A survey of Ethnic Representation in UK Children's Books in July 2018 revealed a startling problem: Only 1% feature a main character who is Black or from an ethnic minority.
The issue doesn't just concern main characters, either, and of the 9,115 children's books published in the UK in 2017, just 391 featured BAME characters.
In the video below, mum and entrepreneur Keisha explains the need for more diversity in children's literature:This chronic lack of representation has the potential to detrimentally affect people of color of all ages.
The late American children's author Walter Dean Myers wrote in 2014: "Books transmit values. They explore our common humanity. What is the message when some children are not represented in those books?
"Where are Black children going to get a sense of who they are and what they can be?"
Now, in an interview with VT, Nigerian-Jamaican mum Keisha Ehigie revealed that she left her city job in 2018 to solve this problem when she saw first-hand how it was affecting her daughter.
"She wanted long straight hair and would only choose white avatars to represent her in games," Keisha said. "She was still so young but already perceived the way she looked as being wrong. I realized I needed to do something to help make diverse books more accessible."
Keisha made the rare existing diverse books more accessible through a subscription service called Imagine Me Stories with the aim of ensuring that Black children see themselves positively represented in books and to ensure the existence of diverse libraries for all.
Keisha explained that since its launch in 2019 Imagine Me Stories has sent out thousands of boxes and emphasized that they aren't just for Black children.
"If books don’t reflect the diversity of society, everyone misses out," she said. "Children who are underrepresented are being given the subconscious message that they aren’t valuable or interesting enough to be reflected in books.
"On the other hand, if you go to a bookshop and only see characters who look like you, you're missing out on everyone else's experiences."
While Imagine Me Stories was established with the best of intentions, creating the boxes has not been without its challenges, and Keisha has had a very limited number of available books to source from.
"We cater to a range of ages from [zero to 12] and each month I try to include books which cover a wide perspective of interests, but due to the limited quantity of Black children's books this can often be quite challenging," she said.
However, despite this challenge, the feedback she has received from parents, and most importantly, children, about the boxes has made overcoming this challenge all the more worthwhile.
"Within days of sending out our first month's boxes, a mother emailed me to say, 'My son looked at the packaging and said 'Mum, that's me!'' That was so powerful - even little things like packaging can make kids feel seen," Keisha said.
The boxes don't just include books, either, and feature educational activities centered around Black history and African culture, which Keisha said is helping to educate parents about issues and historical events that they previously had no knowledge of.
Keisha explained that an understanding of Black culture is beneficial to white children too, and they are just as interested, something she discovered after doing a book reading at a majority white school.
Afterward, a teacher contacted her to say that the children had selected Young, Gifted and Black by Jamia Wilson to be their class text, a book that details the lives of 52 Black heroes past and present for young readers.
"Generally, at school, most of the inventors, historical figures, or notable people that you learn about are white men. And now these kids are having the opportunity to learn about people like Jamaican nurse Mary Seacole, who cared for British soldiers during the Crimean war and George Washington Carver, the most prominent Black scientist of the early 20th century," Keisha said.
The success of Imagine Me Stories is a testament to the fact that there is a need for Black children's books across the board, and Keisha said there are a number of ways that the publishing industry can help make this happen.
"I think it's important that people in senior positions in the children's publishing industry are from diverse backgrounds which are representative of the children in the communities that they are producing books for.
"This will then hopefully lead to more diverse authors and illustrators being commissioned which will eventually lead to more authentic diverse books being published," she said.
Keisha explained there is a "severe lack" of Black authors and illustrators and those who do exist face a number of challenges that their white counterparts simply don't.
Dorothy Koomson, a Black English novelist, recently wrote: "Black writers do not want special consideration. We want a level playing field, the chance to write books, and explore as many subjects and genres as our white counterparts."
Keisha grew up in Nigeria, and the books which were given to her as a child there were "quite Eurocentric", despite her growing up with Black role models around her.
Because of their strong influences, she did not feel like she personally missed out because of a lack of representation in children's books, but now that she is a part of a minority group in the UK, she sees it as an issue as "it is part of a wider systemic problem".
Keisha said that many other areas of children's entertainment are crying out for increased BAME representation, such as television programs which she'd like to see centering Black children as main characters instead of side ones.
"It was only this year that we had the first cartoon which focused on a Black British family (CBeebies Jojo and GranGran), despite the presence of Black people in the UK for centuries," she explained.
The founder of Imagine Me Stories added that Black people are excluded from toys and greeting cards, asking:
"How many times have you seen a birthday card with a Black girl or boy on it? By excluding Black children from these spaces, as a society, we are signaling to them that they are not important, or that some people are more deserving of representation than others."
If you have a little one or know of anybody who will benefit from Keisha's incredible Imagine Me Stories, the subscription boxes are available for purchase HERE.
