Fortunately, teachers today are much more interested in promoting diversity and understanding in their classrooms. By using books that are culturally aware and by educating their students about differences, teachers are helping their students to celebrate differences rather than fear them.
The following books may be useful for teachers who are interested in promoting cultural diversity in their classrooms. For each book, there is brief summary of the contents, followed by ideas for activities teachers might use to expand on the material. These storybooks contain tales about children from all sorts of different backgrounds.
Students need to understand that all people are different. We all have different backgrounds and heritages, and therefore have different ways of looking at the world. Until recently, American schools did not make concentrated attempts to provide schoolchildren with racially diverse reading material. As a result, children did not learn about cultures other than their own, and often formed false opinions of races with which they were not familiar. Even worse, children who belonged to those under-represented groups began to form false notions about themselves and therefore lacked self-esteem and pride in their race.
Chato's Kitchen