ABSTRACT
Multiracial fiction for children is well-suited to facilitating classroom discussions of microagressions, assuming teachers and parents are knowledgeable and supportive—and there is a precedent for doing so. Classroom teaching and learning about race typically involves reading about notable figures who overcame tremendous odds and left behind legacies of courage and fortitude. Readers in upper elementary and middle grades can start to understand race and identity as social constructs rather than biological facts through some of the books that make this concept explicit and are of good literary quality. As the population of American children grows more multiracial, it makes sense that they are reflected in the literature they and their peers read—that literature adds to their visibility, recognizing difference, celebrating the blurring of racial, cultural and social boundaries without erasing the elements that make them unique.
