Where are all the black boys? Author Varian Johnson Highlights a Persistent Gap in Children’s Literature

I took the Kate Messner’s Challenge. I ordered Varian Johnson’s book from an independent publisher. You should take the challenge too.

Young People's Pavilion

Ashley Bryan wrote a classic article called the All White World of Children’s Books, in the 1960s.

How much have things changed since then?

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An answer comes from author Varian Johnson, who wrote in his May 15, 2013 blog entry:

Last week, author and librarian Betsy Bird posted this on Twitter: “At the risk of sounding desperate, can anyone name me just ONE middle grade novel published in 2013 starring an African-American boy?”

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She later followed up with a post listing all the books published in 2013 featuring African-American boys as main characters. If I’m counting correctly, the number is somewhere around eight. Maybe ten, when you count some of the small publishers.

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You have no idea how depressed this makes me feel. … There are a lot of theories why these books aren’t being published. Maybe authors aren’t writing them. Maybe editors and agents aren’t…

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