October is Black History Month in the UK, this year the theme is Standing Firm in Power and Pride and there are some brilliant resources and articles on the official website.
I used to do a thread on twitter of the best books by (mainly) Black British creators I’d read in the preceding year, then 2 years ago wrote this blog post, then somehow last year passed me by…In November last year CLPE released their 7th Reflecting Realities survey about publishing in the UK in 2023 demonstrated what I thought I’d noticed: that the uptick in publishing of diverse voices was faltering:
For the first time in its history, the annual CLPE Reflecting Realities survey reports an overall drop in the percentage of racially minoritised characters featured in published children’s books reviewed – from 30% in 2022 to 17% in 2023.
The report shows the number of racially minoritised main characters has dropped by half to 7% in 2023, compared to 14% in 2022.
The more recent IBC Excluded Voices report makes a similarly dispiriting observation. So, I thought it important to highlight some amazing books published over these 2 years!
