The chart provided to the left shows the numbers collected by the Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) on diversity in publishing. The center explains that, for their research, they look at representations of people of color--defined as African American, Native American, Asian American, and Latino--in books published that year. They focus specifically on books by or about people of color. They emphasize that the character of color must play a "significant" role in the text in order to count, not just play a secondary part. 

 

The most recent numbers provide quite a shock to people who might believe publishing has come a long way since Larrick's time. In the year 2013, just under 8% of books published for children focused significantly on people of color.

 

Only 93 of the 3,200 books published were about African Americans. This number comes in under 3%. This shocking statistic sparked several voices to speak out on the slow-to-no growth that's being seen in children's publishing, and makes a painful comparison to the statistics listed in Larrick's article of 9% in 1965 (admittedly, though, Larrick was including any African American character in her statistics and not just those texts that featured "significant" representations, so I'm sure under the same restrictions as the CCBC research this number would've been even lower). 

 

Following these numbers each year, as the CCBC has been devoted to, reveals a stagnation of growth in publishing (as can be seen in the infographic from Lee and Low publishers below). But these statistics that come around every year also serve to remind the CCBC's followers of the need to change these numbers. As is explained on their website: 

 

"...every year we see amazing books by and about people of color published. There just aren't enough of them. The more books there are, especially books created by authors and Illustrators of color, the more opportunities librarians, teachers, and parents and other adults have of finding outstanding books for young readers and listeners that reflect dimensions of their lives, and give a broader understanding of who we are as a nation."