Kids respond to white washing on book covers

Lee & Low (a wonderful publisher of multicultural children's books) has a very interesting blog post about how kids perceive white washing of book covers. 

Some reactions from the kids:

• “It was sickening to look at all the stereotypes, the assumptions.”
• “I think I was on the girls’ side of the bookshelf, but even so, that just shows that Barnes & Noble separates their books by gender.”
• “I know that kids’ minds aren’t developed enough to understand these issues, but as they grow up, I hope they realize how serious this issue really is. People have the right to like any color they want and be anything they want to be.”
• “Society is almost afraid of putting a dark-skinned or Asian character on the cover of a book. I feel like these are minor forms of segregation.”
• “I didn’t see a book with a biracial main character . . . it is not fair in any way.”
• “In the chapter book section, I saw that most of the books that had non-Caucasian characters didn’t have that character on the cover.
• “On the covers, I saw thin, pretty girls. I didn’t see any overweight girls or anyone with acne. I think that these covers shape an idea of perfect in a girl’s mind, and make them want to be like that, even though everyone was born perfect.”

Read the full post here.