Becoming Familia: the need for bilingual children's literature

Abstract

Children’s literature has been around for centuries, yet this literature is not universally relatable to all children. Most children’s literature reflects the perspective of majority groups while students from minoritized backgrounds have their perspectives ignored and/or misrepresented. In my time as a pre-service teacher, I have noticed, in particular, a lack of literature that supports bilingual students as well as a lack of literature that shows families that have been brought together by adoption. The book Becoming Familia was created to serve both of these purposes. I used research that showed the lack of diversity in children’s literature to inform the process of how I wrote the book. Becoming Familia tells a story that is missing from children’s literature while leaving space for readers to add their own reflections into the story. This is supported by research that indicates that students benefit from seeing their own perspective, and the perspective of others reflected in the literature that they read