...you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them – To kill a mockingbird

That the vast majority of titles published for children in English are about 'white' children has recently become an issue, with campaigns conducted over social media (Flood, 2014).

Diversity is an issue for three reasons.

Reality is diverse

Today's classrooms are diverse. Teachers need to teach about 'difference' in a way which is comfortable for everyone (Smith-D'Arezzo, 2003) but where is the diverse children's literature which facilitates this? (Pirofski, n.d). The cycle self-perpetuates: if children can't find books about themselves they believe they can never become authors (Flood, 2014).

Identity

Children who are 'different' in whatever way are made to feel isolated when they can't find themselves reflected in their books (Flood, 2014). This is borne out in converse:

Jane: it's “difficult to identify with characters who aren't like me”. She enjoyed 'Does my head look big in this?' but read it from “the outside looking in” rather than being “inside the novel”.

Understanding of 'other'

Stories help equip children to challenge and reject discrimination (St.Amour, 2003).

What to do about it?

Illustrations help; cataloguing a batch of Oxford Literacy Readers recently, I noticed that some had pictures of children of different ethnicity even though ethnicity was irrelevant to the text.

A skilled author should be able to weave significant messages into the story in a non-didactic manner (Smith-D'Arezzo, 2003).

Lizzie doesn't like books which read like a 'pity-party'. She liked the 'Outcasts' because the 'disabilities' were embedded in the plot. “It's better when you discover about someone being short-sighted because they can't do something, than having it spelled out like you have to take notice of it.” Mary liked Percy Jackson: “All those ADHD kids – you realise they can't help it – but it just got mentioned.”

Lizzie and Mary picked up on Frank and Leo being ethnically different (Percy Jackson) – but neither remembered that Hal, ('Outcasts'), is of mixed parentage until Charles pointed it out. They said that's what they like about Flanagan: “it's not obvious”.

To ensure that the hidden message gets across children often need guidance from adults; stories read in class are chosen for the message (Smith-D'Arezzo, 2003).

Kitty: “hated Helicopter Man!” For her the issue of schizophrenia had drowned out much of the story – read in English class – and a chorus of groans suggested that others shared her view.

Morris Gleitzman, who also takes on “issues”, has their approval – because he's “fun to read”.

(Charles: didn't like 'Blabbermouth' as much because – if you haven't guessed - it was one they had to do in class.)

Another way of propagating diversity is via translations. This is very much a one-way street – English originals are translated much more frequently than books are translated into English (Thomson-Wohlgemuth, 1998).

Lydia has seen this reflected in the School Library where roughly 50% of fiction is in German – but of that 50%, translations account for over a third.

Children will fight difficult language if the story is reward in itself but with foreign languages there are also cultural contexts to contend with (Thomson-Wohlgemuth, 1998).

Kitty is glad she can read fluently in two languages because it gives her access to more than two cultures. She used Reuter's 'Buster' trilogy as an illustration – through the story of this fundamentally dysfunctional family she believes that Denmark has an enlightened attitude to “problems. People smoke, and the father is drunk and Buster is really weird and he does get picked on, only you feel somehow it is all just okay and normal.” On top of all this, Buster's sister has a limp – but you only find it out by reading between the lines.

Translations are made to widen a child's international awareness but it is easier to translate texts from similar cultures; in cases where the two backgrounds are very different translations often veer away from the original to become more accessible. Even where cultural backgrounds would seem to be very similar there are differences that have to be explained: eg UK's 'tea-time' versus Germany's 'Kaffee-und-Kuchen' (Thomson-Wohlgemuth, 1998).

Children are the recipients of literature that has been filtered by market forces, teachers and parents – who 'want the best for children' and to 'protect childhood innocence'. Isn't that just, as Thomson-Wohlgemuth (1998) says, because they really want to inculcate their social values?

Literature is important to children – but they should be allowed to enjoy it, rather than having our messages forced on them didactically. Just make sure they have a diverse collection to choose from!

Topic: Diversity; Activity: Interview a child

The children 'interviewed' for this activity are Library Monitors in my school library or enthusiastic readers. Jane, Lizzie, Mary, Kitty, Lydia and Charles are students from Years 4 to 9 (aged 10 to 15, names changed). They are all of European descent as far as I know, although I suspect that one might be via South America; three of them were born in Australia, only one has spent all her life here. They all have a working knowledge of two or three languages – but understanding the meaning of a word is not the same as having a cultural experience of a word: bush, forest and Wald all mean a more or less uncultivated area of trees and shrubs but the vision and emotions conjured up by the words, in their own language, in Australian, English and German people is of quite different, and in my opinion not interchangeable landscapes.

I did not formally interview the students as experience has shown me what Fasick (2011) says is true: children are often eager to please by giving the answer they think is wanted. Instead their input comes from a number of conversations held with them about books and reading over several weeks, conversations which arose naturally out of their chosen loans and reading preferences. It should be noted that our school is bilingual German-English and is very small indeed.

Fasick, A. (2011). From boardbook to facebook. Children's services in an interactive age. Santa Barbara, Ca: Libraries Unlimited

Flood, A. (2014, May 2). 'We Need Diverse Books' calls for more representative writing for children. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/may/01/we-need-diverse-books-campaign-children

Pirofski, K.I. (n.d.) Race, gender, and disability in today's children's literature. Ed Change [Web site]. Retrieved from http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/papers/literature2.html

Smith, D'Arezzo, W.M. (2003). Diversity in Children's Literature: Not Just a Black and White Issue. Children's Literature in Education, 34(1), 75-94. DOI: 10.1023/A:1022511917336

St.Amour, M.J. (2003). Connecting Children's Stories to Children's Literature: Meeting Diversity Needs Early Childhood Education Journal, 31(1), 47-51. DOI: 10.1023/A:1025136802668

Thomson-Wohlgemuth, G. (1998). Children's literature and its translation. An overview. (Master's thesis). Retrieved from http://homepage.ntlworld.com/g.i.thomson/gaby-thomson/ChL_Translation.pdf

Books referred to by the students:

Randa Abdel-Fatta Does my head look big in this? (2005)

Elizabeth Fensham Helicopter Man (2005)

Bjarne Reuter: So einen wie mich kann man nicht von den Bäumen pflücken, sagt Buster (1987),

Das Ende des Regenbogens (1988) & Küss die Sterne (1988) (Dates refer to translations)

John Flanagan Outcasts series (2011 and still going)

Rick Riordan Percy Jackson series (2005 and still going)

Morris Gleitzman: Two weeks with the Queen (1989) (AIDS and homosexuality)

Morris Gleitzman: Toad series (2000, 2003, 2004, 2008) (how we treat animals

Morris Gleitzman: Boy overboard (2002), Girl underground (2005) (refugee children in detention)

Morris Gleitzman: Once (2006) , Then (2009) Now (2010) & After (2012) (the holocaust and its aftermath on individuals and their families)

Morris Gleitzman: Blabbermouth (1993)