Books To Teach Young Kids About Race, Culture, and Diversity

You may have noticed that I have used the terms Race, Culture, and Diversity instead of anti-racism, racism, black, and such (the buzzwords of late). It is not at the expense of avoiding such rhetoric, but rather, when introducing children to these topics, we really want to start off by using language in the positive. That's number one.

Many websites, especially those selling books (but of course...) have been promoting 'curated' selections including "Anti-Racist Reading Lists for Children", "How to Raise Anti-Racist Kids", and "Several Antiracist Books Are Selling Out. Here's What Else Booksellers and Publishers Say You Should Read."

Instead of blindly choosing from a google-word-search-driven reading list, I would start off by introducing children's books written by local authors rich with local elements such as names, destinations, food, myths, folklore, social manners, and so forth. By 'local' I don't mean just Malaysia, but everywhere local. That's number two.

These are just random examples of what I mean:

• Tappi Finds a Friend (by Azman Md Nor) - it teaches good values and introduces our very own tapir.
• I am Itut-Itut (by Jainal Amambing) - it is based on a Rungus folktale. The Rungus is an ethnic group of Borneo, residing primarily in northern Sabah, Malaysia.
• Ramayana: Divine Loophole (by Sanjay Patel) - these are stories on based on Hindu Mythology.
• The Water Dragon: A Chinese Legend (by Li Jian) - these are stories based on the Chinese Zodiac.

And, you can build your own list from here.

Children can internalize racial bias as early as between the ages of two and four according to an American Academy of Pediatrics article. So, it is important to introduce race and culture-diverse books and have conversations about race, culture, and diversity appreciation from preschool. When we only start to have these conversations at moments of national outrage, it may be already be too late.