How Do You Diversify Your Classroom Library?

Many educators and scholars feel strongly that students should be able to recognize their individual cultural identities in the books they experience at school.  As a result, creating a diverse classroom library that incorporates various ethnic, religious, socioeconomic and other differences is an ongoing process for teachers. Unfortunately, it is also often a struggle. Complicating educators’ efforts is the widely acknowledged (e.g., Rollins, 1967) limited supply of diverse children’s books available. According to the Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC), a research organization housed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and known for its yearly report describing the diversity found within the calendar year’s newly published collection of children’s books, “the number of multicultural books has remained stagnant for more than 20 years” (Crisp et al., 2016). So, how then can teachers best acquire books representative of children falling outside traditional white middle-class norms?

A recent study provides a starting point: researchers Crisp, Knezek, Quinn, Bingham, Girardeau and Starks (2016) published an article in the Journal of Children’s Literature in which they presented findings illuminating the under-representation of diverse cultural identities within preschool classroom libraries. The authors made the following general recommendations for educators striving to expand their classroom library to include more “diverse, high-quality books” (Crisp et al., 2016, p.39):

• Look for book awards that specifically appreciate diversity: Michigan State University provides a useful list of diverse award granters that recognize a range of cultural identities from feminism to ethnicity. 
• Check out professional organizations committed to the cause: Teaching Tolerance, TheCooperative Children’s Book Center, and Rethinking Schools are three reputable organizations to get you started.
• Try raising money for diverse books by means of crowdsourcing: Set up a fundraising page through one of the many sites exclusively for educators (e.g., DonorsChoose.org) or a more general outlet such as GoFundMe. You might be pleasantly surprised by the willingness of outside donors to support efforts to diversify classroom materials.

Can you provide feedback related to any of the three strategies listed above? Are there other ways you have successfully acquired culturally diverse children’s literature? We would love it if you could take a moment to share your stories and ideas with us.

Crisp, T., Knezek, S. M., Quinn, M., Bingham, G. E., Girardeau, K., & Starks, F. (2016). What's on our bookshelves? The diversity of children's literature in early childhood classroom libraries. Journal of Children's Literature, 42(2), 29-42.

Rollins, C.H. (Ed.). (1967). We build together: A reader’s guide to Negro life and literature for elementary and high school use. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.