Integrating children's literature that represents diverse populations into the classroom is a key part of a culturally relevant pedagogy. Several benefits emerge when children read culturally relevant books. This research focused on the representation of Black males as characters and creators of Caldecott books through a critical multicultural…

African American children's literature is a subcategory of diverse books that has benefited from critical theoretical research as well as historical and contemporary social movements. More recently, activist bloggers and online movements have extended the work of activist librarians and critically conscious educators and parents. These individual…

Sharing literature representative of students' diverse experiences opens up conversations, invites inquiry, and develops empathy (Ward & Warren, 2020). It is well documented, however, that these books can be challenging to locate in schools, libraries, and bookstores (Bickmore, Xu, & Sheridan, 2017; Crisp et al., 2016; Jipson & Paley,…

The year 2019 marks the 25th anniversary of the publication of Eve Bunting's "Smoky Night" (Harcourt, 1994; illustrated by David Diaz). As a Caldecott medal winner, "Smoky Night" is the highest profile picturebook centered on an incident related to police brutality and the profiling of Black citizens--the Los Angeles riots,…

This study examines the historical representation of the Black Freedom Movement within nonfiction trade books intended for children and adolescent readers.

When selecting and evaluating historical children's literature, there are many questions that must be considered. For example, who will be reading the book? Is the imagined young reader of these historical stories a White, middle class cisgender heterosexual, able-bodied student who was born in the United States, or are child readers from all…