Campaigners hail 'seismic shift' in diversity of US children's books
Number of books featuring African Americans has more than doubled in the past decade, with Asian Americans tripling
Campaigners have hailed a “seismic shift” in US children’s publishing after statistics showed that the number of kids’ books featuring African-American characters has more than doubled over the last 10 years, and the number featuring Asians more than tripled.
Figures from the Cooperative Children’s Book Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison show that the number of children’s books featuring African or African-American characters rose from 172 out of a total of 3,000 received by the CCBC in 2008, to 401 out of a total of 3,617 in 2018. The number of books by African or African American authors also increased, from 83 in 2008 to 202 in 2018.
It’s hard to say just by looking at one year that we’re seeing real change
Related: Ethnic diversity in UK children's books to be examined
