Since 2021, there have been nearly 23,000 bans on individual books in libraries and public schools.

Many of these bans remove Black and LGBTQIA literature from bookshelves. Approximately 44% of the books banned in 2024 and 2025 featured characters of color and 39% featured characters who identify as LGBTQIA .

Targeting books by or about Black people has a long history in the U.S., with classics like Toni Morrison’s 1987 “Beloved” frequently appearing on banned book lists. When books that highlight the richness of Black people’s lives are taken out of circulation or placed on a prohibited list, these stories and illustrations become less available to children of all backgrounds.

Research shows that children’s literature can help readers, including very young ones, see into others’ worlds and explore what it means to be human.

Informed by our roles as parents, educators and literacy researchers, we study “Black livingness” literature.

We describe Black livingness as Black children’s fiction by Black authors that depicts Black children and families as whole, joyful, thriving and engaged in everyday acts of living.

Children’s literature can humanize Black people in a way that news coverage, television, films and school textbooks and curriculum often do not, helping to combat racial bias and stereotypes.

Children’s books about everyday Black life

There are many Black children’s books that showcase the lives of well-known historical figures in the Black community, like Harriet Tubman, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks.

These books demonstrate how these leaders and activists challenged racism, and they affirm that Black people’s fight against different social inequalities are important to Black life in the United........

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