Dear Teacher,
Have you experienced difficulty in teaching the theme of Racial Diversity in your classroom before? When teaching young children, many times it can be difficult to explain why and how people are different without sometimes offending others. But the fact is, that we are all different whether we look different or not. Each person is an individual, and I think this is a very important lesson to teach in the classroom, and to help your students understand, and to better make them aware of all the diversity around them
I have constructed a reading ladder on the theme of racial diversity, to offer you some resources that may be helpful to teach and enlighten your students on the topic of race. No matter the grade you teach, in this ladder, you will find books for children of all ages. I have included picture books, young adult novels, non-fiction, and a graphic novel, all which will be appropriate for your students. The reason I chose some of the books I did, is because many of theme deal with different races and cultures. In this ladder you will find books about Chinese-Americans, Indians, African-Americans, Multi-Racial children, Caucasian, and one of the books even explores two different types of birds.
One of the picture books I was so happy to include in this ladder, and one that I hope you and your students will enjoy, is The Colors of Us, by Karen Katz. This book is about a young girl trying to paint herself and her family. She runs into some difficulty when trying to make appropriate skin colors. The story follows the young girl and her mother discussing all of the beautiful colors used to make the skin tones of people all over the neighborhood. This book also includes great visuals. I really enjoyed this book because it did not highlight one race, but instead taught the reader to find the beauty in the differences in our skin tones, and to understand that everyone’s skin is beautiful just the color it is.
One novel I also really enjoyed was Feathers, by Jaqueline Woodson. This book is told from the perspective of a middle school African American girl. This major event in this story, is when a white boy comes to school on their side of the highway. There are no white children in this school, nor do you ever see white people on this side of the highway, so this sparks a lot of talk in the school. This book helps students discover that your race is not important, where you come from is not important. It is important how you act and treat others.
Each of the books on my ladder, has a good message to teach to readers, and really highlights the idea of diversity amongst different races. I hope you enjoy the texts I have selected and chose to you’re my Reading Ladder in your classroom!
