One of our most important family values is inclusivity. I actively teach my kids to include others and to ask curious questions when something is unfamiliar. We want to learn about things and people that are different from ourselves. While I work to bring books whose stories and illustrations are inclusive in every stack, these books bring explicit attention to the differences of the characters. This helps my kids to build empathy and to have language around inclusion that brings richer conversations- even at 3 and 7 years old. It’s never too early! If these ideas align with your values, check out this stack and next week’s stack for some books that celebrate differences.
Lupita Nyong’o and Vashti Harrison’s Sulwe is the story of Sulwe, a girl whose skin is the darkest in her family. She tries hard to lighten her skin to no avail. One night she dreams of two sisters- Day and Night- who love each other but who are treated differently by people who prefer Day’s lightness. Eventually the people realize that too much Day is harmful, and that Night is beautiful and needed. When she wakes up, Sulwe feels confident in her beauty and can finally believe what her mother has told her all along. This book has helped us to start having conversations about colorism and what we see as good and why. My 3 year old is mostly interested int he beautiful illustrations and the story of Day and Night. My 7 year old, though, has started to think more critically about how different characters are depicted as good or evil and how they look and why.
Just Ask! by Sonia Sotomayor (yes, that Sonia Sotomayor) with illustrations by Rafael López starts with an overarching story of planting a garden in which each unique flower, berry, and leaf brings an important function to the garden that makes it better. Just the same, each of Sonia’s friends brings something important to their garden. She explains about her own diabetes, and each of her friends explains something about themself that is different, too. One friend has asthma, another uses a wheelchair, one has autism, one speaks with a stutter, one has ADHD, and so on. Each focuses on what the difference helps the kid to do really well and also asks kids to consider the ways in which they might be the same as the friends planting the garden. It’s been helpful for me to have this language to use to talk with my kids about people we see who are visibly different from us, and for my kids to know that everyone is the same in some ways and different in others. Sotomayor also emphasizes that if a kid is curious to ask nicely about what they’re wondering- that’s better than making a judgement without knowing.
Nancy Bo Flood and Julianna Swaney’s I Will Dance is about a kid who uses a wheelchair because her movements are restricted to her head, arms, and fingers who really wants to dance. Her mother finds a class for dances of all abilities and even though she is nervous to try, she does. When she arrives, she sees truly dances of all abilities- including some other kids who use wheelchairs too- who welcome her and dance with her. The class holds a recital, and the kids are thrilled to perform their moves and the community they have built. Both of my kids are able-bodied, so this helped them to learn some language and also to reinforce that we don’t make judgements about people (like assuming someone can’t dance just because they use a wheelchair) and to find ways to include everyone.
Jess Hong’s Lovely uses simple text and beautiful images to challenge beauty standards for the very young. The affirming language helps readers to see different shapes, sizes, colors, hair preferences, etc as positive, even if different. This one was powerful for us because in the image with the green background, one of my kids saw the red heels and agreed that they were fancy but was put off by the leg hair they’re paired with. That lead to a conversation about people choosing whatever shoes they want, and letting people make their bodies look however they want- hairy legs or not. This book is in our regular rotations because my kids get something new from it each time we read.
We hope these books help to create some good conversations among the people you’re reading with! Suggestions are always welcome.
As always, if you choose to purchase one of the books linked here, I hope you’ll use the link to purchase through my Bookshop store. I’ll make a tiny commission and be very grateful!