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Hear from some of the leading minds and figures in the children’s book and diversity movements. Find out where they believe the representation gaps are, and why they’re so important to fill.

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Kestrel Ward (she/they) is an early-career librarian and member of the Diverse BookFinder team. They are a US white American, queer, nonbinary person. Kestrel is committed to expanding diversity and representation in literature for all ages, and have been working on diversity initiatives professionally for about two years, and privately for about a decade. They ...continue reading "Not All Representation Is Good"
Covers of Picture Book Biographies Featuring AAPI People

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May is Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month, honoring the past and present contributions of Asian and Pacific Islander people to the creation and prosperity of the United States of America. Like other cultural commemorations (Hispanic Heritage Month, Native American Heritage Month, etc.) Asian and Pacific American Heritage Month celebrates people from a vast variety of nations ...continue reading "Revisiting Who’s Missing in Asian and Pacific Islander American Biographies"

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Featured Image - Illustration by Elise Gravel from What Is A Refugee? Lisely Laboy is the project manager at Diverse BookFinder. Lisely holds a master's degree in Information and Library Sciences from Florida State University and undergraduate degrees from the University of Florida in Sociology and Women’s Studies. She has 10 years of public library ...continue reading "Building Empathy with Picture Books: The Refugee Journey"

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Diana Palacio is an online MLIS graduate student at the University of Washington, and one of the Diverse BookFinder’s winter interns. She works part-time as a library assistant and is slowly gaining more experience in the children’s library department. Why Incorporate Diversity Into Storytime? Storytime is a great opportunity to provide windows, mirrors, and sliding ...continue reading "Using Diverse Picture Books in Storytime"

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Laura Beals D’Elia is the Library Teacher at the Armstrong Elementary School in Westborough, MA. She has been an elementary library teacher since 2002. She has a BA in English and Children’s Literature from Framingham State University and a MLIS from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She has presented at various state and national conferences on ...continue reading "What Does a Diverse Collection Look Like?"

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Intro to the Series We are so excited to bring attention to this blog series written by students in Dr. Margaret Boyle's "Teaching Languages and Culture" course at Bowdoin College. The series highlights the Diverse BookFinder (DBF), not only as a great tool for educators, librarians, and parents, but as an invaluable space where new ...continue reading "The Representation of Language & Cultural Identity in U.S. Picture Books, A Series (2)"

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Illustration by Michaela Goade (Tlingit-Haida) from We Are Water Protectors by Carole Lindstrom (Anishinabe/Metis; enrolled member, Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe) Note: This summer I read the middle grade novel, Indian No More by Charlene Willing McManis (Umpqua) with Traci Sorell (Cherokee Nation). In the book, ten-year-old Regina, enrolled in the Confederate Tribes of Grand Ronde, ...continue reading "9 Ways to Lift Up & Learn from Indigenous Voices"

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Illustration by Ashley Bryan from Freedom Over Me: Eleven Slaves, Their Lives and Dreams Brought to Life by Ashley Bryan Luis is the Manager of the Courtland S. Wilson branch of the New Haven Public Library in Connecticut and a member of our Advisory Council. In this historic moment of the COVID-19 pandemic, worldwide protests ...continue reading "Humanizing History: How Picture Books Help Us Teach Hard Truths"

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Karen Wang is our summer 2020 Diverse BookFinder intern. She is a graduate student at Pratt Institute, pursuing a Master of Library and Information Science to become a children’s librarian. Before transitioning to librarianship, Karen worked in the K-12 educational technology field, developing and implementing programs for students, families, and educators across the country. Karen ...continue reading "Women’s Equality Day 2020: Commemorating a Century of Women’s Suffrage for Some, Not All"

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We’re happy to feature this guest post by author Megan Dowd Lambert. In addition to many other accomplishments (see her bio. below), Megan, in association with the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, has developed the Whole Book Approach, a process building on Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) that focuses on the picture book as ...continue reading "The Whole Book Approach Meets Critical Literacy"

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