Collaborations: Booklists, Action Guides, Webinars & More! | Selected Publications by the DBF Team | DBF in the Spotlight | Importance of Racially/Culturally Diverse Books | Evaluating the Quality of Racially/Culturally Diverse Books

Collaborations: Booklists, Action Guides, Webinars & More!
- Maine Association of School Libraries: Beautiful Blackbird: Why Representation Matters in Equitable Collections & Practices
- Lewiston Public Library: Book Chat with the DiverseBookFinder
- I'm Your Neighbor, Curious City & Beautiful Blackbird Children's Book Festival: Children's Books for These Times Book List
- Indigo Arts Alliance: Beautiful Blackbird Children's Book Festival
- EmbraceRace: 20 Picture Books for 2020: Readings to Embrace Race, Provide Solace & Do Good
- EmbraceRace: Choosing “good” picture books featuring diverse (BIPOC) characters - Webinar, Action Guide & Companion Guide!
- Curious City: What Do Your “Mirror” Picture Books Say to Kids
- WAMC's The Academic Minute: The Diverse BookFinder w/Dr. Krista Aronson, Bates College
- The Current talk show w/Erin Curren: Conversation with Dr. Krista Aronson on children’s literature, the issue of diversity in books for kids, race relations in America, the pandemic, and much more
- WebJunction: The Learning Place for Libraries: Multicultural Picture Books: A Deeper Look at Your Collection
- Lifelines podcast: Finding a Range of Diverse Books -- interview with Dr. Krista Aronson
- First Book webinar: How to Use Children’s Books to Teach Diversity & Inclusion (also available on YouTube)
- Book Lists by Topic: Diverse BookFinder Blog
Diverse BookFinder Research
- Room for Improvement: Picture Books Featuring BIPOC Characters, 2015–2020 (2022). Lisely Laboy, Rachael Elrod, Krista Aronson, & Brittany Kester, in Publishing Research Quarterly
- Messages Matter: Investigating the Thematic Content of Picture Books Portraying Underrepresented Racial and Cultural Groups (2017). Krista Maywalt Aronson, Brenna D. Callahan & Anne Sibley O'Brien, in Sociological Forum
- Telling tales in school: Extended contact interventions in the classroom (2016). Krista Maywalt Aronson et al., in Journal Of Applied Social Psychology
- How Cross-Racial Scenes in Picture Books Build Acceptance (2014). Krista Maywalt Aronson & Anne Sibley O'Brien, in School Library Journal
- Acculturation and social attitudes among majority children (2013). Krista Maywalt Aronson & Rupert Brown, in International Journal Of Intercultural Relations.
Diverse BookFinder in the Spotlight
2023
2022
- Bates: Bates is the Place for K–3 Educators Seeking to Learn the Best Way to Use Children's Picture Books
- The First 1,000 Days: Why The Books We Read Matter
- What Lies Beneath Magazine: When Stories Take Us Places
- Romper: The Parents Fighting For Diverse Books
- American Libraries: Finding Ourselves PLA Day Three: books and representative collections as gateways to self-discovery
2021
- UF Libraries: UF among libraries among those to aid discoverability of middle grade and young adult books
- Bates College: $175,000 NEH Grant Signals Diverse Bookfinder’s Growing National Reach
- Educational Technology and Mobile Learning: Diverse BookFinder Offers A Huge Collection of Multicultural Picture Books
- The Bedford Citizen: Looking for Diversity in the Children’s Book Collection at the Bedford Free Public Library
- Reading is Fundamental: That All Our Children May See Themselves Reflected: Racial & Cultural Representation in Picture Books
- University of Washington – Information School: BIPOC Representation in Picture Books: Asynchronous Tools to Engage with Diverse BookFinder's Framework
- Berwick Public Library: New Books from the Diverse BookFinder Grant
- Collection Management Journal: Documenting the Portrayal of Diversity in Children's Books
2020
- College & Research Libraries News: Diverse BookFinder: BIPOC collection development for children’s and young adult collections
- Outside: The Best Books Featuring Black Children in the Outdoors
- ABC News/Good Morning America: Lemonade 4 Change: How 2 moms are raising money for diverse books in their community
- Maine Department of Education: Engage Young Readers with Resources from the Beautiful Blackbird Children’s Book Festival
- Fiddlehead Focus: Long Lake Public Library diversifies children’s selection of picture books
- Portland Press Herald -- Community News: Library receives grant for diverse picture books
- Penobscot Bay Pilot: Diversity through books at Thomaston Library to expand thanks to grant
- Portland Press Herald: Maine libraries and bookstores seeing increased demand for books about race
- Cincinnati Magazine: Three Anti-Racism Resources for Families
- Portland Press Herald: Indigo Arts moves its book festival from the street to the screen
- Tinkergarten: 10 Places to Find Books That Teach Kids About Race
2019
- Sun Journal: Bates College program encourages diverse picture books for children
- Chattanooga Times Free Press (AP: U.S. News & World Report, San Francisco Chronicle, San Antonio Express): What should your child be reading? These teachers are aiming to provide rich and diverse books to their students
- Bates College: In Its Third Year, Bates’ Diverse BookFinder is More Accessible Than Ever
- PBS Kids: Using Stories to Nurture Your Child's Identity
- The Horn Book: KidLitCon 2019
- Philadelphia Public School Notebook: The Reading Quilt: Books that promote multicultural thinking in the classroom
2018
2017
- Huffington Post: Looking For Multicultural Children’s Books? Here Are 8 Helpful Resources
- Huffington Post: This Database Is Filled With 1,300 Diverse Books For Kids
- Romper: This Database Helps Parents Find Diverse Children’s Books, Because Representation Is So Important
- Quartz: A new database catalogues 1,300 children’s books about people of color
- NewsOne: True Diversity In Children’s Books Requires Non-Stereotypical Characters
- Blavity: This Database Makes It Easier To Find Children's Books With Diverse Narratives
- BookTrib: Black, White and (well) Read: Diverse Bookfinder Makes Diversity in Children’s Literature a Priority
- Bates Magazine: Bates Debuts One-of-a-Kind Search Engine for Diverse Children’s Books
- Sun Journal: Krista Aronson, finder of diverse picture books
- Literary Fusion: Website Review: Diverse BookFinder
The Importance of Racially/Culturally Diverse Books
- The all-White world of children's books (1965), Nancy Larrick, in Saturday Review
- Mirrors, Windows and Sliding Glass Doors (1990), Rudine Sims Bishop, in Perspectives: Choosing and Using Books for the Classroom
- The Danger of a Single Story (2009), Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, on TedGlobal
- As demographics shift, kids' books stay stubbornly white (2013), Elizabeth Blair, on NPR's Code Switch/Morning Edition
- Where are the people of color in children's books? (2014), Walter Dean Myers, in The New York Times
The apartheid of children's literature (2014), Christopher Myers, in The New York Times - The diversity gap in children's publishing (2015), Hannah Ehrlich, on Lee & Low Books' The Open Book blog
- I read books by only minority authors for a year. It showed me just how white our reading world is (2015), Sunmili Govinnage, in The Washington Post
- What We Talk About When We Talk About Diversity (2016), Kyo Maclear, on Kyo Maclear Kids blog
How to Evaluate the Quality of Racially/Culturally Diverse Books
- Diversity and Inclusion in Children's and Young Adult Books, Cynthia Leitich Smith, author & faculty of the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA program in Writing for Children and Young Adults
- How to choose excellent children's books by and about American Indians, Dr. Debbie Reese, Founder of American Indians in Children's Literature, published on EmbraceRace
- Guide for Selecting Anti-Bias Children's Books, Louise Derman-Sparks, on Social Justice Books
- Ten Quick Ways to Analyze Children's Books for Sexism and Racism, Louise Derman-Sparks & the ABC Task Force, on Teaching for Change
- How culturally responsive and diverse is your classroom library?, questionnaire designed by Lee & Low Books
- Reading Picture Books with Children Through a Race-Conscious Lens, EmbraceRace webinar featuring Sarah Hannah Gómez and Megan Dowd Lambert