Subject area: Diversity in Children’s Books

Format: 6-Part series podcast (episode 1 & 2)

Length: 1 hour

Audience: Librarians, professionals/academics interested in Children’s literature, public library workers delivering children’s reading programs

Organisers: Better Reading

Presenter: Cheryl Akle (Director of Better Reading), Randa Abdel Fattah (Palestinian-Australian author and advocate) and Maxine Beneba Clarke (Afro-Carribbean Australian author)

 

Reflection:

This objective of this series is to deep dive into the conversation of diversity in Children’s literature with various authors, teachers and storytellers. This captured my interest as a mother to a 3.5 year old and as a professional aspiring to work in public libraries with some experience of delivering children’s Storytimes in previous roles. I myself have noticed a considerable lack of diverse authors and voices in young peoples’ stories, feeling the absence of mirrors for my own experience growing up in Australia as a young queer Mulsim Bengali girl. Palestinian author Randa Abdel Fattah discusses Islamophobia and racism in the context of this country being on stolen land and the question of how do we bravely communicate issues of whiteness and the denial of indigenous sovereignty to children through storytelling? Fattah highlights the need expose young readers to books about cultural resistance, cultural identity and self-acceptance to cultivate empathy for people who are othered. At present, there is little representation and the problem of stories about diverse experiences told by white authors rather than marginalised people telling their own stories.

Episode 2 interviewed author Maxine Beneba Clarke about her experiences growing up in Kellyville as an immigrant and black girl and challenges faced as an author and poet in the Australian publishing industry. Clarke accentuates the dissonance between what we see on the shelves and what we see on the streets. I learned that there is a long way to go with picture books and young adult fiction and both Clarke and Fattah place the onus squarely on white corridors of power and the dominant culture of whiteness in publishing companies making decisions that underestimates readers and the public. I also more deeply reflected on the idea of representation, the burden of diverse authors having to represent their entire communities rather than having the freedom to write very personal stories or stories where their cultural identity is incidental to the main story arc.

In my future role as a public librarian, I will be able to reflect on the decision-making powers in terms of influencing the children’s collection or what books are being selected for children’s programs. I will be proactive in searching for stories and books with diverse voices and representing the full spectrum of our multicultural communities, including children with disability, First Nations and LGBTQIA+ kids.