RACE AND SOCIAL INJUSTICE: THE REPRESENTATIONS IN CHILDREN'S PICTURE BOOKS, 2016-2020

Abstract

This project is an examination of race and representations of social injustice in children’s picture books from 2016-2020 and is informed by black feminist theory and children’s literary criticism. The objective is to examine through a critical race theory lens how these texts reflect concerns related to race and racism that surfaced during the Trump Administration, specifically police brutality. As these texts form and inform an accurate portrayal of the human experience (childhood to adulthood), the analysis will examine why there is a dearth of these kinds of representations in the Obama era, and the sudden influx of picture books addressing these topics—social injustices, the Black Lives Matter movement, race, beauty standards, and an anti-racist future— in the past four years. This study will also consider why children’s picture books, of all things, are used to represent the representation of race and social injustice and how this approach might promote a progressive literary education in the future.