The Cooperative Children’s Book Center has released the results of their 2019 survey on diversity in kidlit/YA.
We thank them for this invaluable work, note their commitment to adding Arabs/Arab Americans in future surveys, and present these graphs of their findings.
The 3,716 books surveyed have this many main characters total for the following groups:
- Black/African: 11.9%
- First/Native Nations: 1%
- Asian/Asian American: 8.7%
- Latinx: 5.3%
- Pacific Islander: 0.05%
- White: 41.8%
- Animal/Other: 29.2%
- LGBTQIAP+: 3.1%
- Disability: 3.4%
“Taken together, books about white children, talking bears, trucks, monsters, potatoes, etc. represent nearly three quarters (71%) of children’s and young adult books published in 2019.” - librarian Madeline Tyner
When we looked at the breakdown for IPOC creatives who wrote and/or illustrated stories with characters of their own race, we found the following:
- First/Native Nations: 68.2%
- Pacific Islander: 80%
- Latinx: 95.7%
- Asian/Asian American: 100%*
*NOTE: these percentages include both authors and illustrators and, as pointed out by author Linda Sue Park for past surveys, Asians/Asian Americans are frequently illustrators but not necessarily authors of their own stories, meaning this is not fully reflective of #OwnVoices representation.
Black/African creatives wrote and/or illustrated only 46.4% of stories featuring Black/African characters.
This is the work that still needs to be done.
(Source: ccblogc.blogspot.com)
