According to a recent statistic published by the U.S. Census Bureau, the percentage of the non-white population of the country continues to grow, with four states now being called “majority minority” (California, Texas, Hawai’i, and New Mexico) where the non-white population is over 50%. Across the country, nearly 50% of children 5 and younger are non-white, according to the 2012 census. Yet when we look at the statistics for book publication in the United States, of the approximately 3,600 children’s books published in 2012 (as tracked by the Cooperative Children’s Book Center in Madison, Wisconsin), only 271 were mainly about non-white characters or themes – that’s less than 8% of the total. If almost half of the nation’s children have less than one-tenth of the reading resources that feature people they can identify with, that may make them less interested in reading. Children like to imagine themselves in the same situations as the characters in a book, and that’s easier to do if they can recognize that character by looking in the mirror.

This isn’t a new situation in the United States, unfortunately. A 1965 issue of the magazine Saturday Review featured an article titled “The All-White World of Children’s Books” that starts out with a child’s question: “Why are they always white children?” While many of the movies, television shows, cartoons, and even apps and games being produced today have a definite multicultural element, children’s books seem to be lagging behind.

Fortunately, most librarians, whether at public libraries or in schools, are strong champions of multicultural literature. If you can’t find books you’d like your kids to read in the bookstore, check with the library. If they don’t have a book, they’ll probably have a good recommendation for where to find it. What’s more, since publishers judge how popular a book is by its sales – and because more sales in a category will encourage publishers to release more books like that – you can also encourage libraries, community centers, and bookstores to buy and offer the books you want your family to be reading.

It’s just as important for children to read and learn about other people, cultures, and lifestyles as it is for children to connect with stories that they relate to personally. By encouraging your child to read books about people that they might think are “different,” they’ll learn to see that in many ways, people are all the same. They’ll get a better understanding of other ways of living, and learn to appreciate the differences as well as the similarities in other peoples’ lives.