Diversity In Children's Literature Really Matters By Jacob Hood Summary

Diversity is something I never really thought about while reading books. I have never looked at the range of characters in a book. After this class I look at diversity in books a lot differently. Things stick out to me now. If a person cannot relate to a book they are going to have a completely different reaction to the book than someone who can connect to it. For example, if an upper class child who has traveled reads a book about a family who takes trips and goes on vacations, they will be able to connect to the book in a different way than a lower class child who has never had experiences of traveling. In the article, Why Diversity in Children’s Literature Really Matters, the author Jacob Hood, talks about children not being able to relate …show more content…
Most books about exploring and taking chances had main characters that were white, therefore Hood could not relate as much as a white child could. In the article, How We Talk (or Don’t Talk) About Diversity When We Read With Our Kids, the author, Matt de la Pena, talks about how children don’t even question the difference from people with different color of skin, or different social class right away. In the article they state, as a parent you do not need to point out the differences between people right away. Let your child ask questions when they have them, other than that there is no need to make these things sound like a big deal, because then your child may begin to think it is a big deal that there are differences in people. This shows that we need to add as many different social classes and races as possible, that way children just continue to think of everybody as equals. If more diverse books are written, more children will be able to connect to the literature, which will hopefully lead them to reading more. In class we learned a way to read against the grain and think how the book would be different if they changed the gender of a character, or the skin color of a