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In today’s world, there are a number of races, but in children’s literature there seems to be one major and very few others. Minorities are very underrepresented in children’s literature. There needs to be more books about living life as an African American or Native American. Even the books that have minorities as the main character may have a white character on the front, due to whitewashing.

School librarians have taken to the blogosphere to help authors see this problem. Many librarians are creating blogs to talk about the need for diversity in children’s literature. As a children’s literature minor, I have read numerous children’s books as an adult and have seen very few with minority lead characters. As a white female, I would love to read a book about an African American female lead character. It would be an interesting contrast to what I am used to reading. The world of children’s literature also needs to see more female main characters as heroes and not just as a love interest. Children’s literature needs to be diversified. There needs to be more female heroes, minorities as main characters and less whitewashing.  It is helpful that school librarians are getting the conversation started, now we need to get the ball rolling on more books published with minority lead characters.