Windows Into the World: Building Understanding Through Children’s Books
Updated: Oct 11
Literacy & Cultural Understanding
Opening Minds and Hearts Through Children's Literature
Discover how diverse stories help children see themselves, explore different perspectives, and develop empathy. Through books that serve as mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors, young readers can build meaningful connections across cultures and communities.
Think back to the books you loved as a child. Maybe you saw yourself in a particular character; the way they looked, the way they felt or viewed the world, perhaps even experiences they had throughout the story. This character may have even had the same family traditions or norms as your own. Often, a book can even introduce you to people, places, cultures, or ways of life you had never encountered or experienced before.
Long before children can define words like belonging, inclusion, diversity, or culture, they are learning about the world around them and the people that are in it. Children notice differences and similarities from an early age. The experiences we as adults provide for them and the conversations we have about those experiences can help shape how they understand what those differences mean. Books offer a powerful place to begin.
Building a Bookshelf that Matters
When choosing books for children to read and enjoy, it is completely natural to look for stories they can relate to, or even books we enjoyed when we were young. These types of books matter.
When choosing books for our children, there is also something special about sharing the stories we loved when we were young. Sharing a childhood favorite allows us to share more than just a book. We share a small piece of our own story. We can tell our children who first read it to us, which characters we loved, who or what made us laugh, or why we still remember it decades later. This allows us to show that books can become connections across generations.
Children also notice the enthusiasm we have when we share these books with them. When we genuinely enjoy a story, reading together feels less like something children are expected to do and rather more like something worth doing because we love to do it. This allows children to develop their own positive relationship with books and reading through these experiences.
However, our childhood favorites are only one part of the bookshelf that we build for our children. In addition to the stories that connect them to us and the books where they recognize themselves, we should intentionally choose stories that take them somewhere new and unfamiliar. A rich childhood bookshelf can hold all three of these: stories that reflect who I am, stories that connect me to where I come from, and stories that introduce me to people and experiences different from my own.
Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors
Rudine Sims Bishop, a children’s literature scholar, described books as “windows, mirrors, and sliding glass doors.” Some books act as mirrors, allowing children to see themselves, their families, their cultures, and their experiences reflected in the stories they read. Others serve as windows, giving children a glimpse into lives and experiences different from their own. And some become sliding glass doors, inviting children to imaginatively step into another person’s world.
During my 17 years as an educator and reading specialist, some of my favorite moments happened when a book sparked a conversation I hadn't planned or intended. A child would notice something, make a connection to their own life, or ask a question that took the class somewhere completely different from where I expected the lesson to go. I have always believed that reading is about much more than learning to decode words on a page. Stories help children make sense of the world around them. Books ignite curiosity, encourage questions, challenge assumptions, and allow children to understand experiences beyond their own. As parents and caregivers, bookshelves are a powerful place to build understanding, and every child deserves an opportunity to see themself represented in the stories they read.
But children also need books about people who don't look like them. They need books with families that aren't structured like theirs, cultures and traditions they haven't experienced, languages they don't speak, and communities they may never have visited. A diverse bookshelf doesn't require every story to be a lesson about diversity. Sometimes the most meaningful understanding happens when children simply see characters from different backgrounds than theirs, solving problems, going to school, visiting grandparents, celebrating birthdays, making friends, or having adventures.
Here are examples of books that can help open those windows: Curated Reading Collection
Reading Is Only the Beginning
We don't need to turn every book our children read into a formal lesson. Sometimes reading together and allowing children to simply wonder is enough.
When questions do come up, we shouldn’t move past them. A child's question of, “Why is she wearing that?” “Why does he speak differently?” “Why does this family look different from ours?” can become an opportunity for learning.
We don't have to have perfect answers. We can also be curious along with our children.
What did you notice?
What do you think that character might be feeling?
What is different from our life experience?
What looks and feels familiar?
What would you want someone to understand about you?
These small yet important conversations matter.
As our children grow, their worlds become larger and more complex. They meet more people, encounter more perspectives, and begin forming more complex ideas about who belongs, what is “normal,” and how people should treat one another. Books cannot provide every experience we want our children to have, but they can make their world a little bit bigger and provide them with background and understanding.
Maybe that's a meaningful challenge for each of us: take another look at each of the books on our children's shelves.
Where are the mirrors that tell them, Your story matters?
Where are the windows that show them, There are other ways to experience the world?
And where are the sliding glass doors that invite them to step inside someone else's story, even if only for a few pages?
Sometimes building a more understanding community can begin with something as simple as opening a book.
