One thing about diversity it’s not just about race. Diversity is divers and teaching kids about different kinds of diversity helps them understand the complexity of individuality and humanity. Human complexity may include the following examples of domains of diversity: Race, Ethnicity, gender sexuality, religion, body size/shape, age, nationality, physical ability, solicit economic status, class, and family composition.

When kids learn to contemplate how unique aspects of a person contributes to who they are it increases empathy, acceptance and self acceptance. After all, understanding diversity leads to understanding individual and a celebration of each persons unique contributions to the world.

Diversity can be abstract but using books can help make concepts more concrete. This post is meant to be a resource of books for children and teens that can help introduce the topic of diversity and promote more discussion.  Please note these are books that focus one or more types of diversity. While I hope you find the stories, characters and messages engaging enough to add to your personal library, don’t forget to add books with divers characters that are not about diversity.

Books About Race & Ethnicity

The following is a list of books that explore and illustrate the Race & Ethnicity dimension of diversity for you to introduce, explain and discuss with your children. 

Help kids understand when they encounter an individual that does not match their previous experiences, that forms of diversity are not scary and are positive addition to society. 

Teach children that one characteristic of a person does not define that person. People are a complex integration of many identities, affiliations and descriptors. 


Preschool (0-5)

Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans

By Kadir Nelson

Shades of Black

By Sandra Pinkney

Eyes That Kiss in the Corners

By Joanna Ho

Hair Love

By Matthew A. Cherry

All the Colors We Are/Todos los colores de nuestra piel: The Story of How We Get Our Skin Color/La historia de por qué tenemos diferentes colores de piel

By Katie Kissinger

The ABCs of Black History

By Rio Cortez


School Aged (6-10)

Buffalo Bird Girl

By S.D.Nelson

The Unbreakable Code

By Sara Hoagland Hunter

The Story of Olympic Diver Sammy Lee

By Paula Yoo, Dom Lee

28 Days: Moments in Black History That Changed The World

By Sara Hoagland Hunter

Marisol McDonald Doesn’t Fit

The Thunder Egg

By Tim J Myers


Tween & Teen (12-18)

I am not a number

By Jenny K Dupuis​

The Warriors

ByJoseph Pruchac

American Born Chinese

By Gene Luen Yang

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

By Sherman Alexie 

Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You

By Jason Reynolds and Ibram X Kendi

How to be a (Young ) Antiracist

By Ibram X Kendi and Nic Stone


You might also enjoy:

74 Comments

  1. I have read several good stuff here. Certainly price bookmarking for revisiting. I wonder how so much attempt you set to make this kind of magnificent informative web site.

  2. Hiya! I know this is kinda off topic however I’d figured I’d ask. Would you be interested in trading links or maybe guest writing a blog post or vice-versa? My website covers a lot of the same subjects as yours and I feel we could greatly benefit from each other. If you might be interested feel free to send me an e-mail. I look forward to hearing from you! Wonderful blog by the way!

  3. I and also my pals came reading through the best ideas located on your site and then suddenly came up with a horrible suspicion I never thanked the web blog owner for those techniques. My men are already absolutely joyful to read them and have now honestly been taking advantage of them. Thank you for actually being considerably considerate and for picking out such superb subject areas millions of individuals are really wanting to discover. My very own honest regret for not saying thanks to you earlier.

  4. I have been exploring for a little bit for any high quality articles or blog posts on this kind of space . Exploring in Yahoo I eventually stumbled upon this web site. Studying this information So i¦m satisfied to express that I have a very good uncanny feeling I found out just what I needed. I most surely will make sure to don¦t overlook this website and give it a glance on a relentless basis.

  5. I’m impressed, I have to say. Really rarely do I encounter a weblog that’s each educative and entertaining, and let me tell you, you’ve gotten hit the nail on the head. Your concept is outstanding; the difficulty is one thing that not sufficient persons are speaking intelligently about. I am very completely satisfied that I stumbled across this in my search for something referring to this.

  6. I do enjoy the way you have framed this particular matter plus it really does supply us a lot of fodder for thought. Nonetheless, through what precisely I have observed, I really trust when the actual remarks stack on that people stay on point and in no way start upon a soap box regarding some other news du jour. Anyway, thank you for this excellent piece and though I can not go along with the idea in totality, I respect your standpoint.

  7. Hi there, simply became alert to your blog via Google, and located that it is really informative. I?m gonna be careful for brussels. I will appreciate if you happen to continue this in future. Lots of other folks will likely be benefited out of your writing. Cheers!

  8. We are a group of volunteers and starting a new scheme in our community. Your web site provided us with valuable info to work on. You’ve done a formidable job and our entire community will be grateful to you.

  9. I?m not sure where you are getting your info, but good topic. I needs to spend some time learning more or understanding more. Thanks for magnificent information I was looking for this information for my mission.

  10. I?m not sure where you are getting your information, but great topic. I needs to spend some time learning much more or understanding more. Thanks for wonderful info I was looking for this information for my mission.

  11. Someone essentially help to make seriously articles I would state. This is the very first time I frequented your web page and thus far? I amazed with the research you made to make this particular publish amazing. Magnificent job!

  12. Hello There. I found your blog using msn. This is a very smartly written article. I?ll be sure to bookmark it and come back to learn more of your helpful information. Thanks for the post. I?ll certainly return.

  13. I have noticed that costs for internet degree gurus tend to be an excellent value. Like a full Bachelors Degree in Communication with the University of Phoenix Online consists of 60 credits at $515/credit or $30,900. Also American Intercontinental University Online provides a Bachelors of Business Administration with a complete school requirement of 180 units and a cost of $30,560. Online learning has made having your higher education degree been so cool because you can certainly earn your own degree through the comfort of your abode and when you finish from work. Thanks for all other tips I have learned from your site.

  14. whoah this blog is great i love reading your articles. Keep up the great work! You know, a lot of people are hunting around for this information, you can help them greatly.

  15. Good post. I be taught something more challenging on completely different blogs everyday. It’ll always be stimulating to learn content material from other writers and practice a bit something from their store. I?d choose to make use of some with the content on my blog whether you don?t mind. Natually I?ll give you a link in your net blog. Thanks for sharing.

Comments are closed.