One of the first times I entered a public school as a teacher was in 2010, those halcyon days of the Obama administration when journalists asked if we were living in a post-racial society (we weren’t) and President Obama urged, in his State of the Union address, “for all of us, Democrats and Republicans, to work through our differences; to overcome the numbing weight of our politics” (they didn’t).

Fast forward over 11 years and, well, I don’t have to tell you where we are as a society right now, but it surely isn’t “forward.”

As the adults in America, we are debating the importance of critiquing and teaching about the social construction of race and institutionalized racism. We are arguing amongst ourselves about the legacy of slavery, segregation, and the imposition of second-class citizenship on Black Americans and other people of color and if how these forces permeate the social fabric of this nation. For the emerging outlook that believes that race and racism do not, in fact, influence our society, teaching children about the topics only makes children think that they do. Take the lessons away and everyone is fine.

If only the broader society knew what teachers started addressing over 30 years ago in 1990: representation matters.

It was in that year that Rudine Bishop, a professor at The Ohio State University, wrote the article “Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors.”

Bishop writes that children’s books can act as – you guessed it! – mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors. Windows offer views of worlds; the worlds can be real or fantasy, recognizable or mysterious. Windows can transform into sliding glass doors, ones through which a reader can walk in their imaginations and become a part of the world created or recreated by the author.

However, in different lighting, windows can be mirrors. In books that are mirrors, readers see themselves and their own lives and reading becomes a form of self-affirmation. We like seeing ourselves in books and so we seek out more mirrors in books! My book-mirrors as a child were ones with young white girls from middle class homes with two parents, a biological mother and a biological father, who were married and – if I got super specific – older sisters and younger brothers. I did not struggle to find books in which I found affirmation for my life and worldview.

But what about those children who cannot find themselves in books so easily?

Bishop explains that, when children cannot find themselves reflected accurately in the books they read, they learn a powerful lesson about how they are devalued in larger society. If a Black child mainly reads books where Black characters are only sidekicks or – worse – background characters, how will she feel about her own ability to live beyond the background? How likely will she be able to imagine a life for herself where she is in command? But the message is not that Black children are the only ones who need books with Black protagonists. In her own words,

“Children from dominant social groups have always found their mirrors in books, but they, too, have suffered from the lack of availability of books about others. They need the books as windows onto reality, not just imaginary worlds. They need books that will help them understand the multicultural nature of the world they live in, and their place as a member of just one group, as well as their connections to all other humans. In this country, when racism is still one of the major unresolved social problems, books may be one of the few places where children who are socially isolated and insulated from the larger world may meet people unlike themselves. If they see only reflections of themselves, they will grow up with an exaggerated sense of their own importance and value in the world – a dangerous ethnocentrism.”

As a teacher picking books for students to read, I was – at first – thinking of recommending those I had loved as a child. They’ve stuck with me through the years, which means they are awesome, right? But when I thought about the children in my classrooms, I realized that very few of them would see mirrors in those books like I did. Very few had the skin color, family composition, and socioeconomic level that I experienced as a child, so how would they feel reading my mirrors? What would they internalize from so many windows?

I had to broaden my children’s book horizon.

So, what can YOU, as a parent, do to broaden your child’s horizon?

Here are 5 easy steps!

Go to your child’s bookshelf and place on the floor every book with a human protagonist. This may be a relatively small number of books considering the prevalence (and preference?) of animals as main characters.
Separate the human protagonist books into dominant social group and non-dominant social group categories (i.e, “white” and “person of color,” or “male” and “female,” “mainly white characters” and “diverse characters”) Maybe try two or more ways of categorizing them!
Look at the size of the dominant social group pile versus the non-dominant social group pile and ask yourself, is this the world I want my child to experience?
Consider what world you DO I want your child to experience! What voices are missing? What do you wish your child knew more about? How do you want your child to grow up thinking of others? I encourage you to write the answers down – not because I’m a list maker! – but as physical evidence to hold yourself accountable.
Determine the gaps you want to fill in your child’s reading experience and find books to fill them!

No matter which way our society is moving, or what we adults are arguing about endlessly, we have the opportunity to fill our children’s lives with hope in a different kind of world. In the wise words of Rudine Bishop:

“…[A book can] help us to understand each other better by helping to change our attitudes towards difference. When there are enough books available that can act as both mirrors and windows for all our children, they will see that we can celebrate both our differences and our similarities, because together they are what make us all human.”

P.S. - Need help finding books to fill the gaps? Check out my next blog post with a list recommendations or reach out for more personalized recommendations!