Diversity for illustrators and authors in the children’s sector is front of mind for the industry’s creative pros
Teachers and parents often look to books and children’s authors to help them present and contextualize current events and today’s social dynamics—thus publishers, illustrators, and authors in the field have to be attuned to the sensitivities of the day. We’ve asked several authors and illustrators how they approach this. What we’re hearing is that, with diversity-driven topics, a lighter touch—writing stories in a context of diversity rather than about it—is the best option.
Anna Kang, who writes the You Are (Not) Small series with illustrator Christopher Weyant for Amazon’s Two Lions, says, “I believe readers, especially young readers, respond better when the issue of diversity isn’t the plot or heavy-handed but is a natural part of the characters and the world they live in. It’s important to give readers the benefit of the doubt that they will grasp your intention and point of view without having to spoon-feed it to them. The more you spell it out, the more you risk alienating the reader.”
The Finnish fantasy YA writer Maria Turtschaninoff, read in 22 countries (her Red Abbey series is widely popular) includes gay, intersex, non-binary, and disabled characters in her work. “The most challenging part for me,” she says, “is to portray people who are not like me in believable and respectful ways. That’s something that sometimes worries me, but all I can do is try my best and treat everyone in my stories as human beings.”
Janja Vidmar, a prolific screenwriter and author in Slovenia, says, “Diverse characters are always the best part of every book.” But they take a lot of homework to produce well. In creating The Children of the World, a book she co-authored with photographer Benka Pulko, “I didn’t know anything about children from the USA, Haiti, Botswana, Namibia, Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, or Pakistan. So I had to prepare a lot of background for every story.”
In Athens, Giorgos Panagiotakis—whose Weird Creature Club trilogy includes The Secret Sanctuary—writes stories dealing with issues of racism, self-esteem, and disability (especially in Microcosmos). He says that while at times the amount of diversity-driven content entering the market may be daunting, “Publishers, teachers, parents, and readers are tending to become more critical and selective, which I consider healthy.”
Joy Jordan-Lake, whose A Crazy-Much Love (with illustrator Sonia Sánchez) is out from Two Lions in September, says she likes seeing the progress children’s literature is making. “The industry is still probably behind the reality in which most—or at least, many—of us live. One of my best friends has a son with a prosthetic leg, and I find myself struck by how few protagonists in picture or chapter books look like this amazing—and athletically gifted—child.”
The Swedish publisher and author Marie Tomičić runs Olika Förlag, a publishing house that produces children’s literature expressly devoted to diverse perspectives. Her immersion in the field has taught her, she says, that normalization is the real need. Rather than presenting inclusivity and tolerance issues as problems, “We present, for example, children with disabilities in the same way we portray the children without them. We let them be the main character or we let them be shown in illustrations just the way they are, and the story and the conflict of the story lies somewhere else.”
Vagelis Iliopoulos, the Greek author of The Little Triangle Fish, says, “Every one of us, at a certain point in life, can become ‘the other,’ the refugee, the disabled, the one with learning difficulties. So I’m not only writing about the importance of tolerance and acceptance, but mainly about the importance of empathy—because ‘the other’ can be you.”
Bottom line: The British-American illustrator and author Sarah McIntyre provides colleagues with an online #PortraitChallenge “because you can’t just draw a white character and paint their skin black.” But there’s another motive, too. “I hope when people get more confidence in drawing BAME (black, Asian, minority, ethnic) people, they’ll be more confident about including them.” And yet, McIntyre also worries about diversity’s popularity: “I wonder if there’s a bit too much focus these days on worthy role models in books. I think publishing’s gone a bit over the top in creating display tables full of secular saints; it feels weirdly religious when it doesn’t have to be.”
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
