Multicultural Picture Books on Environmental Action

Throughout her career, Rudine Sim Bishop (e.g., 1990, 1992, 1997) advocated for diversifying children’s books, emphasizing the need for widespread access to diverse literary texts to foster greater equity. She named multicultural literature as one of the most powerful components of a curriculum, defining it as “books that reflect the racial, ethnic, and social diversity that is characteristic of our pluralistic society and the world” so as to avoid “reinfoce[ing] and maintain[ing] old social patterns by setting up the American white middle class as the norm, and all others as ‘multicultural’” (Bishop, 1997, p. 3).

While her oft-used metaphor of mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors invites educators and readers to consider diverse perspectives in books, she expands this idea by offering a classification system to evaluate the stories about a racial, ethnic, or cultural group (Bishop, 1997). Bishop outlines four types of multicultural literature needed to create a balanced and culturally diverse literature collection. The four categories include consciously interracial, people are people, distinctive experiences, and coping with discrimination. Below we have taken that framework and directly applied it to thinking about multicultural environmental picturebooks.

Bishop’s (1992) classification tailored to environmental texts: Four types of multicultural books

Consciously Interracial People Are People Distinctive Experiences Coping with Discrimination
We Are All Connected (Garcia, 2022) Rocket Cleans Ups (Bryon, 2019) Butterflies Belong Here (Hopkinson, 2020) We Are Water Protectors (Lindstrom, 2021)
The Last Straw: Kid vs. Plastic (Hood & Engle, 2021) Amara and the Bats (Reynolds, 2021) Be a Good Ancestor (Prince, 2022) Saving American Beach: The Biography of MaVynee Betsch (King, 2021)

To learn more about this classification system and to read analyses of picturebooks that fit each category, stay tuned for Fletcher & Holyoke (in review) article titled, Cultivating Diverse Environmental Children’s Picturebooks Using Rudine Sim Bishop’s Framework for Multicultural Texts, being published in journal The Reading Teacher.

Other Multicultural Book Titles To Explore

Title Main Character's Age Main Character's Racial/ Ethnic Identity Bishop’s Classification
Saving American Beach: The Biography of African American Environmentalist MaVynee Betsch Adult Black Coping with Racism and Discrimination
Stand Up! Speak Up! A story inspired by the Climate Change Revolution Child White People are People
We Are Water Protectors Child Indigenous Distinctive Experiences Coping with racism and discrimination
Be a Good Ancestor Throughout Indigenous Distinctive Experiences
My Friend Earth N/A Global Majority Distinctive Experiences
Margarito’s Forest Throughout Latine Distinctive Experiences Coping with racism and discrimination
The Last Straw: Kids vs. Plastic Child Multiracial Characters Consciously Interracial
Harlem Grown: How One Idea Transformed a Neighborhood Adult and children Black Distinctive Experiences Coping with racism and discrimination
Follow the Moon Home: A Tale of One Idea, Twenty Kids, and A Hundred Sea Turtles Child Multiracial Characters Consciously Interracial People are People
Old Enough to Save the Planet Child Multiracial Characters Consciously Interracial Distinctive Experiences
Rainbow Weaver Child Latine Distinctive Experiences Coping with racism and discrimination
Butterflies Belong Here Child BIPOC People are People Distinctive Experiences
Amara and the Bats Child Black People are People
Zonia’s Rainforest Child Indigenous Distinctive Experience Coping with Discrimination
Berry Song Adult and children Indigenous Distinctive Experiences

Want To Read More About Dr. Rudine Sim Bishop's Work? - Peruse The References Below Of Her Original Works

Bishop, R.S. (1990). Mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors. Perspectives, 6(3), ix-xi. 

Bishop, R.S. (1992). Children’s books in a multicultural world: A view from the USA. In E. Evans (Ed.), Reading against racism (pp. 19—38). Open University Press.

Bishop, R.S. (1997). Selecting literature for a multicultural classroom. In V.J. Harris (Ed.), Using multiethnic literature in the K-8 classroom (pp. 1-19). Norwood, MA: Christopher- Gordon.

The Links Below Go To Other Resources That Curate Multicultural Picturebooks on Environmentalism