The state of representation in UK children’s literature

The representations of Black and brown protagonists in children's books in the UK has halved. The Centre of Literacy in Primary Education (LPE) has been tracking the representation - and quality of representation - of racially minoritized characters in children's literature since 2017 and in November published it's 7th annual report. In those seven years there had been some great gains, from only 4% of books having any racially minoritised characters to 4% in 2017 and 30% in 2022. And only 1% had them as a main character in 2017 and 14% in 2022.

Bear in mind that a third of primary school children in the UK are not white so although these numbers were encouraging they only represented a snap shot of new book releases and were still not representative.

In the latest data for 2023 is that increase stopped and dropped off a cliff.

Only 17% (down from 30%) of books featured any Black or brown characters and only 7% (down from 14%) were the main character. There are many people in the industry that I follow, like Jasmine Richards who founded a diverse book incubator called Storymix, that have written great articles on why this was on the cards. It’s hugely disappointing but not unexpected. The industry had a knee jerk reaction post the death of George Floyd and haven't stuck with their commitments and have not made lasting changes. The industry is still very white, the gatekeepers are not diverse, the money is not going to Black and brown authors, Booksellers are not thinking about the diversity of their books of the month and diverse books do not get the marketing budgets and support from the publishing marketing teams.

I'm not surprised. I'm just disappointed.

And this was on top of the Excluded Voices report in October which has found that over half the books with Black or ambiguously Black/brown main characters were written by white author illustrator teams. I'm not saying white authors shouldn't write Black characters, but the industry is using this as a way of not giving the opportunities and shelf space to actual writers of colour. This report also highlighted the scarcity of south asian, ESEA, disabled or neurodivergent creators across all book categories.

So what can you do? Follow Black and brown, queer, neurodiverse creators and book reviewers, we will highlight books for you. Use search, do your research, think about the books you select and buy for your children. If you donate books to libraries and schools think about the selection of authors you are choosing. Question the books your children are reading at school. You have the ability to make your choices make a difference. My monthly newsletter and my socials have hundreds of great book suggestions curated for you.

In the meantime I am off to continue edits on my childrens book sequel so I can at least add one more diverse authored book to the list for 2025.