Age-Appropriate Anti-Racism Resources for 5 Year Olds: What Actually Works
Last month, I stood in the parking lot of our neighborhood playground, buckling my 5-year-old Lila into her carseat, brushing cracker crumbs out of the seat belt buckle, and trying not to drip my melting iced coffee on her sneakers when she said it: “Mommy, why did Noah say Mia’s hair looks like a broom?”
Mia was the new kid in Lila’s preschool class, the one who wore sparkly barrettes and brought homemade tamales for snack day every Friday. I froze. I knew this moment was coming, but I had no idea how to respond in a way that made sense to a kid who still thinks broccoli is a personal attack. That night, after I put her to bed, I pulled up my laptop and started searching for anti-racism resources for 5 year olds. What I found surprised me.
Most of what came up was either lists of 30 books for middle schoolers, thinkpieces arguing whether we should talk about race with kids that young at all, or resources that were so heavy they left my stomach in knots. I tried one highly recommended book about the civil rights movement that I checked out from the library the next week. Halfway through, Lila looked up at me and asked, “Why didn’t they let the nice man drink water? Was he bad?” I fumbled through an explanation, and by the end of the story, she was asking if people would not let me drink water because of my thick glasses. I put the book back on the holds shelf and realized I was approaching this all wrong.
Developmentally, 5 year olds don’t think in abstract terms. They can’t wrap their heads behind systems or hundreds of years of history. All they can do is notice the differences between themselves and the people around them, and ask questions. What they need isn’t a lecture on injustice. What they need is resources that fit their world: simple, concrete, relatable, focused on kindness and normalcy first.
After a week of testing out different options with Lila, I found a handful that worked, no fancy curriculum or big weekend commitment required. The first one that stuck is The Skin You Live In, a 32-page picture book that talks about skin like it’s just different shades of coffee, cookies, and tan. It doesn’t get into any hard history, it just says every skin is good, and every skin fits you. Lila wanted to read it three nights in a row, and after the third time, she got up and ran to the bathroom mirror to check what shade her skin was, then announced it was “vanilla with a little strawberry added from playing outside.” That’s exactly the kind of conversation I wanted to have with her right now.
Another one that works is Hair Love, the short story about a Black dad learning to do his daughter’s curly hair for the first time. It’s a sweet, silly story about a dad messing up and getting it right in the end, and there’s no heavy plot about injustice. It just shows a normal family, doing normal family things. Lila loves pointing out how the girl’s hair is bigger than her whole head, and it opened up a natural conversation about how everyone’s hair is different, and different doesn’t mean weird.
I didn’t just find books, either. One of the best, cheapest resources I got was a pack of 12 skin-tone crayons from the local art store. They sit in Lila’s art bin, and every time she draws pictures of her friends, she can pick a crayon that matches their skin. Last week, she drew a picture of her entire preschool class, and every kid had a skin color that matched, even Mia. She wrote Mia’s name under the picture in wobbly pencil, and said “Mia’s skin is caramel, right Mommy? She loves caramel candy.” That’s anti-racism for a 5 year old, right there: normalizing difference before any bias has a chance to take root.
Sesame Street also has a handful of two-minute clips on YouTube that talk about race and difference, perfect for when a question comes up out of the blue and you don’t know what to say. I don’t plop Lila in front of the TV for a formal lesson, but if she asks a question about why someone looks different than her, I pull it up on my phone and we watch it together. It’s short, it’s simple, it’s got Elmo, so she pays attention.
I did find a lot of resources that weren’t a good fit for 5 year olds, and that’s okay. I tried a story about a hate crime that was marketed as a kids’ book, and it just scared Lila. She kept asking if someone was going to hurt our next door neighbor, who is Black. I realized that saving the harder conversations for when she’s older, when she can understand more context, isn’t shying away from anti-racism work. It’s meeting her where she is developmentally.
I still don’t always get it right. Last week, a kid at the library made a comment about a little girl’s Chinese name being “silly,” and I fumbled through a quick response instead of pulling out a book or a resource. I still panic sometimes when Lila asks a question I don’t know how to answer. But right now, having two good picture books on her shelf, a pack of crayons in her art bin, and a couple of short videos bookmarked on my phone is enough. I don’t need to do a whole unit on anti-racism for my 5 year old. I just need to be ready when the questions come, and have the right tools to answer them in a way she can understand. As she gets older, we’ll add harder books and harder conversations, but for right now, this is what works for us.
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