![]() In fact, in 2 of these titles, the Black child is introduced to the wild by a white adult or non-Black person of color, even though their Black parents appear in the narrative. Of the 9 titles that center Black families, only 3 portray Black parents who actively foster the relationship between their child and nature. Interestingly, 7 of these books feature multiracial families (with all but one child having a white parent or grandparent). Notably, of the 16 books we identified below, only four ( A Beach Tail, Where's Rodney, Over and Under the Pond, and Gator, Gator, Gator!) are #ownvoices, and two have the same illustrator. Our goal was to unearth every book in which young Black protagonists actively explore the outdoors with no purpose other than to convene with nature. We also weeded out any books - quite a few in fact - in which Black characters appeared only as part of a diverse cast of characters rather than as protagonists (books that fall into our "Incidental" category). We used keyword searches like, "hiking," "camping," "swimming," "fishing," etc., and filtered those results by our "Black/African/African American" and “Brown-Skinned and/or Race Unclear” racial categories. So we took a look and thought we'd share.įollowing The Atlantic's lead - which illuminates the fact that both historically and today, in "real life" as well as in the dominant (i.e., white) cultural imagination, Black people are restricted to very particular outdoor scenes and spaces - we purposely skipped books featuring urban landscapes and gardens (which have increased in number of late) farming, gardening, and/or historical books about enslaved Africans working on plantations (or fleeing into the wilderness) and any books in which the wild appeared as fantasy rather than reality. We were curious what else we might be able to turn up, if anything, from within our comprehensive collection of picture books featuring Black and Indigenous people and People of Color. ![]() The article notes that there are, sadly, only a handful of books that defy this trend (all 4 titles mentioned appear in the list below). We recently came across Ashley Fetters’ article, “Where Is the Black Blueberries for Sal?” ( The Atlantic, May 2019), which addresses the dearth of Black characters within the very frequent exploration of the Great Outdoors in children's picture books. ![]()
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