Librarians Sound Off: Not a Lack of Latino Lit for Kids, but a Lack of Awareness

(Written By Shelley Diaz)

“Quality children’s books have been published for decades, especially since the ‘90s boom,” she says. The problem, Gonzalez notes, is a lack of visibility. These award-winning titles “unfortunately…just don’t get into the mainstream market. Instead of being displayed with the ‘regular’ books, they’re set apart,” she says. “Until we make our books an integral part of children’s literature, they are not going to be noticed. We have to make them visible.”

– Lucia Gonzalez, Pura Belpré Honoree for her bilingual The Bossy Gallito (Scholastic, 1994)

The New York Times
“For Young Latino Readers, an Image Is Missing”
By MOTOKO RICH
DEC. 4, 2012

Hispanic students now make up nearly a quarter of the nation’s public school enrollment, according to an analysis of census data by the Pew Hispanic Center, and are the fastest-growing segment of the school population. Yet nonwhite Latino children seldom see themselves in books written for young readers.

“Kids do have a different kind of connection when they see a character that looks like them or they experience a plot or a theme that relates to something they’ve experienced in their lives,” said Jane Fleming, an assistant professor at the Erikson Institute, a graduate school in early childhood development in Chicago.

“If all they read is Judy Blume or characters in the “Magic Treehouse” series who are white and go on adventures,” said Mariana Souto-Manning, an associate professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College, “they start thinking of their language or practices or familiar places and values as not belonging in school.”