Age-Appropriate Anti-Racism Resources for 5 Year Olds: What Actually Works
Last Tuesday, I was folding fitted sheets (the kind that never actually line up right at the corners) when my 5-year-old, Javi, climbed onto the laundry pile and asked, “Why is Ms. Lee’s hair different than my mommy’s?” Ms. Lee is his preschool assistant teacher, the one who slips him extra mango slices every Friday. I fumbled with an elastic edge, suddenly aware I’d been putting this off—waiting until he was “old enough” to talk about race, even though he was already asking the questions.
I closed the laundry basket, pulled out my phone, and searched what I’d been avoiding: “anti-racism resources for 5 year old.” What came up was a mess. Most lists were packed with books for middle schoolers, dense articles about systemic inequity, or vague thinkpieces that told me I needed to start talking early but never what to actually say to a kid who still thinks broccoli is a personal attack. I downloaded one highly recommended book for kids that talked about redlining and Jim Crow, and by page three Javi was asking if we could get ice cream. I closed the app, stressed that I was already doing this wrong.
The next day at pickup, I ran into Ms. Lee by the bike rack and mentioned the whole exchange. She laughed, leaned against the fence, and said she gets this question from parents at least once a week. Most people want a big, serious curriculum, she said, but 5 year olds don’t think in abstract terms. They think in snacks, dinosaurs, and who gets to swing first. Anti-racism for that age doesn’t need to be heavy—it just needs to be normal. She gave me a short list of things she uses in class that actually work, and I’ve been testing them out for the past month.
The first thing she recommended was The Skin You Live In by Michael Tyler. It’s a short picture book with rhymes, comparing different skin tones to everything from coffee with cream to toasted marshmallows. Javi loves stopping on every page to hold his hand up to the page and see which shade matches his, then guess which matches his best friend’s, which matches mine. It doesn’t go into any heavy history, it just says all skin is good skin, and that’s enough for a 5 year old. Another go-to is Last Stop on Market Street by Matt de la Peña. It’s not explicitly “about” racism, it’s just a story of a Black boy riding the bus with his grandma, noticing all the different people around them. It teaches appreciation for difference without feeling like a lesson, which is exactly what we need.
I used to think the right approach was to tell Javi “we don’t see color,” that we should treat everyone the same and ignore differences. That turned out to be wrong. Javi notices difference, whether I tell him to or not. If I shut down his questions, it just makes difference feel like something weird, something rude to talk about. Now, the first rule I follow is just answer simply. When he asks why a classmate’s mom wears a head scarf, I say “Some people wear head scarves because of their religion, it’s a special thing for them. Isn’t that blue one pretty?” That’s it. No big lecture, no over-explaining. Just a straight answer that normalizes the thing he noticed.
Small, everyday resources work better than any big book, too. I picked up a pack of multicultural crayons from the Target dollar spot, and now Javi draws all the people in his life with colors that actually match them, instead of only using the generic peach crayon he used to reach for every time. We have a 20-minute Spotify playlist called “All Kinds of People” that’s just short, silly kids’ songs about different families, different skin, different abilities. Javi sings it in the bath every night, and he doesn’t even think of it as a “lesson” — it’s just the music he likes. For bedtime stories, we’ve been working through the Little People, Big Dreams picture books about BIPOC leaders like Katherine Johnson and Dolores Huerta. They’re short, focus on what the person accomplished instead of all the trauma they faced, and Javi gets excited that “this person did a really cool thing, and people tried to stop her, but she didn’t stop.” That’s enough for right now.
Last week at the playground, I saw that play out in real time. A little boy told a 4-year-old Black kid he couldn’t join their dinosaur game because “dinosaurs are for white kids.” Before I could even stand up from the bench, Javi grabbed an extra T-Rex from our bag, walked over, and handed it to the kid. “Everyone can play dinosaurs,” he said. “My teacher said so.” It wasn’t some big heroic moment for him — after that, he just went back to digging in the sand. But it showed me that the small stuff sticks.
I still mess up, of course. Two weeks ago, Javi asked loudly in the grocery store why the woman waiting in line had a birthmark that covered half her face, and I shushed him and hurried away to avoid awkwardness. Later, I realized I should have stopped, answered his question simply, and let it be normal. I don’t have all the answers, and I still get overwhelmed when I see all the “must-have” resource lists online that expect me to teach a college-level sociology class to a kindergartener.
Right now, though, these small, simple things are working. We don’t need to fix everything all at once. We just need books that fit their attention span, crayons that let them draw the people they love, and the habit of speaking up when someone gets left out, right in front of us. It’s a work in progress, and that’s more than enough for now.
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