a great one because Heather's favorite number is the number two. She has two arms, two legs, and two pets. But guess what? She also has two mommies. When she goes to school for the first time, though, someone asks her about her daddy, but she doesn't have a daddy. So then, something happens when Heather and her classmates draw pictures of their families. No one is drawing the same. It doesn't matter who makes up a family, the teacher says, the most important thing about a family is that all the people in it love one another. Very sweet book.
• Last Stop on Market Street by Matt de la Peña. This is about a little boy named CJ and every Sunday he rides the bus with his grandma. He's a little concerned and curious as to why he and his grandma don't drive a car as his friends do. How come they always get off of the bus in the dirty part of town? Each question that he asks his grandma is met with an encouraging answer that helps him see the beauty and the fun in their routine and the world around them.
• Love by Matt de la Peña. This book is all about how love looks a lot different in different situations, but it's all love. A couple of lines from the book are, “In the beginning, there is light and two wide-eyed figures standing near the foot of your bed and the sound of their voices is love. A cab driver plays love softly on his radio while you bounce in the back with the bumps of the city and everything smells new and it smells like life.” It's a very heartfelt book and it's about the bond between people and how we can show each other love in so many different ways. It might look different, but it's all love.

This Ask the Expert is an edited excerpt from the course, Diversity and Cultural Awareness, by Natasha Crosby Kile, MS.