I Wish There were More Beginning Readers with...

When I scheduled myself to write this post several months ago, I had thought I would focus on those genres and topics that I frequently get asked for at the children's reference desk. Things like: 

• Mermaids 
• Robots 
• Science Fiction 
• Sports 
• Princesses 
• Folk and Fairy Tales 
• Graphic Novels 

I still think more beginning readers in these areas would be fantastic and would circulate like hotcakes. But if I had the chance to tell publishers, editors, authors, and illustrators just one thing I want to see more of, it would be humans. 

Yep, you heard right, humans. But, there are plenty of stories about humans, you say. I thought so too until my colleague Sarah and I took a three week course called Diversity and Cultural Competency Training: Collections & RA provided by Library Journal. One of the assignments was to complete a diversity audit on all or part of our collection. Our library system is working hard to support K-3rd students in Denver because Denver Public Schools released a report showing that in the 2015-2016 school year only 31% of third graders were reading at grade level. In five Denver Neighborhoods only 10% of third graders were reading at grade level. So it seemed a natural fit for us to look at the fiction portion of what we call Early Books and Transitional Books. 

To clarify, at our library we've defined the two categories as follows. Early Books are meant for the first stages of the learning-to-read process, have just a sentence or two per page, easy to sound out words, and lots of helpful pictures. Readers who are ready for longer sentences and up to a full page of text may be ready for Transitional Books. Although these books are longer, they still have great supportive features, like lots of white space and large fonts, as well as fun pictures.

One of the things I loved about the diversity audit is that we compared the diversity in our collection to that of our city, state, and nation (depending on the statistics we could find). After much discussion, Sarah and I decided to look not only for cultural representation (including OwnVoices authors and illustrators), but also for characters who are ability-diverse, live in lower socio-economic households, or are being raised in a diverse family (single parent, blended family, interracial family, adopted/fostered, raised by a non-relative). We also kept track of how many titles focused on animal or object (think trains, cars, or toys), rather than human, protagonists. 

Now, I can't say that our project took into account all the beginning reader titles currently available for purchase. We, like all libraries, have a finite budget. However, I will say, we are a large system. I feel confident that our project covered most titles from major publishers. 

Although I knew there wasn't a lot of diversity in beginning readers, I wasn't quite prepared for the final percentages. 44% of Transitional Books were about non-human protagonists, which no doubt contributed to the fact that only 11% of books had diversity of any kind (that's lumping all the above categories together). The stats for Early Books told a similar story, 55.5% of stories were about non-humans and once again only 11% of books featured diverse characters. Add to that the fact that just over 4% of Transitional Books and a scant 1% of Early Books authors and illustrators (that's combining them together) are OwnVoices. It was a sobering project, that's for sure. 

All of this to say, #WeNeedMoreDiverseBeginningReaders with humans in them. Beginning readers and early chapter books are important to the journey of every young reader. We need stories that engage kids by reflecting their world back to them. If you're reading this post, you want excellent books for all the beginning readers in your life. Let's make it known that #WeNeedMoreDiverseBeginningReaders! Ask your vendor rep, your publishing contacts, your author and illustrator friends. Do a diversity audit on your beginning readers. Share the results. Spread the word. 

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