Good Morning Baby (from the What-A-Baby series)

Sir Simon the Super Scarer! My son is named Simon and we love this book!

I love The Coffee Can Kid by Jan Czech (Asian/adoption)

Ruth and the Green Book by Calvin Alexander Ramsey

Mama, Do You Love Me? by Barbara Joosse

NJ teacher Toney Jackson’s books… “I’m Jack, I’m black” and “There’s a button in my belly”

Love the idea behind this, especially since it was linked from your latest post “Where to Donate to Support the Black Lives Matter Movement”.

I noticed that many of the authors are not in fact people of color. To truly support and elevate POC writers and authors, who should have a say in their own race/ethnicity’s portrayal in books and media, can you revise this to include books where at least one of the authors or illustrators are POC?

Please, Baby, Please by Spike Lee and Tonya Lewis Lee is adorable for babies/toddlers!

Also, anything by Faith Ringgold.

LOVE this book about an African-American boy and his dad:
https://www.amazon.com/Jabari-Jumps-Gaia-Cornwall/dp/1536202908/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1BB2UKBMORCDG&dchild=1&keywords=jabari+jumps&qid=1591145586&s=books&sprefix=Jabari+Jumps%2Cstripbooks%2C265&sr=1-1

Would love an LGBTQ+ children’s book list–especially since it’s Pride month. I always love your suggestions.

These books are wonderful and my daughter already has and loves Ada Twist, Scientist. I am wondering if anyone has a recommendation for books with South Asian leading characters. My daughter is South Asian and I would like for her to see herself represented in books but Amy having a challenging time finding anything. Thank you!

Tucking this away for our girl’s birthday in a few months.

Board books my toddler loves with characters of color:

Who? A Celebration of Babies (she is obsessed with this one!)
My Heart Fills With Happiness
Baby Feminists
A is for Activist
Little You

My husband and I love to read her Little You. It’s my go-to gift for baby showers that request books in place of cards.

Everyone Cooks Rice by Norah Dooley. A little girl goes looking for her brother at dinnertime and discovers as she goes from house to house that everyone is cooking a rice dish, and they are all from different cultures.

A wonderful book for kids with sleeping issues that features characters of color is ZZZ Adventures available on blurb.com and apple books https://books.apple.com/mt/book/zzz-adventures/id1092312172

We love ‘If I had a dinosaur’ it’s a really fun, silly book and the illustrations are cute! https://www.amazon.com/If-Had-Dinosaur-Gabby-Dawnay/dp/0500650993
:)

Corduroy – the little girl, Lisa, who purchases the tedddy bear with the missing button and gives him a home, is a lovely person of color.

Joanna- thank you so much for this list. I tucked it away when my biracial daughter was a baby, and went back to it recently to purchase books (every single one from the list!) for her 2nd birthday. We are both so very much enjoying them, and just in a few days of reading them (over and over again… :)) it feels like our little apartment, and our world, has expanded (even amidst the diversity that is already found in manhattan). Is makes me ever so grateful that she is being raised with characters in books that look like her, and with some that look different from both her and the other characters she more regularly sees in picture books (i.e., white kids). So- thanks for this gift to our book collection, and for the mark it is already making on her little world.

Ming Goes to School by Deirdre Sullivan and Maja Löfdahl
Little Bitty Friends by Elizabeth McPike and Patrice Barton
Lola at the Library by Anna McQuinn and Rosalind Beardshaw
“More, More, More,” Said the Baby by Vera B Williams
Shades of People by Sheila M. Kelly and Shelley Rotner
Jazz Baby by Lisa Wheeler and R. Gregory Christie

These are some books we read to our two year old son. I’m an Adult Services Librarian, and I’m trying to be very intentional about exposing him to a wide variety of characters in his books (he himself is white). It warms my heart reading them to him and seeing him connect to characters, regardless of their race or gender.

Thanks for all these other suggestions, too! What an awesome blog post!

Chirri and Chirra- stunning book about two little Asian girls who have magical adventures on bikes.

You have a great list here and I have these in our library. Just wanted to add a few early chapter books, along with my latest find.
Ling and Ting series by Grace Lin, Katie Woo series and new Pedro series by Fran Manushkin and Jabari Jumps by Gaia Cornwall are all relatively new and all pretty darn wonderful. ( I LOVE Jabari Jumps not only for the multicultural aspect, but also because Dad is the parent in the story, at the pool for a day of fun with his children.) As a children’s librarian in a relatively vanilla area, I try to make sure we have a collection that is a mirror for all children. Everyone likes to see themselves.

We love The New Small Person by Lauren Child.

Yeeeeeees!
My recommendation is Lila and The Secret of Rain. Love love love this one?
Thank you for the list!

I love this list and as a person of color and parent of two, I’m glad authors and publishers are being more inclusive when it comes to race and ethnicity. All of Ezra Jack Keats books are amazing and I can’t wait to check out the other books that I haven’t yet read. Another suggestion: I recently illustrated a book with a character of color titled Over and Under the Pond. http://www.chroniclebooks.com/titles/over-and-under-the-pond.html Hope you enjoy!

I loved the beautiful and diverse “angels” in The High Rise Glorious Skittle Skat Roarious Sky Pie Angel Food Cake by Nancy Willard.
When my kids were small (it has been a long while) we enjoyed a book from the library that I’ve never been able to find again. A young black boy and his grandpa grew a vegetable garden and magically traveled to the far off places where the vegetables came from. The illustrations were gorgeous & the story so sweet. Anyone recall this book?

We love children’s picture books!

Corduroy! A favorite of mine, also a favorite of my daughter.

Re: Ada Twist, my daughter loves that series! They also have Rosie Revere Engineer and Iggy Peck, architect (clearly STEM themed). She compares herself to Ada and Rosie when building with Duplos and problem solving. She often requests “Ada Twist buns” in her hair.

Thanks for this list!