{"id":32281,"date":"2022-12-15T02:15:00","date_gmt":"2022-12-15T02:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=32281"},"modified":"2022-12-17T04:21:41","modified_gmt":"2022-12-17T04:21:41","slug":"sci-fi-books-for-young-readers-often-omit-children-of-color-from-the-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/sci-fi-books-for-young-readers-often-omit-children-of-color-from-the-future\/","title":{"rendered":"Sci-fi books for young readers often omit children of color from the\u00a0future"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Emily Midkiff<\/a>, University of North Dakota<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

While visiting an elementary school library in 2016 to count the fantasy books for a graduate class on fantasy literature, I noticed there were hardly any science fiction books for readers under 12. This discovery prompted me to spend the next five years researching the shortage of science fiction books for children in this age group<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I reached two big conclusions. First, I found that adults often think that kids can\u2019t understand science fiction \u2013 but they can. Second, I found that authors and illustrators are not depicting characters from diverse backgrounds in children\u2019s stories about the future. As a researcher who specializes in children\u2019s literature<\/a>, these findings make me wonder if the reason there is so little diversity in children\u2019s science fiction is because authors don\u2019t believe that their readers will be children from diverse backgrounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Out of the 357 science fiction children\u2019s books that I read for my research, I found that only a quarter of them featured diverse characters. Less than half \u2013 37% \u2013 featured a girl in a major role. While children\u2019s science fiction books have lacked diversity historically, I found that those written in the 21st century are more diverse than children\u2019s books overall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The case for diverse characters<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In 2014, authors Malinda Lo and Ellen Oh launched the ongoing #WeNeedDiverseBooks<\/a> campaign to call for more children\u2019s books with characters of various races, genders, cultures, religions and physical and mental disabilities. Since then, the number has risen<\/a> from 397 diverse children\u2019s books published in 2014 to 1,155 books in 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Diversity matters in children\u2019s science fiction because it suggests who belongs in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In recent years, some vocal fans have reacted negatively when major television and film series like \u201cStar Trek<\/a>,\u201d \u201cStar Wars<\/a>\u201d and other science fiction and fantasy television shows<\/a> cast actors of color to play main characters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When fans refuse to accept non-white fantasy and science fiction characters, they demonstrate what children\u2019s literature expert and professor Ebony Elizabeth Thomas<\/a> calls the \u201cimagination gap.\u201d Thomas explains that the imagination gap begins in childhood<\/a>. Children who rarely see diversity represented in their fantasy and science fiction books grow up to be adults who see diversity as out of place in their favorite stories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Imagined futures<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Diverse representation in science fiction is especially important because these authors are not only imagining futures, but also the sorts of people who create those futures. NASA scientists<\/a> and mechanical engineers<\/a> have reported that their interest in science was fueled by their childhood encounters with science fiction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When science fiction authors imagine a wide variety of people like women, people of color, disabled people and queer people as the scientists of the future, then they provide models for more children to imagine themselves in those careers. Research has shown that seeing female scientists in media affects whether girls imagine themselves in STEM \u2013 science, technology, engineering and math \u2013 careers<\/a>. Even seeing just one positive character from a diverse background in science fiction can motivate young people to enter and persist in STEM careers<\/a>. The first Black female astronaut, Mae Jemison, says that she was able to imagine herself going to space because as a young person she saw Nichelle Nichols playing Lieutenant Nyota Uhura on \u201cStar Trek.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"An<\/a>
NASA astronaut Mae Jemison says she was inspired by Nichelle Nichols\u2019 Lt. Nyota Uhura character on \u2018Star Trek.\u2019 NASA via Wikimedia Commons<\/a>, CC BY-ND<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Yet children\u2019s science fiction is more diverse than children\u2019s literature at large. I compared the recent science fiction books in my sample published from 2001 through 2016 with the overall diversity in children\u2019s books over those same 16 years<\/a>. I found that 19 percentage points more of the science fiction books contained diversity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Better representation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I have found that the presence of girls and diverse characters in children\u2019s science fiction has been slowly increasing over the last 90 years. The first science fiction picturebook, \u201cLittle Machinery<\/a>,\u201d written by Mary Liddell and published in 1926, avoids human diversity entirely through focusing on a robot and its animal friends. It is hard to include diversity in books with no human characters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even though the plot of the 1999 picturebook \u201cThe Worst Band in the Universe<\/a>\u201d by Graeme Base is an analogy for the history of Black music in America, it contains only aliens from the planet Blipp. De Witt Douglas Kilgore<\/a>, an expert on race in science fiction and a professor of English at Indiana University, says that science fiction must include a variety of humans rather than a variety of aliens<\/a> to celebrate the potential of diversity in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Early efforts<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The earliest example from my sample to include diversity was a collection of \u201cBuck Rogers\u201d comic strips from 1929. It contained at least a few characters with different skin tones and some independent female characters. This is more than can be said for the other stories I read from the same era, like the \u201cFlash Gordon\u201d comics from 1934 and the \u201cBrick Bradford on the Isles Beyond the Ice\u201d comics from 1935. The women in the stories prior to the 1960s were often trying but failing to be independent. \u201cConnie: Master of the Jovian Moons\u201d from 1939 stood out for having an active and successful female protagonist and an elderly female scientist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only five books out of the 357 that I read had detailed non-white or non-European cultural content. The 2014 graphic novel \u201cLowriders in Space\u201d<\/a> by Cathy Camper and Ra\u00fal The Third, for instance, features Mexican American lowrider culture and rasquachismo<\/a>, which is a uniquely Chicano aesthetic that values survival and uses discarded and recycled materials in art in defiance of the perceived value of those materials. The illustrations in \u201cLowriders in Space\u201d were drawn with ballpoint pens that Ra\u00fal The Third picked up from sidewalks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The books that I read did not show any queer characters, but I found that recent children\u2019s television has ventured into this type of representation. The cartoon \u201cSteven Universe\u201d uses the unlimited possibilities of the science fiction genre to think about gender and queerness creatively<\/a>. For example, the aliens in \u201cSteven Universe\u201d can transform their bodies at will, and yet identify as female and have queer relationships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Science fiction authors could be leaders in the efforts to diversify children\u2019s books if creators fill the shortage of children\u2019s science fiction with stories that include characters from diverse backgrounds. Inspired by my own research, I collaborated with illustrator Lauren A. Brown<\/a> to craft a picturebook<\/a> about a girl learning to care for an adorable stowaway alien. The girl is Black and disabled, but the story is about her discovery of life in space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the creators of children\u2019s science fiction don\u2019t diversify the genre, they risk perpetuating the idea that only some groups belong in science and in the future. The burden is not only on creators, though. Educators and parents also need to seek out science fiction with diverse characters in order to make sure that children\u2019s book collections reflect a future that welcomes everyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Emily Midkiff<\/a>, Instructor of Children’s Literature, University of North Dakota<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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