Teacher raises money for diverse children's books

A teacher at Casey Elementary School in Jackson has launched a fundraising campaign to purchase children's books featuring diverse characters.

Ruth Ann Moss, who teaches second through fifth grades at Casey, noticed after assessing her classroom's library that her minority students had few characters to relate to through the books.

"Our library is the heart of the classroom," Moss wrote on the fundraiser web page. "However, as I did inventory and reflected on our library I realized that, quite frankly, most of the books in the library do not reflect my students' backgrounds."

According to statistics compiled by the Cooperative Children's Book Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, just 93 children's books of the 3,200 published in 2013 featured African Americans.

"It's important for all children to see themselves in the books they're reading, particularly in school," said Kathleen Horning, director of the Cooperative Children's Book Center. "In children's fiction books, we found that the vast majority are not about people of color. (Moss) is absolutely right about not finding many books for her students to relate to because there just aren't many out there."

Moss has listed 67 titles of books which she is trying to purchase. At 10 a.m. Friday, she was $514 short of her goal. The fundraiser can be found here.

Contact Adam Ganucheau at aganucheau@jackson.gannett.com. Follow @GanucheauAdam on Twitter.