This New York Times article, Books to Match Diverse Young Readers highlights a handful of books whose main characters come from a variety of ethnic groups. I was pleased to find a least one copy of all but the last two titles in our district and in some cases copies at half of our schools. Since our students cannot borrow from other schools we might want to examine our collections however and be sure that if we don't have these books readily available to our students we at least have a number of other equally appealing titles representing all these ethnic groups if not more.
     A family friend once shared with me that when she questioned why her adopted Korean boys liked to check out books with African American characters so much they told her it was because the characters 'weren't white.' They couldn't find books about Koreans but they at least wanted to read about how other kids of minority cultures fared.
     In the same issue of the New York Times is another article For Young Latinos, an Image is Missing, which addresses this very issue from an Hispanic perspective. It speaks of the need to steer clear of stereotypical books on migrant workers or holidays like Cinco de Mayo and look for books that represent the lives these students are living day in and out, today. The article also mentions that textbook publishers are providing a higher percentage of representation than trade book publishers of at least Latino characters. However, it goes on to say that "Latino education advocates and authors say they do not want schools to resort to tokenism." So, where ever possible let's try to provide all of our students with a varied selection of the best quality literature we can, representing a wide cross section of cultures.