Find answers, below, to the most frequently asked questions about Inclusive Books for Children.
What does IBC do?
Inclusive Books for Children (IBC) helps you to source expertly reviewed, high-quality books for children that reflect the diverse world in which they live.
Our website is a vast, virtual ‘bookcase', showcasing inclusive books for different ages, developmental stages and reader tastes, from brilliant baby and toddler books through to more challenging children’s novels.
What’s our definition of ‘inclusivity’ in children’s books?
‘Inclusivity’ means different things to different people but for us, in the main, it means:
- Books featuring main characters, a diverse cast or real people from marginalised groups
- Books that do not include negative or harmful stereotypes
- Books that offer broader views on British culture, through authentic language choices and illustrations
- Books that tell stories about people who have been excluded historically
- Championing books by Own-Voice authors and illustrators who share the same cultural, ethnic or other identities as the characters they create
- Shining much-needed light on under-represented authors and illustrators who also create children's books that are not Own Voice. For these creatives, we may make rare exceptions to feature their books with animal main characters, for example.
At IBC, we currently choose to focus on books that do not explicitly or wholly focus on the marginalised aspects of characters’ identities, for example, books that directly tackle colourism or race.
Why does IBC focus solely on inclusive children’s books?
The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education’s (CLPE) 2022 Reflecting Realities report found that in 2021 there were more books published that starred ‘animal or non-human characters at 18%’ than ‘ethnic-minority main characters at 9%’. This compares to 36% of real-life children of primary school age in the UK. This is just one imbalance that needs attention — the lack of representation is even worse for other marginalised groups, such as disabled people.
So, as well as showcasing the diverse range of wonderful inclusive children's books already available, IBC exists to remind publishers to keep doing better. Many people and organisations, such as CLPE, have championed inclusive books and called for change for a long time — we’re purely supporting their good work. If you want to know more about why we focus on inclusive books, visit About us.
Can I select books by age?
We understand that parents and caregivers find age-range guidelines helpful when choosing children’s books, but we also know that young children develop reading fluency and comprehension at different rates, and may also differ in emotional maturity and general readiness for certain texts or subject matter. Older children may also sometimes enjoy or have need to read ‘younger’ books.
With this in mind, we’ve taken a more flexible, open-ended approach to our age guidelines. Each book on our website is labelled according to the lowest suitable reading age, for example ‘5+ years’, with the ‘+’ indicating that older children may well enjoy a book too.
When will books for children aged 9+ be available on the IBC website?
We plan to add children’s fiction for ages 9 to 12 (middle-grade novels) to our website in summer 2024.
Who reviews the books at IBC?
Our top team of book reviewers consists of experts with varied backgrounds from relevant professional fields, including education, library services and children’s publishing. Having a diverse reviewing team ensures that, as far as possible, a broad range of perspectives are represented in our book reviews and curated booklists.
The team reviews countless books each month, from backlist to newly published titles, handpicking the best inclusive books so you don’t have to spend ages scouring the internet. Check out our IBC review team to learn more about our experienced reviewers.
How are books selected?
We select books for consideration in many ways. The main way is through our established partnership with CLPE. Their librarian provides a comprehensive list of books, each month, for us to evaluate. Additionally, publishers submit books directly to us, and we sometimes receive one-off recommendations from other sources.
All our book reviews are rigorous and unbiased — decisions about which books to include or exclude are not influenced, in any way, by commercial factors.
Can’t find the books you want?
We offer an extensive and diverse range of inclusive books on our website but if, for any reason, you cannot find what you need, there are other great independent bookshops you could try. Visit Resources for more inspiration.
Want to support us?
All resources on our website are free for you to enjoy but, as we are a registered charity, fund-raising is, of course, essential to secure our future work.
To help with this, we link each book review on our website to third-party book retailer Bookshop.org. Using these links to buy books means we get a small commission that goes directly towards our running costs, at no additional cost to, you, the purchaser. Buying books from Bookshop.org also helps support independent booksellers.