Who Gets to Be the Main Character? Why Representation in Children’s Books Matters

By Paula Banks

When I was a child, I can’t remember reading one book with a character who looked like me.

After a while, I started to think there might be something wrong with me.

There wasn’t. I just wasn’t seeing myself in the books around me. I wonder how it might have felt to open a book and see a girl who looked like me getting to have an adventure, be funny, make a mess, solve a problem, or just enjoy her day. I wanted to see a regular little Black girl like me, living a life worth writing about.

That experience became a part of me. Representation is personal because I know what it felt like not to find myself in the books I read. Now, as a children’s author and publisher, I want children to have more chances to find characters they recognize and connect with.

I wanted to see a regular little Black girl like me, living a life worth writing about.

Look Beyond the Cover

When parents look for books with children of color, it can help to look beyond the cover. Who is this character when the story gets going? What is their family like? Where do they live? What do they enjoy? Do they get to make choices and move the story forward, or are they mainly there to reinforce a familiar stereotype? Black characters, for example, should get to be all kinds of kids, not only the loud or tough one in the story.

No one book can represent every child of color, because families, neighborhoods, personalities, and experiences are different. That is why children need a range of characters and stories.

What the Research Shows About Representation in Children’s Books

There is research behind the concern about who appears in books. A study of influential, award-recognized children’s books found that Black and Latinx people were underrepresented compared with their share of the population (Adukia et al., 2023). So, when you are reading with your child, you might ask: What do you think this character enjoys doing? Does their family feel familiar to you? Or, what do you think the character will do next? These questions can open up a conversation about the characters and the lives the book shows.

Representation Is Not Only About Race

Also, representation is not only about race. Children with disabilities should also be able to find characters with friendships, interests, and personalities of their own. Their disability may be part of the story, but it should not have to be the only thing we know about them. In a study of picture books, readers with disabilities noted that some stories focused heavily on adversity and isolation, while others showed disabled characters with more resilience and complexity (Hughes & Talley, 2026).

Some children are looking for more than one part of themselves in a book. A child of color may also have a disability. A child may want to see a family that looks like theirs, a character who uses a wheelchair, or both. We may not find every part of a child’s experience in one book, but we can keep making room for more kinds of people and lives on the shelves. You don’t have to find one perfect book that reflects every part of your child. A mix of books can introduce them to many different people and experiences.

You don’t have to find one perfect book that reflects every part of your child.

Where Parents Can Start

If you’re not sure where to start, ask your librarian or bookseller for recommendations and tell them what kind of representation you’re looking for. Pay attention to who gets to be the hero, whose family is shown, and whether characters have different personalities and experiences. I also created Diverse Book Hub at DiverseBookHub.com as a resource for discovering authors who have diverse books.

I can’t go back and put the books I needed into my childhood, but I can help make it easier for families to find them now. Every child deserves to open a book and see that someone like them can be the main character, not a stereotype, not an afterthought, but a whole person living a life worth reading about.

References

Adukia, A., Eble, A., Harrison, E., Runesha, H. B., & Szasz, T. (2023). What we teach about race and gender: Representation in images and text of children’s books. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 138(4), 2225–2285. https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjad028

Hughes, M. T., & Talley, C. (2026). Disabilities in children’s literature: Is the representation accurate and authentic? Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 26(1), 417–449. https://doi.org/10.1177/14687984251333544

More on Raising Readers Who See Themselves

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