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Category: Highlighted Books & Trends

Are you looking for books on a specific topic? Though Our Collection is comprehensive, we highlight quality books related to popular topics annually — see BOOK LISTS to the left — and we regularly highlight meaningful trends, as they become apparent, in our blog posts below. Check them out!

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The state of Black picture book biographies is strong, with new titles regularly adding to the diversity and vibrancy of portrayals of African American life. Of the 607 picture books (as of this date) in the Diverse BookFinder catalog which feature African or African American characters, nearly 1/3 are biographies. Among the 288 biographies in ...continue reading "10 Picture Book Biographies of Black Lives"

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As Asian American and Pacific Islander (API) Heritage Month 2018 winds up, the Diverse BookFinder has 291 books with Asian/Pacific Islander/Asian American characters identified in our current collection. (We are constantly adding titles, so these numbers keep changing. Also, we code by character, not title, so a number of these characters may appear in books with white ...continue reading "Representations of Asians and Asian Americans in Recent Picture Books"

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In March we celebrate Women’s History Month, and on March 8 International Women’s Day is recognized around the globe. There are many books in The Diverse BookFinder that honor the achievements of women great and small, from the extraordinary to the everyday. As April is Jazz Appreciation Month, this Women’s History Month we are focusing ...continue reading "Women and Jazz"

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November is National Children’s Book Month, a perfect opportunity to highlight a selection of beautiful recent picture books featuring people of color and Indigenous people.  It’s also a chance to explore the Diverse BookFinder’s tools for examining not just who is represented but how. Each title below is a strong example of one (or more) ...continue reading "9 Diverse Picture Books to Celebrate National Children’s Book Month"

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In a 2018 School Library Journal article entitled, “Can Diverse Books Save Us?” 55% of the librarians surveyed reported that though authentic character portrayals of Native or Indigenous People were in demand, they were “hard to find” (see below). Author Traci Sorell (Cherokee Nation) -- whose first picture book, We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga, also came out ...continue reading "Here Now: Picture Books Portraying Contemporary Native Life, Part 2"

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Melissa-Sue John, Ph.D.— wife, mother, psychologist, STEM education researcher, blogger, and author of children’s books — currently lectures at Quinnipiac University, works as a Research Associate at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and is the founder of Lauren Simone Publishing House, which publishes the work of youth authors and illustrators. To learn more, visit www.seedstostem.org, or Instagram: @laurensimonepubs ...continue reading "Engineering through Picture Books"

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One of the most persistent stereotypes about Native/First Nations people in North America is that they all lived long ago. Dr. Adrienne Keene (Cherokee Nation), who writes the blog Native Appropriations, “a forum for discussing representations of Native peoples, including stereotypes, cultural appropriation, news, activism, and more,” posted this reminder recently on Twitter: Recently at ...continue reading "Here Now: Picture Books Portraying Contemporary Native Life, Part 1"

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In the midst of immigrant and refugee crises here in the U.S. and around the world, we are pleased to feature a selection of important new titles featuring stories of contemporary migration. These picture books, all published since 2013, put personal faces on people who, by choice or by force, move from their homes to ...continue reading "Welcome Immigrants! — and New Immigrant Books"

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As a librarian and a Jewish parent, I regularly see three types of books displayed during Jewish American Heritage Month—holiday books, Holocaust books, and Israel-related books. Yet there is much more to the American Jewish experience than these three tropes. Exploring books about Jews in the Diverse BookFinder database reveals four new ways to celebrate ...continue reading "Jewish American Heritage Month"

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