Local Student Seeks to Bring Diverse Books to Libraries for Young Children

ShopBlackCT, a volunteer initiative and free not-for-profit website that lists nearly 1,800 Black-owned businesses in Connecticut, has partnered with The Key Bookstore in Hartford to help local Senior Girl Scout Rhaili-Em Lowe attain a prestigious Girl Scouts Gold Award by collecting 150 books for Hartford students to make Hartford Public Schools libraries more diverse and inclusive.

“I am working on collecting books for students in Hartford ages six to twelve so that they are able to read books from more authors of color,” said Lowe. “I am striving for school libraries to be inclusive and to prove that right now, they often aren’t inclusive enough.”

Lowe has created booklists to make purchasing books for this project simple. ShopBlackCT is matching the first 50 book purchases made toward this effort through February 28, to boost sales and generate awareness of this issue.  To purchase a book, go to the website here.

“This is a perfect opportunity for us to amplify and elevate the hard work a young woman is doing to raise awareness about the lack of inclusivity in many school libraries,” said Sarah Thompson, founder and co-lead of ShopBlackCT.

“What’s she’s doing is awesome, and we’re here to help her crush her goal and help support a local Black-owned business in the process,” Thompson added.

Lowe, a Hartford resident, spent last summer interning with Community Renewal Team’s Summer Youth Employment Program to promote COVID-19 vaccines to teenagers in the Hartford area. While continuing her high school studies, she is an apprentice at Real Art Ways.

She recorded a video explaining the project, which she calls “Project Dive-B,” which can be seen here. It includes lists of suggested books for children ages 6-7 and 8-12.  The book lists, posted on the Key Bookstores website, can be seen here.   

Children’s books written by authors of color in 2020 increased by 3% to 26.8% compared with 2019, according to a news report published by ABC News last year. Children’s books written about racially diverse characters or subjects, however, grew by only 1% to 30%, according to preliminary data provided to The Associated Press by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Cooperative Children’s Book Center.