Three Beautiful Books to Start Inclusive Conversations with your Young Child
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Books are a wonderful tool to help start conversations about inclusivity with our young children. Sometimes we don't know how to start conversations about topics like diversity, skin color, culture, disability, privilege, language or consent-to name a few- a book can be a way to start. It can create curiosity, share new language and show characters in situations that we may feel caught off guard to talk about when they unfold in real life situations. With the right book, we can take time to prepare our thoughts and answers to potential questions using authors' words and illustrations to support our conversations.
When tough questions do come up, it's important to keep in mind that we don't have to have all the answers; the books are just the beginning. It's ok to reply to your curious child, "you know that is a good question! I'm not sure, I'll get back to you about that tomorrow." Remember to seek out folks within the underrepresented communities to support your own learning and compensate them if you can. However, ultimately its the effort we, as adults make to work toward inclusivity in our language, our environment and our everyday actions. We, as parents must work to create a habit-or at least consistency-when modeling curiosity rather than silence, respect rather than judgement, kindness rather than ridicule, and a willingness to talk openly about uncomfortable realities and acknowledge when we too must do some (un)learning.
Here are 3 books to get you started…
1.Your Name is a Song by Jamilah Thompkins-Bigelow and Illustrated by Luisa Uribe
A great beginning-of-the-year story for families of the global majority, multilingual and monolingual speakers. The story magically carries readers from the main character’s disappointment turned delight after starting school as a child with a unique name in a culture which didn't take the time to learn it. The author made this video of the name pronunciations in her book with the added reminder to ask how to pronounce unfamiliar names. Recommended ages 3-9.
2.Like the Moon Loves the Sky By Hena Khan Illustrated by Saffa Khan
A lovely poetic book, perfect for reading before bedtime affirmations about the hopes, dreams and the love between a parent for their child. It seamlessly weaves in a bit of language and the heritage of underrepresented cultures like that of Pakistani-American Muslim author Hena Khan. As an “OwnVoice” author Khan has written many children's books sharing her lived experience and culture through her characters representing many readers young and old. Recommended ages 3-5 years
3. Be a Tree by Maria Gianferrari Illustrated by Felicita Sala. This beautifully illustrated botany themed picture book can be used to start conversations about diversity in general. Gianferrari takes readers on a journey connecting trees to readers by examining the parts of a tree, characteristics, needs, differences within a forest and the benefits of diversity of all kinds. Recommended ages 5-10.
Which books have YOU used to start new conversations about diverse topics with your child and why? I’d love to hear in the comments!
Do you want to listen to these books before you purchase? Take a listen on my YouTube channel, under the playlist called Read Aloud in English.
-Hana
P.S. If I shared some new children’s book knowledge with you feel free to support my work and buy me a ☕️ and SHARE with other parents ♥️ 📚