Over the years of teaching, I have collected many books in my classroom library. While looking them over for this task, it was apparent that almost all of them were about white, middle class children. I teach 5th grade and while on the verge of having more "mature or grown up" books, what is available are mostly pretty tame. Most of the books in my class library have come from Scholastic and through book clubs with points to get free books. This task makes me aware of that I need to seek out more culturally diverse books. In recent years, I do believe our new Language Arts program definitely does a better job of this. Our class novels are about a young Native American girl during the Westward expansion or a family during the Civil War that isn't sure of the color of a new member in their town. This is a step in the right direction.
