Representation within children's literature

Modern day media has become more inclusive with their representation of black people in the media, especially in film. But there is still a lack of representation of black characters in children's books and Young Adult books.

In 2014, the #WeNeedDiverseBooks grew on twitter as a response to an all-white, all male panel of children's book authors at a BookCon reader event in 2014. The hashtag gained a lot of attention as it grew into a movement which led to the beginning of the non-profit organisation ‘We Need Diverse Books’.

The organisation supports diversity in children's literature through special events, grant awards, mentorships and resources for teachers and librarians. During the early stages of the movement there were hopes that the industry was beginning to become more inclusive.

Following the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, there was an increase of black characters in children's bestsellers and more black characters were on the front covers for the first time ever. The BLM movement inspired the children's literature market to become more inclusive and diverse with the use of black characters to ensure that black children can be represented correctly, so that they can better relate to the characters in the books. However, the spark quickly died out as WordsRated published a report in March 2022 that showed a 23% decrease in black characters in children's books.

The report anaylsed 1,511 children’s bestsellers published between 2012 and 2021 which showed that in 2020, demand for children’s books that included black characters were high so there were more published, but since the momentum behind the demand faded, by 2021 the percentage of black characters had decreased by 23%. The report also showed a 31% decrease of children's books written by black authors from 2020-2021 whilst there was a +17% increase of bestsellers written by white authors over the last 10 years.

The findings in the report concluded that more effort should be made to ensure that children are able to read books that fairly represent their lives. When children read books that only depict one race it can alter their perception of themselves in a negative way. This could lead to them losing value in themselves because poor representation can erase and minimize their identities.

Childrens book illustrator Onyinye Iwu said, “We cannot remove a whole group of people from literature because it is no longer in fashion.

"Black children exist, and they deserve representation in literature.”