Selecting Diverse Literature for Interactive Read-Alouds

Introduction

Recently, the National Center for Education Statistics (2019) reported the population of U.S. residents ages 5 to 17 as being 51% White, 14% African American or Black, 25% Latinx, 5% Asian, less than 1% Pacific Islander, 1% American Indian or Alaska Native, and 4% identifying as two or more races. Despite the growing diversity of school-age students, according to the U.S. Department of Education’s 2016 State of Racial Diversity in the Educators Workforce report, public school teachers in the United States are overwhelmingly homogenous with 82% identifying as White. The same report noted the lack of diversity in educator preparation programs with 73% of enrolled bachelor-degree-seeking, preservice educators identifying as White, 12% Black, 11% Hispanic, and 4% as other. Taken together, there is a clear disparity between the racial identities of U.S. school-age students and their teachers. Noting this incongruence, Piper and colleagues (2017) concluded, “There is a critical need for future educators to embrace the reality that they will be working with students whose backgrounds will, more often than not, be unlike their own; teacher educators need to prepare their students to embrace this reality,” (p.15), and we agree. Incorporating diversity literature into teacher education provides an avenue for preparing candidates for discussing diversity in their future classrooms.

One way we help prepare preservice teacher candidates is by not only educating them about the importance of diverse literature but also teaching them how to evaluate and use diverse children’s books within an interactive read-aloud. We define diverse literature as text that includes categories such as religion, race, ethnicity, social groups, families, gender, and ability identity. Diverse literature provides our preservice teacher candidates and their elementary students opportunities to expand their knowledge and understanding about diversity (Evans, 2010; Piper et al., 2017) and allows them to see themselves reflected in the books they read. Additionally, when used in an interactive read-aloud to generate rich discussion, diverse literature can become a tool to develop a more socially just society (Evans, 2010).

Disappointingly, high-quality diverse literature can be difficult to locate. Using statistics compiled by the Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC), Huyck and Dahlen (2019) created an infographic portraying the percentage of books depicting characters from diverse backgrounds. Of the 3,134 books published in 2018 that were examined by the CCBC, 1% portrayed First Nations or American Indians, 5% Latinx, 7% Asian Pacific Islander or Asian Pacific American, 10% African or African American, 27% animals or other, and 50% White. While the School Library Journal (2019) noted that the statistics had improved since 2015, these statistics do not indicate the quality and accuracy of diversity represented in children’s literature examined. Huyck and Dahlen shared their concerns about quality and accuracy by including illustrations of cracked and funhouse-style mirrors beside each character portrayed in the infographic, stating, “Children’s literature continues to misrepresent underrepresented communities, and we wanted this infographic to show not just the low quantity of existing literature, but also the inaccuracy and uneven quality of some of those books,” (School Library Journal, 2019). Misrepresentations, lack of authenticity (Fox & Short, 2003), and poor quality prevent literature from becoming windows, mirrors, and sliding glass doors (Bishop, 1990) for the diverse students who read them. By educating our teacher candidates on how to evaluate literature, they are more likely to choose high-quality books that represent the diversity of the students found in their classrooms and to create a reading experience in which students can see their own lives reflected back through the real and imaginary worlds they explore in books (Bishop, 1990).