‘What’s taking so long?’: children’s books still neglect BAME readers, finds study
Although picture has improved since 2017, research shows that last year only 4% of books for the youngest readers featured a minority ethnic hero
In most children’s books, according to one London primary school pupil, “people are peach”. Another feels there are “no black people” in the stories they read, meaning that the characters they imagine always seem white.
The children, from Surrey Square primary school, were being interviewed for a new report into representation of people of colour, which reveals that in 2018 only 4% of children’s books published in the UK had a minority ethnic hero. The survey included all new books for children aged between three and 11. The proportion is an increase on 2017, when just 1% of main characters were BAME.
