Age-Appropriate Anti-Racism Resources for 5 Year Olds: What Worked For My Family
It was a drizzly Tuesday after preschool, and I was folding a pile of my daughter Lila’s stained play clothes when she plopped down next to me, twisting the broken wrapper off her 64-pack of birthday crayons. She held up a waxy peach stick to my face, the label reading “skin” in block white letters. “Mom,” she said, frowning. “Why is this the only one called skin? Zara’s skin is brown, like my chocolate granola bar. Is her skin not skin?”
I froze. I’d known this conversation was coming, and I’d been meaning to gather age-appropriate anti-racism resources for months, but I’d put it off. I’d assumed I had more time. That night, I sat on the couch after Lila fell asleep and googled exactly what I was looking for: anti-racism resources for 5 year olds. What came up was a flood of lists full of books about the civil rights movement, essays on talking to kids about systemic injustice, and guides for teens. A few of the picture books I ordered on a whim showed up a few days later, but when I sat down to read them with Lila, her eyes glazed over halfway through the first one. She asked if we could go get popsicles instead, and I couldn’t blame her. The stories talked about things that didn’t make any sense to a 5 year old who’d only ever asked why one crayon was labeled wrong.
I texted my sister-in-law, who teaches pre-K at a diverse public school, and asked her what she uses in her classroom. She told me something that changed how I thought about all of this: 5 year olds think in concrete, not abstract. They don’t need to process the full weight of hundreds of years of racism right now. They just need resources that answer the questions they actually ask, and help them see the world around them clearly. That’s when I started testing small, low-effort resources that actually fit where Lila is developmentally, and most of them have worked way better than the heavy, well-meaning books I picked up first.
The first big win was the book The Skin You Live In by Michael Tyler. It’s short, it rhymes, and it doesn’t try to teach anything more complicated than the fact that all skin colors are good, and all of us do the same fun things—climb trees, hug our parents, race bikes, eat popsicles. Lila asks to read it at least once a week now, and after the first time we read it, we ordered a $5 pack of multi-cultural skin tone crayons and threw out the old 64-pack that only had one “skin” color. That $5 pack of crayons has turned out to be one of the most useful anti-racism resources I own. Lila draws all her friends now, matching their skin tones exactly, and points out when other coloring books only have light-skinned kids on the pages. It’s hands-on, it’s something she uses every day, and it teaches the idea that all skin is skin way better than any lecture I could give.
Another resource I love is the board book What Is a Hijab? by Ibtihaj Muhammad. It’s simple, full of bright pictures, and explains the concept in terms a 5 year old can get. A couple weeks after we read it, we were in the checkout line at the grocery store and Lila spotted a woman wearing a light blue hijab. She said, loud enough for the whole line to hear, “Mom! That lady has a hijab, just like the book!” Instead of shushing her like I would have a few months ago—something that would have told her difference is something to be embarrassed of—I just nodded and said, “Yep! It’s part of her religion, just like we sing songs at church every Sunday.” The woman smiled at Lila and said her hijab had sparkles under the blue, and Lila thought that was the coolest thing ever. That whole interaction took 30 seconds, and it wouldn’t have gone that smoothly if we hadn’t had that simple book to prepare us.
I used to think good anti-racism resources had to be formal, bought, and big. I’ve since learned that most of the things that work for 5 year olds are small. A puzzle with diverse families, for example, that has two dads, a grandma raising kids, and kids of all different skin tones, is a great quiet resource. It just sits on our shelf, and when Lila puts it together, she talks about how all families are different, just like ours. I also follow a few diverse mom creators on Instagram who post about their kids’ everyday lives, and I’ll sometimes show Lila a short clip: “Look, this little girl loves to climb trees just like you, and her hair is in long braids. Isn’t that fun?” It’s not a big lesson, it’s just normalizing difference.
For when small unfairness pops up right in front of us, I keep the board book Antiracist Baby around. It’s got short, simple lines that stick with Lila, like “See all skin” and “Speak up.” Last month, a boy at the playground told Zara she couldn’t be a princess because princesses have light skin. I didn’t have a big speech ready, I just quoted the line from the book and said, “He’s wrong, right? We speak up when something’s not fair. Princesses can be any skin color.” Then we went home and drew a brown princess with Lila’s skin tone crayons, and that was that. It was enough.
I still haven’t found all the right resources for every question Lila asks. Last week she asked why the playground by the library has broken swings and our neighborhood playground has new ones, and I couldn’t find a simple picture book that explains that in a way she gets. I just told her that some neighborhoods don’t get as much money for nice things as others, which isn’t fair, and then we packed up some cookies and took them to the kids playing at that playground on Saturday. We’re going back next weekend to bring some new chalk.
It’s not perfect. I still fumble through conversations, I still order books that end up being too advanced, and I still don’t have all the answers. But right now, this is what’s working: small, concrete resources that meet Lila where she is, instead of trying to cram big ideas into a 5 year old’s brain that’s still learning how to tie her shoes and count to 20. We take it one question, one crayon, one cookie drop-off at a time.
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