Seven Stories, the National Centre for Children’s Books has released Diverse Voices – a list of 50 books celebrating cultural diversity in the UK. The list is divided into 4 age groups – Early Years 0+, Young Readers 5+, Older Readers 8+, and Teenage Readers 13+.Teaching resources related to the list will be available from the Seven Stories website from Thursday 16th October.

Kate Edwards, CEO of Seven Stories said,“Children’s books shape our earliest perceptions of the world and its cultures, building understanding, empathy and tolerance. Despite this there is still a lack of representation of children from different cultural backgrounds – especially as main characters.By drawing attention to some best loved and well crafted children’s books, our Diverse Voices season will curate an exciting and diverse list of books that will help to inform the choices of librarians, teachers, booksellers and readers when they pick books to recommend, stock, read and enjoy. Britain’s rich and diverse cultural heritage is something to be celebrated and championed.”

The Guardian Children’s Book website is also dedicating this week to celebrating diversity in children’s books so keep an eye on their website for contributions from people like John Agard, Shaun Tan and Benjamin Zephaniah and content on issues such as representations of disability, LGBT, autism, mixed race and Muslims in children’s books.

Click here to read the books that children’s authors have chosen as their favourite diversity books for children and teenagers.

90% of the titles on the 50 best books list are already available in the Curriculum Centre so feel free to come in and browse our range of culturally diverse books.