When children's books are racist

I was an avid reader as a child. Many of my favorite books were labelled as “classics” by adults. I loved these books, including ones that I now realize were blatantly racist. What should parents and teachers respond to racism in children’s books?

How do we recognize racism in literature? Are there books we should remove from our shelves? What should we say when we’re reading a book to a child and unexpectedly come across a racist stereotype?

First, let’s talk about some of the different ways that racism shows up in children’s books.

How should parents and teachers respond to racism in children's books, including classic books we may have loved as children?

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Racist language that isn’t challenged by any character

In The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, the main character Mary is outraged when she is mistaken for “a black.”

“You thought I was a native,” she declares. “They are not people – they are servants who must salaam to you.”

In Little House on the Prairie, a neighbor repeatedly tells the Ingalls family that “the only good Indian is a dead Indian.”

No character challenges or questions the racist assumptions in these children’s books. That means the prejudice less likely to be noticed by young readers, especially white children.

Scenes like these teach children that racism is something they should expect and accept in society.

That doesn’t mean that there should never be incidents of racism in children’s books. Kids must be able to spot racism in order to stand up against it, and books can help them develop this skill.

The book Indian No More by Charlene Willing McManis provides positive examples of how to realistically include scenes of racism while also challenging it.

In the book, young Regina face racism as a Native American, and she also learns about anti-Black racism through a friendship with her neighbors. When white children throw eggs at them on Halloween and use the n word, Regina’s mother is outraged. She tells Regina how violent and terrible the word is.

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What should we do about racist language in children’s books?

I recommend books like The Secret Garden and Little House on the Prairie should be read with adult guidance, so that the racism present in the story can be identified and discussed.

How we talk about racism in children’s books is important too.

Telling a child that “everyone thought that way back then” is both problematic and not true. Certainly most Black, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) did not agree that they were less than human. And a minority of white people also challenged racism in every era.

If you do use books with racist content as a teaching tool, this article from a Nashville librarian may be a helpful guide.

Philip Nel is author of the excellent book Was the Cat in the Hat Black? The Hidden Racism of Children’s Literature and the Need for Diverse Books.

Nel cautions against giving children new versions of classic books that have replaced racist words with less controversial ones.

For example, in Douglas Gribben’s edition of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, he replaces the n word with “slave.”

Nel believes that these classic racist books can sometimes be used to help children identify and understand racism.

He argues that replacing the offensive word in Huck Finn makes it harder for readers to see that Huck has racist ideas about Jim and all Black people.

Portraying Black, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) through the white gaze

Sometimes racism in children’s books is created by well-intentioned white authors who believe they are portraying BIPOC sympathetically.

Many white teachers believe To Kill a Mockingbird is a moving book and a useful tool for helping students understand racism.

But as writer Zach Graham, who is Black, points out “the reason I didn’t connect to the novel as a middle schooler was because it wasn’t written for me…To Kill a Mockingbird is a white story written by a white woman in which black people are depicted as ignorant, hopeless, and in need of white saviors.”

Sometimes the misrepresentations of an ethnic group are hard for people outside of that group to spot.

For example, the Newberry award winner Julie of the Wolves is written by a white author about an Inupiaq girl. Reviewer Martha Stackhouse, who is Inupiaq, points out many inaccuracies in the book, as well as white standards of beauty that Julie is judged against.

How should we respond?

When searching for diverse children’s books for our homes and our classrooms, teachers and parents can start with #ownvoices books. This means the author shares an identity with the characters (and it’s an identity that is marginalized by the dominant society.)

I believe that #ownvoices books are a justice issue. BIPOC folks should be able to tell their own stories, and have them published by major children’s book publishers.

That doesn’t mean there’s never a place for books written by authors who don’t share the race or ethnicity of their characters. But we do need to check those books for stereotypes, and prioritize diverse books written by BIPOC authors.

Particularly when teachers want to assign books that help students understand racism, there are so many quality options written by Black authors and other authors of color.

15 books to help kids understand that Black Lives Matter

Talking to kids about anti Asian racism (includes recommended books)

Twenty #ownvoices children’s books about Native Americans

When BIPOC folks are absent from books

Philip Nel points out that “the most common but unnoticed examples of structural racism in children’s literature [involves] the absence of characters of color from locations where we might expect to see them.” (Was the Cat in the Hat Black? page 109)

He points to William Joyce’s The Fantastic Flying Book of Mr. Morris Lessmore as an example. The book has been highly praised for its beauty and emotion. Since the book is set in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, it’s quite noticeable that there are no Black characters.

This erasing of Black people not only keeps Black children from being able to see themselves in the books they read. It also contributes to white children’s sense that whiteness is normal and universal. White children learn to expect that they will see themselves everywhere, and that it doesn’t matter if BIPOC are absent.

Another way that racism occurs in children’s books is publishers mostly limiting BIPOC authors to certain genres. It’s much harder to find Black or Asian American fantasty books, for example, than it is to find diverse books that are historical fiction.

What should we do about the absence of BIPOC folks in books?

When we’re reading a book and realize that all the characters are white (or that BIPOC characters are only in the background), adults should point this out to children. If you live in a diverse community, you can ask your child “do you think this looks like our city? Who is missing from this book?”

Since it’s harder to find BIPOC in certain children’s literature genres, it’s important to buy the books of authors who have managed to break through that barrier!

My 8 year old is starting to love fantasy books, so we seek out books by diverse authors including Marti Dumas, Zetta Elliott, Lamar Giles and Ryan Calejo.

Racist imagery in children’s books

Racist images and character descriptions may be even more common in classic children’s books than racist language. Problematic images can also be harder for people to spot if they’re not familiar with common stereotypes.

Picture books featuring monkeys often build on racist stereotypes about Black people, as this article by Edith Campbell explains. While children reading the books may not realize what is being depicted, these repeated images still have an effect on them.

I’ve written previously about how minstrel show characters influenced the development of The Cat in the Hat. Philip Nel points out that coded images like these show children what things adults find normal – including racism.

Other racist images don’t rely on animals, such as the stereotypical slit eyes and braids of The Five Chinese Brothers. Another example are the illustrations in Asterix and Tintin cartoons showing Black people with coal colored skin and giant red lips.

Some adults may be inclined to keep reading a beloved book if it only contains one or two racist illustrations. I’m thinking of books like To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street, which shows a Chinese man wearing a rice paddy hat while holding an enormous pair of chopsticks.

But when I think about how few positive, accurate representation there is of Asian people in children’s literature, it reminds me that these images matter. These stereotypical images become part of children’s memory banks.

5 surprising ways white children learn racist ideas

Antiracism at school: 9 examples to inspire educators

How should we respond to images in children’s books that are racist?

Recently, a parent in a Montessori Facebook group posted a picture from a new book she bought for her daughter. Her four year old had already fallen in love with the book, which showed a blond girl relaxing in a boat rowed by a group of African men in loincloths.

The parent regretted that she hadn’t looked through the entire story collection before buying the book, and wanted to know what she should say to her daughter.

One educator pointed that at age 4, children are far more attuned to what parents do than to what they say. She encouraged the parent to return the book to the bookstore, and to have her daughter go with her.

When I’m considering whether to read a book to my white child, I ask myself if I’d feel comfortable reading this same book to an indigenous child, an Asian child, or a Black child.

If I wouldn’t, then why should I read that same book to my white son?

My family’s approach (so far) to racism in children’s books

My son just turned eight, so we’re entering new territory in terms of his ability to reason and have critical conversations about books. We may pick up some classics with racist themes as a teaching tool in the future.

For now, I’ve only mentioned certain books to him and why I don’t want to read them. When we were reading Louise Erdrich’s excellent book The Birchbark House, I told him that I wished it had been available when I was a child. I told him that I’d liked reading Little House on the Prairie, but now I realized how racist the descriptions of Indians were.

When I am thinking of reading a classic book and I can’t remember much about it, I sometimes do a google search for the book title plus the word “controversy”, “stereotype”, or “racism.”

I also try to have at least half of the books we check out from the library or purchase star BIPOC characters, mostly written by #ownvoices authors. I know that the books my child comes across at school or that his friends recommend are more likely to star white characters, and I want to balance that out.

I’ve also realized that it’s important for me to look at books I loved as a child through fresh eyes. I remember enjoying The Secret Garden, and have no recollection that it included racist passages.

But now I know, and I can’t in good conscience recommend the book to children.

Speaking up to other adults

Finally, even though it makes me uncomfortable, I’ve realized the importance of speaking up to teachers about racist books.

When my child was 5, he shocked me by using the word r*dskin while singing in the shower. When I asked where he’d learned the word, he said one of the teachers had been reading the class Peter Pan.

An assistant was reading the book because the class was preparing to go see the play. When I approached the lead teacher, she didn’t realize that the book had racist language in it.

Since the book had already been read, I told her I hoped they would talk to the children about it. (I also kept my child home the day of the play.)

Doing nothing isn’t an option

Thoughtful parents, librarians, and teachers who are committed to social justice don’t all agree about how to handle racist “classic” books. Some believe that it’s important to discuss these books with children so that they understand racism in history and the present day.

Others believe that keeping these books in our collections risks reinforcing racist stereotypes children, especially young children, are already learning from society.

What is clear to me is that antiracist parents and teachers don’t have the option of simply reading these books as innocent, classic literature. If we’re truly committed to challenging racism, we can’t let our pleasant childhood memories of problematic books guide our decisions.

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