Writing Program faculty member Susan Muaddi Darraj wrote a commentary on the statistics recently published by the Cooperative Children’s Book Center, illustrating the lack of diversity in the publishing world.
Muaddi-Darraj was moved to write the piece after attending the National Council of Teachers of English and its affiliated Assembly on Literature for Adolescents workshop, where the statistics report was being distributed and discussed.
In 2018, just 1% of children’s books featured an American Indian/First Native protagonist. That’s 23 out of 3,134 books published. Only 5%, or 170 books, starred Latinx children, while Asian Pacific Islanders and Asian Americans were the central characters in 7%, or 218 books. African American children were the main characters in 10%, or 301 of these books.
So notes Susan Muaddi-Darraj in an Op-Ed piece published in the Baltimore Sun.
About Susan Muaddi-Darraj
Susan Muaddi Darraj recently won an American Book Award for her collection of short stories “A Curious Land: Stories from Home,” which draws on her Palestinian heritage. A 2018 USA Ford Fellow, Susan is a Lecturer in the Johns Hopkins University’s MA in Writing program. Her forthcoming children’s book series, “Farah Rocks,” starring a Palestinian American protagonist, will be published in January.
