Margin Notes

In their new book, Intervention Reinvention: A Volume-Based Approach to Reading Success, authors Stephanie Harvey, Annie Ward, Maggie Hoddinott and Suzanne Carroll advocate teachers create and curate what they refer to as, “…robust, vibrant, and diverse classroom libraries”(p. 29). One way they propose to curate this library is to actively engage in decolonizing your bookshelves.  Classroom libraries need to reflect all students and the authors provide an abundance of research to support this stance.

As early as 1965 the Saturday Review article, “The All-White World of Children’s Books,” by Dr. Nancy Larrick, stated that though integration was the law of the land, most books children saw were white.  This lack of representation, she when on to say, “ …harms children of color by depriving them of opportunities to see themselves in books they read and in how they imagine their futures”. Almost 50 years later in 2014 author Walter Dean Myers published an op-ed in the New York Times, “Where Are the People of Color in Children’s Books?”. In 2016 and 2019 Dr. Sarah Park Dahlen, an associate professor at St. Catherine University and illustrator David Huyck published what is now a will known infographic displaying data collected about the representation of children of color in books published prior to 2019.

In February 2020, author, and educator Zaretta Hammond wrote, “Revisiting Your Library: Decolonizing, Not Just Diversifying”. She argues that while teachers are ensuring more books with brown faces are in their libraries, these books often still perpetuate black stereotypes.  For example, books that portray buses, boycotts, and basketball or only storylines that examine the challenges of inner city living.  She goes on to explain that while having books around a ‘Black Lives Matter’ theme and social justice is part of the black experience, it is not the only part.  Black life and lives are diverse and the books that reflect their lives should show this diversity.  Hammond offers the following three reflective questions to determine whether a book is worth including:

• • • • • Does the book go beyond the typical themes about characters of color?
    • Do the children of color look authentic?
    • Are the texts, especially fictional stories, ‘enabling’?

(David Huyak, in consultation with Sarh Park Dahlen – Released under a Creative Commons BY-SA license)

Consider taking time to ask these questions of the books in your library and decolonize your shelves. Once finished, if you are looking for titles to add to your collection, check out our virtual bookshelves.

To learn more about the book Intervention Reinvention: A Volume-Based Approach to Reading Success, click here.