Fewer than 2% of British children’s authors are people of colour

The UK only began to track diversity in children’s books last year. In the US, where the Cooperative Children’s Book Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has tracked diversity statistics for years, campaigners recently pointed to a “seismic shift” in representation, with the number of children’s books featuring African-American characters more than doubling over the last 10 years, and the number featuring Asians more than tripling.