Anguished cries of ‘cancel culture’ rang out with news that six Dr Seuss books would be shelved. But canceling Dr Seuss is not possible, nor is it the best way to build diversity and understanding.
A newspaper boy hawks copies of the Chicago Defender.
Library of Congress
At the turn of the 20th century, with few children’s books featuring Black characters, one young editor implored his peers to ‘Let us make the world know that we are living.’
Born Christmas day, 1909, Mary Shepard greatly helped shape the image of Mary Poppins that carries through to today.
Detail from ‘Birdsong’ by Cree-Métis artist Julie Flett, which won the 2020 TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award for most distinguished book. The story follows an intergenerational friendship and speaks to change in children’s lives.
(Greystone Kids)
A researcher who explored 500 picture books created by authors or illustrators living in Canada suggests books that are extraordinary in both text and illustration.
It is important that children sees themselves in the books that read.
wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock
A new film version of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden opens today. First published in 1911, the novel foregrounds Edwardian beliefs about the importance of gardens that still resonate.
A Syrian woman with her children, displaced by the Turkish military operation in northeastern Syria, speaks with a Kurdish worker at the Bardarash camp, north of Mosul, Iraq, in October 2019.
(AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Limited promotion and marketing budgets reinforce false ideas about how well diverse books and writers will sell. This leads to a negative cycle for black, Asian and minority ethnic writers.
Boys are scientists, girls are ballerinas - that’s if girls appear at all. A recent analysis of bestselling picture books shows gender stereotypes are alive and well.
The book took eight years from conception to publication. In the earliest dummy, the monsters that millions have grown to love actually started out as horses.