Diverse(ish) children's books that conservative parents won't hate

November 3, 2022 9:35 AM

Christmas is coming, and I get my niblings (ages 0-13) books for most gift-giving occasions. But the books have to pass muster with their conservative parents. I'm looking for ideas on books that offer as much diversity as possible without risking getting tossed.

My niblings live in a very white, very upper-middle class area in which most families have stay-at-home moms and there's one very dominant religion. Unsurprisingly, the older ones now just assume that's the way the world works. I know the occasional book challenging that idea won't fix everything--but it won't hurt either.

But again, their parents have to approve. So I need recs for books that show different lived experiences but that won't upset their parents.

Some kinds of diversity are fine. The parents really won't mind depictions of different races, for example, characters with disabilities, or even single parents.

Other things are no-go. Anything illustrating or suggesting LGBT+ identities will get the book thrown away. Likewise, books explicitly about diversity or social issues (rather than just featuring a diverse cast) are likely to get trashed.

Put another way, a book about a black girl and her dog is fine--but a book about a black girl learning to love her hair would likely never see the light of day. Or a book featuring a single mom is fine--but illustrations of a gay couple would get the book pulled. Lon Po Po? Great. Love Makes a Family? Going to get trashed.

Some more ideas of what I'm looking for:
-Explicitly female protagonists (especially in picture books)
-Characters, particularly protagonists, that aren't white
-Religions other than Christianity
-Various family situations (think single parents, adoption, stay-at-home dads)
-Disabled characters

My niblings range from newborns to new teens, so I'm happy to hear about board books, picture books, graphic novels, chapter books--anything at all. (Most of them are still in picture book territory, though.) Fiction and nonfiction are fine. Thanks for the help!

posted by Bambiraptor to Media & Arts (62 answers total)

Clarifying question: What's the take on magic or talking animals?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:39 AM on November 3, 2022 [1 favorite]

Would the Questioneer Series (start off with Iggy Peck, Architect, work your way up) satisfy that?

My daughter loved the Hamster Princess series. It's a chapter book series; she also really adored the Phoebe and her Unicorn series.
posted by toastyk at 9:48 AM on November 3, 2022 [5 favorites]

Response by poster: Magic and talking animals are totally fine. The oldest, for example, has read all the Harry Potter books and some of the Percy Jackson books. (His parents don't know about the LGBTQ characters in later Riordan books.) Ghosts and other spooky elements are also fine.
posted by Bambiraptor at 9:49 AM on November 3, 2022 [1 favorite]

Best answer: The Eric Carle Museum Store has a long recommendation list for diverse picture books. Cross-referencing with Amazon previews may help you find titles that will work.
posted by Wobbuffet at 9:53 AM on November 3, 2022

"All The Way To The Top" is a picture book about the Capitol Crawl and the passage of the ADA. It features a white, disabled girl who becomes involved with the disability rights movement, and it hints at the power of organizing and at the importance of collective action without being too overt about it. (Yes, #DisabilityTooWhite.)

"The Pushcart War" is an old favorite of mine that, in retrospect, probably radicalized me more than I thought at the time. It's a sort of silly story about a fictionalized struggle for street space between pushcart vendors and truck drivers in mid-century NYC. It has a sort of Roald Dahl tone. I don't believe it is explicitly racially diverse but it gets into questions of class and power that you might also want to slyly introduce.
posted by gauche at 10:01 AM on November 3, 2022

Best answer: For the younger kids, I love the picture book “Everywhere Babies”. I have the hardcover version, but there’s also a board book.

There’s nothing in the text that conservatives might have a problem with, but there are some illustrations that could be interpreted as same sex couples - see this blog post discussing and with photos. The illustrations could also be interpreted as friends or relatives though, so maybe they’d fly under the radar.
posted by maleficent at 10:01 AM on November 3, 2022 [1 favorite]

Maybe the Uglies series by Scott Westerfield? (teen/YA)

Strictly No Elephants by Lisa Mantchev. There's no explanation of why the elephants aren't allowed, they just aren't. Can help make it obvious that exclusion isn't about the person being excluded, it's about the person/people doing the excluding. (picture book)
posted by stormyteal at 10:03 AM on November 3, 2022 [2 favorites]

For "religions other than Christianity", at the risk of feeding into maybe some weird philosemitism mixed with end-times-motiviated-Zionism, you can check out PJ Library for books with Jewish protagonists; there are also some with more racial diversity in the illustrations. Some books off the top of my head in that age range (2-4) that aren't explicitly for a Jewish audience...

-Joseph Had a Little Overcoat is very cute
-Naamah and the Ark at Night is the Noah story, but focused on his wife.
-26 Big Things Small Hands can do is more general like "do good deeds", with diverse illustrations
-Beautiful Yetta the Yiddish Chicken might be a bit...out there, but will hit linguistic diversity (has a Yiddish speaking chicken and Spanish speaking parrots; transliterations and translations provided)

I also haven't read them, but there's a particular type of like, very enthusiastic non-Jewish person who likes to bring up fond memories of the All of a Kind Family books.

For very non-threatening diversity more generally, some things in our regular rotation...

Love is a Truck for just like, kids being happy playing with trucks.

Last Stop on Market Street, with bonus explicitly Christian protagonists which might be a good in.

Mama Zooms for disabled representation, with bonus maybe not so subtle wheelchair etiquette.
posted by damayanti at 10:04 AM on November 3, 2022 [1 favorite]

Would the Questioneer Series (start off with Iggy Peck, Architect, work your way up) satisfy that?

I also thought of these but note that Aaron Slater has two moms.

The Many Colours of Harpreet Sing is about a boy who moves adjusting to his new school, thoigh his patka features prominently so I'm.not sure 9f that's ok (but it's not about his learning to
Love his patka or anything. It's just there).
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 10:10 AM on November 3, 2022

Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats!
posted by capricorn at 10:11 AM on November 3, 2022 [23 favorites]

The Extraordinary Gardener might be good. Our 2 year old loves it, but it's probably for a little older (3-5?). It's a about a boy growing a huge garden in his apartment complex (waiting for seeds to grow and then growing more and more and MORE plants and changing the whole neighbourhood for the better). POC main character, socioeconomically not a big house and yard, and really nice message about doing small things to make big changes (which feels like it might be a helpful entry-level message about doing social justice work)
posted by Sweetchrysanthemum at 10:11 AM on November 3, 2022 [2 favorites]

Older books might pass muster with the parents more easily, especially if they are regarded as classics. For example, the All-Of-a-Kind Family series, about a Jewish family of girls, set in the 1910s in New York, and written in the 1950s, or for the older kids, The House on Mango Street, about a 12-year-old Chicana girl growing up in Chicago in the 1960s, written in 1984.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 10:11 AM on November 3, 2022 [10 favorites]

Zooey and Sassafras are early chapter books featuring a non-white female protagonist. They explore science through fantasy creatures. Fun stuff!
posted by ewok_academy at 10:12 AM on November 3, 2022 [4 favorites]

@capricorn: YES! It's a Caldecott medal winner to boot! You just made me (a 50+ year old cis het white male) walk 3' and pick up the copy my mother gave me for my 2nd birthday!
posted by scolbath at 10:16 AM on November 3, 2022 [1 favorite]

Best answer: For newborn-2, “Every Little Thing” is lovely - a picture book following a Black boy making friends, mistakes, having a normal day, with the lyrics to the Bob Marley Song. Illustrated by the incredible Vanessa Brantley-Newton. Every book she does is golden - she has great taste in projects and is so talented.

For age 3-8, Layla and the Bots is fun. Graphic novel about programming to solve real world (made up weird) problems. Protagonist is a Black girl in STEAM with three little robot sidekicks. Target age is 6 but I know several younger and older kids who love them.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 10:19 AM on November 3, 2022 [2 favorites]

Hunger Games trilogy for the 13 year old?
posted by wowenthusiast at 10:21 AM on November 3, 2022

Sorry I'm at work, can't link, but..

For littles:

Bilal Cooks Daal (Pakistani-American kid makes daal with his dad for neighborhood kids)

The Magical Yet (diverse characters, growth mindset)

For older kids:

Raymie Nightingale (3 female protagonists, parent divorce, there are 3 books, all good)

Greenglass House (Chinese-American adopted kid, fantasy elements)
posted by Temeraria at 10:25 AM on November 3, 2022 [2 favorites]

As a child I loved the All of a Kind Family series, which is set at the beginning of the 20th Century and follows a family of Jewish immigrants. They celebrate Jewish holidays, but also the Fourth of July. Very wholesome, family oriented series that will introduce kids to other religions and speak about immigrants in a positive and not very explicit way.

Maybe too explicit, but we have a 12 year-old chess fiend at home and he is enjoying the biography of Tani.

Seedfolks is a chapter book (for 7th grade reading level) about a Vietnamese girl who starts a community garden in a vacant lot. Diverse cast (including white/European folks) who come together around planting a garden.
posted by brookeb at 10:30 AM on November 3, 2022 [2 favorites]

Jacqueline Wilson might be worth a look. She is one of the most popular English children's authors, and was our Children's laureate in the mid-00s. She frequently writes about non-standard family setups. You might have to pick a bit carefully as she is also known for being LGBTQ+-friendly and sometimes writes about teenage relationships.
posted by Erinaceus europaeus at 10:31 AM on November 3, 2022

Ada Twist, Scientist and Sofia Valdez, Future Prez are both great. There are others in the series but these are the only two we’ve read.
posted by lomes at 10:34 AM on November 3, 2022 [2 favorites]

Nikki McClure's books are all interested in a communal, handmade world (she's a papercraft artist) and they are so so beautiful.

I think the themes in What Will These Hands Make are clear enough to sink in to kids' minds without raising flags in parents' (parents like the ones you are describing anyway).
posted by Lawn Beaver at 10:41 AM on November 3, 2022

Jamaica’s Find by Juanita Havill is an old Reading Rainbow book.
posted by Comet Bug at 10:42 AM on November 3, 2022

There are several picture books in the vague genre of "a person travels through their neighborhood/apartment building with food from their culture and is given similar food from their neighbors cultures" (which is generally a good way of showing many different kinds of cultures through food) but my favorite is Mama Provi and the Pot of Rice.
posted by darchildre at 10:44 AM on November 3, 2022

For the oldest kid, The Westing Game.
posted by trig at 10:45 AM on November 3, 2022 [3 favorites]

Best answer: If they're OK with Percy Jackson, you should look at the "Rick Riordan Presents" imprint of books. My kid especially loved the Aru Shah series.

"Our goal is to publish great middle grade authors from underrepresented cultures and backgrounds, to let them tell their own stories inspired by the mythology and folklore of their own heritage. "
posted by belladonna at 10:55 AM on November 3, 2022 [5 favorites]

The Judge is a fun if somewhat dark parable about scornful authority figures and the vulnerable that will probably pass muster with conservatives used to screaming about librul ninny circuit Fed jerges.
posted by snuffleupagus at 11:00 AM on November 3, 2022

Best answer: Grace Lin is an amazing author who has won approximately 1 billion awards. She has written for all ages (board books to teens).
posted by avocado_of_merriment at 11:14 AM on November 3, 2022 [4 favorites]

Islandborn is lovely. It's about a girl whose class gets the assignment to write about where they're from and she can't remember the island she's from so she goes around the neighbourhood asking everyone for their memories.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 11:19 AM on November 3, 2022 [1 favorite]

For older kids Murder Most Unladylike/Murder is Bad Manners by Robin Stevens - two girls (one from Hong Kong) solve a mystery in a boarding school in 1930s England. (There are some LGBQ identities in the later books in the series (I don't think there are any T) but there's no real indication of that on the covers.)
posted by scorbet at 11:22 AM on November 3, 2022 [4 favorites]

Oh and Bella's Fall Coat is a story about a little black girl who lives with her grandmother getting a new fall coat.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 11:23 AM on November 3, 2022

Best answer: I bet The Mysterious Benedict Society would pass right under their radar—there's variation in racial, cultural, and economic backgrounds, as well as variation in talents, challenges, and approaches to problem-solving, and all of this diversity is explicitly shown as a source of strength (i.e. people do better in diverse groups than they do on their own). Might feel just a hair young for the 13-year-old but tbh I read the books as an adult and still loved them.
posted by babelfish at 11:32 AM on November 3, 2022 [2 favorites]

Best answer: +1 to Grace Lin. For your younger niblings, I particularly recommend her books from the Storytelling Math series. They are not her best-known work but they're really excellent for the toddler/preschool set. Two girls, one Black and one Asian-American, solve simple math problems together as friends. The illustrations have nothing that I can think of that might cause offense - e.g. they make hot chocolate, split a marshmallow, and drink it together. Another of the books is about blowing bubbles and what shapes different bubble wands make (hint: they're all spheres). There are no background characters and no adults whatsoever.

Another board book series we really like but which might not work, I'm not sure, are the Clive and Rosa books by Jessica Spanyol. Rosa is a young POC who likes cars, dinosaurs and other 'stereotypically masculine' kid activities. Rosa Loves Cars is literally just like ten pages of her driving cars around with her friends, who are variously diverse. The Clive's Jobs series is a little white boy who pretends he is a teacher, waiter, librarian, and nurse at his daycare/preschool. Clive Is A Teacher has him taking attendance, serving snacks, etc. That one is probably okay. (But Clive and His Babies might not go over well. And there is some back page text that might be too much diversity talk. Recommend you buy one for your family and see what you think if you have a same-aged kid - or get it from the library.)
posted by epanalepsis at 11:33 AM on November 3, 2022 [1 favorite]

My go to recommendation for this is People by Peter Spier, which is a large but thin picture book about the wide diversity of people around the world. This one really cranked open my mind's eye when I was a kid. In addition to presenting a visual variety of bodies, dress, diets, housing, etc., there are a few rather profound moments. Here is a tweet with some page spreads from the book.
posted by panhopticon at 11:41 AM on November 3, 2022 [1 favorite]

Underground: Subway Systems Around the World offers a glimpse into a variety of cities around the world. It's a picture book and a 'find the object' type of book. Casual diversity of culture.
posted by hydra77 at 11:43 AM on November 3, 2022

Seconding Last Stop on Market Street for the picture book category.

The Biggest, Best Snowman features a single mom with three daughters, and it appears to me (though it is never said outright) that one of the daughters is a person with Downs Syndrome.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 11:45 AM on November 3, 2022

Starfish is a middle years novel about a girl who is bullied mercilessly because she is fat. She gets bullied by kids at school, by teachers, even by her mother. Over the course of the book she learns to stand up for herself. We just read it out loud with our eleven year old, and everyone really liked it.

The girl is white, with a Jewish father and christian mother. She makes friends with a new girl next door who is Mexican American. There is a brief scene where that girl faces discrimination because of her skin color.

The book is very much "don't be an a**hole who treats people badly because of how they look" but because it focuses on discrimination against fat people, I believe it would be be less likely to trigger social conservatives.

The book is written in free verse, though you really don't notice that once you get going.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 11:52 AM on November 3, 2022 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I came specifically to recommend the Snowy Day and the Rick Riordan Presents series. Ada Twist Scientist (and others in that series). Up Up Down Down. Do not Bring Your Dragon To the LIbrary. Luna Loves Library Day. Cece Loves Science.
posted by dpx.mfx at 11:52 AM on November 3, 2022 [1 favorite]

Best answer: + people by Peter Spier
+ anything by Grace Lin
+ Up,up, down, down

To add:
An alternative Marla Fraize book is "all the world" (a poem). Both "everywhere babies" and "All the World" can be bought in board book. The poem softens most hard adults.

For the preteens: "It Ain't So Aweful, Falafel" which is a hillarious fictional account of 1978-81 in California of an Iranian girl. It is pro-USA but it is also pro- immigrant, pro-you have no idea what other people's home lives are like, pro-women, and pro- funny women.
posted by mutt.cyberspace at 11:55 AM on November 3, 2022 [1 favorite]

Jabari Jumps is a great picture book, has a black protagonist, and is a family story without any sign of a mom (who may just be back home instead of at the pool). It is hard to believe it could offend even the most right-wing or closeminded parent.
posted by dpaul at 12:08 PM on November 3, 2022 [3 favorites]

I have been trying to think of something for you - and it hit me that what did this for me when I was eight may be perfectly suited to appeasing conservative Christian grown-ups.

It doesn't address the "different religions" thing - but a book about different Christmas customs around the world might be an important first step into the concept that "other people do things differently." I mean, there I was at age eight, firmly entrenched in the knowledge that every night on December 24th kids all over the world would hang up stockings by the fireplace, and then on December 25th, they would wake to find them filled with presents, and the guy who put the presents there was named Santa Claus. This was Known Fact. But then I somehow found a book about "Kids Christmas Customs Around The World" or suchlike - and suddenly I'm reading that "hang on, kids in Spain get visited by The Three Wise Men instead of Santa? And they have to wait until January?.....and they leave hay for the camels instead of cookies?.....Oh, wait, and kids in Holland don't use stockings? They use shoes? ....Oh, and hold up - Santa sees kids in Germany on the 24th?...."

And that all blew my baby little mind. Because I hadn't heard a thing about kids in Spain being upset that someone else other than Santa visited them....and they still got presents, so I guess it was okay? And....hang on, if they still got presents, then I guess it didn't matter who visited them, right?....And that got me over the initial "things can be different than you're used to and it will still be okay" hump, and it was an easier jump from there into "hang on, there are kids who celebrate a different holiday altogether?"

And in a few short years, at age 12, I was asking my parents things like, "you know, the school is closed for all the Christian holidays, but Molly and Seth have to take a day off school for Passover and stuff - that's not fair to them, why do we do that?"
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:22 PM on November 3, 2022 [7 favorites]

For the older kids:

The Wolf's Trail: An Ojibwe Story, Told by Wolves, by Thomas Peacock (This is especially good if they live in the upper midwestern US.)

The Birchbark House by Louise Erdrich (and sequels). (This is an excellent replacement for the Little House series, which is racist af.)
posted by RedEmma at 12:29 PM on November 3, 2022 [2 favorites]

The Llama Llama series (for preschoolers) features a single mom. The content is very unobjectionable - "wait for your mom to bring you a glass of water instead of having a tantrum" is the plot of Llama Llama Red Pajama.

Most of the Little Pookie board books by Sandra Boynton feature the mom only. (I think only the birthday one includes the dad, and he's mentioned in one other.) They're about a piglet (who might be male or female idk) and mom, very baby-friendly.

In Sofia Valdez, Future Prez, it's not explicitly mentioned but it appears she's being raised by her grandfather. The supporting characters are diverse, the mayor is a wheelchair user, etc. Sofia wants to turn a landfill into a park, which shouldn't be objectionable.
posted by champers at 12:32 PM on November 3, 2022

The Earthsea books by Ursula Le Guin. Many others by her, as well.
posted by Caxton1476 at 1:47 PM on November 3, 2022 [1 favorite]

Cleversticks, by Bernard Ashley, has a diverse cast and is about a boy who thinks he doesn't have any skills but then realizes that he, unlike his classmates, knows how to use chopsticks.
posted by The corpse in the library at 1:48 PM on November 3, 2022

If it's safe to do so, can you keep a diverse, uncensored library in your own home for the kids to read on their visits (assuming they visit your home)? Or can you take them to the public library / bookstore and let them browse freely, but only let them take home parent-approved books?

Otherwise, nthing the Questioneer series. Also consider the Babysitters Club (and related "Babysitters Little Sister") graphic novel series - on its face, unobjectionable, but each character comes from a wide variety of family backgrounds.
posted by icy_latte at 1:50 PM on November 3, 2022 [1 favorite]

The Betsy-Tacy books have the girls making friends with a girl from the Lebanese Catholic community in Betsy and Tracy Go Over the Big Hill and Betsy and her sister switching churches in Heaven to Betsy; their father gives them very wise advice when they tell him their decision...also kids from the various local churches attend Christian endeavor meetings. In the companion books: a baklava saves the day in Winona's Pony Cart and Emily helps the immigrants assimilate into the community without losing their culture in Emily of Deep Valley.

In the Half Magic Books the cat is named for Carrie Chapman Catt, who took over the National American Woman Suffrage Association after Susan B Anthony died.
posted by brujita at 4:23 PM on November 3, 2022 [2 favorites]

Wait, I can't check right now but is the American Girl series still in print? Because that could have a lot of easily-accepted hits (based on what I've heard - I haven't read any except the very first ones, but supposedly the later ones feature a lot more diversity).

People have also said very good things about the Babysitters Club books, which again I haven't read but apparently are not all-white.
posted by trig at 4:36 PM on November 3, 2022 [2 favorites]

The World Belonged to Us by one of my favorite writers, Jacqueline Woodson. Look at the joy in that cover art!
posted by Jeanne at 4:39 PM on November 3, 2022

The camping trip, Leo: a ghost story, and the Yasmin Series.
posted by Toddles at 6:48 PM on November 3, 2022 [1 favorite]

Also The Storm Whale and the Moses series.
posted by Toddles at 6:51 PM on November 3, 2022

And for baby: the Nita series.
posted by Toddles at 6:58 PM on November 3, 2022

Island of the Blue Dolphins is a classic (and its sequel, Zia, is pretty damning about the effects of colonialism and even well-intended missionaries, and about culture loss, but the first book is almost entirely a young indigenous woman surviving alone for years on an island.)
posted by trig at 7:16 PM on November 3, 2022 [5 favorites]

Seconding the Earthsea series, which intentionally inverts many fantasy tropes, and is a classic.
posted by lookoutbelow at 3:54 AM on November 4, 2022

Response by poster: Thanks so much for all the great suggestions! I marked as best the ones I'm definitely using for this Christmas, but I'll be returning to this again and again for future events.
posted by Bambiraptor at 5:49 AM on November 4, 2022 [2 favorites]

(about Earthsea - if it inverts gender tropes in later books, it definitely doesn't do that in the first one)
posted by trig at 6:33 AM on November 4, 2022

Very much covering diversity and different experiences with none of your red flags - Big Red Lollipop (read-aloud youtube link) by Rukhsana Khan. Picture book. From the description "...another astute and moving story, ostensibly dealing with sibling rivalry, but actually about hard-won lessons emerging from clashes of identity and assimilation. "
posted by true at 7:05 AM on November 4, 2022

about Earthsea - if it inverts gender tropes in later books, it definitely doesn't do that in the first one

The fourth book does this brilliantly. Lu Guin realized she got it wrong, and she figured out how to make it right, at least for some readers (it's written for an older audience than the first three books).
posted by Winnie the Proust at 8:16 AM on November 4, 2022

For elementary school kids (third grade, appx), on difference/disability -
Fish in a Tree is a very popular novel about a kid with dyslexia. Kids LOVE LOVE this book.
Out of My Mind is another one, about a kid who is bright but “locked in.”
If they haven’t read Wonder already, it’s great for middle and upper elementary students.

For the babies, I Want My Hat Back is a favorite. It doesn’t bring cultural diversity — the characters are animals. But it’s an adorable book that has a subtle twist at the end that could serve as a great departure point for talking about criminal intent, remorse, and so on. It’s a wonderful book.
posted by saltykitten at 9:09 AM on November 4, 2022

For the under 2 crowd, I love More More More, Said The Baby. Just a beautiful book, but also represents various caregivers and races, and doesn't specify gender pronouns.
posted by i_am_a_fiesta at 9:48 AM on November 4, 2022

This may be way more explicitly Christian and religious than you are going for, but Jennifer Grant's Maybe God is Like that Too could be a lovely way to get little kids in a conservative household thinking about a broader view of their own religion. It is a sweet book that shares how a young boy who lives with his grandmother sees love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control in the acts of the diverse people around him in the city. It has nice representation of various races and abilities too. I think it walks the line beautifully of being very social justice forward, without setting off any alarm bells for those who are more conservative.
posted by hessie at 10:52 AM on November 4, 2022

Le Guin has a much more recent series called The Annals of the Western Shore, which are fantasy, multi-racial, and deal with religion, magic, and systems of oppression. It's quite good but less well known than the Earthsea books. Gifts, Voices, and Powers (I don't recall the order).
posted by suelac at 5:11 PM on November 4, 2022

There’s also the Tamora Pierce/Alanna books — but the engagement of gender may be too binary and there’s some orientalism to the portrayal of competing cultures. Well intentioned but I won’t pretend to know what the prevailing view of them is now.

(There are boatloads of fantasy and sci if from that era that aimed to challenge specific gendered or cultural biases, but still trafficked in lots of essentialisms the text and author wasn’t focused on.)
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:48 PM on November 4, 2022