Diversity and inclusion in books for children and young people: mirrors and windows

Librarian’s view:

As librarians, teachers and staff in schools, we need to be mindful of ensuring that our book collections are diverse and represent the pupils and students in our schools.

Nicole Jordan, Creative Learning Services, highlights two reports and some reading lists which outline research around current representation in publishing and invites you to reflect on your own stock and how we can encourage and work with publishers to help our pupils and students to feel represented.

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I wanted to highlight two reports and a comprehensive reading list that have been produced in recent months that look at representation in books for children and young people. The reports give us clear indicators that comprehensive diversity and inclusion in books still has a way to go, despite improvements in recent years. We want our pupils and students to feel that they are represented in books and that the full spectrum of children and young people’s experiences are reflected. 

It’s the idea first talked about by Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop, professor emerita at Ohio State University, that books act as mirrors when they reflect a reader’s own life and experiences, validating their identity, and as windows when they offer a view into the lives and perspectives of others.(1) 

Inclusive Books for Children published the Excluded Voices report of Own Voice representation in UK children’s books published from 2022 to 2024. They reviewed books for babies and children aged 1 to 9 and found that of 2,721 books, there had been an increase of 8.1 % in marginalised neurodivergent, disabled or minoritised main characters since 2023 but there had been a 21.5% decrease in books featuring a black main character across the years of the report. These are just two of the statistics amongst many other important reflections highlighted and the full report can be viewed here – https://www.inclusivebooksforchildren.org/excluded-voices-report.

They have produced a list of high quality book titles to accompany the report which can be found here –  https://www.inclusivebooksforchildren.org/collections/own-voices-2025. 

The CLPE report Reflecting Realities Survey of Ethnic Representation within UK Children’s Literature 2024 shows a small increase in minoritised presence in both fiction and non-fiction year on year – from 11% in 2023 to 18% in 2024 in fiction, and from 22% in 2023 to 27% in 2024 in non-fiction.

Unfortunately, picture books have seen a drop in the proportion of presence reported, from 55% in 2023 to 38% in 2024. 

The full report can be found here – https://clpe.org.uk/research/reflecting-realities

Lit in Colour was founded in 2020 by Penguin Books UK as a long-term programme to support UK schools to make the teaching and learning of English Literature more inclusive of authors of colour. To support this vital work, they have produced some phenomenal reading lists, this being the 2025 list covering EYFS to Year 13 – https://www.penguin.co.uk/about/social-impact/lit-in-colour/teaching-resources/reading-lists

So how can we ensure our book stock in schools is inclusive and represents our children and young people? 

A great way is to engage in pupil/student voice, asking the children and young people in your schools what they would like to read that mirrors their own lives and to have that window into the lives of people different to themselves. You could ask them to look at the Lit in Colour book lists for their age group and encourage them to choose the titles they’re most interested in. There are many other lists such as the Empathy Lab collections https://empathylab.uk/rfe/, Books for Topics https://www.booksfortopics.com/booklists/topics/diversity-inclusion/, Inclusive Books for Children https://www.inclusivebooksforchildren.org/ and CILIP’s Pen&inc publication https://www.cilip.org.uk/page/penandinc. 

Borrowing books from your local schools’ library service will give you instant access to a range of up-to-date diverse titles, professionally selected and can be borrowed at a fraction of the cost of buying them yourselves. Some SLS’ have visits from pupils and students so they can choose the books themselves, again helping them to feel included and giving them agency in the books they want to read for pleasure.

How do we engage with publishers to help our pupils and students to be represented? 

Joining in with publishers’ webinars, signing up to mailing lists, attending roadshows and conferences can enable us to speak to publishers and talk to them about how inclusive their titles are and what they’re doing to improve the diversity of their authors and illustrators. 

You could also work on special projects with local publishers. At Creative Learning Services, we work with Every Cherry who publish inclusive accessible books for children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities. Their ground-breaking symbolised books for example are an amazing way for pupils to read books they would never have previously been able to access https://www.everycherry.com/.

These reports show there is still a long way to go in improving the diversity of authors and characters represented in books for children and young people but as professionals, there are many ways we can engage and invest in helping our pupils and students use books as mirrors or windows into their own lives or the lives of others.

1. “Rudine Sims Bishop: ‘Mother’ of multicultural children’s literature.” Robin Chenoweth, online (2019), https://ehe.osu.edu/news/listing/rudine-sims-bishop-diverse-childrens-books

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