Anti-Racism Resources for 5 Year Olds: What Actually Works For Preschoolers
The cereal box was slipping out of my hand at the grocery store checkout when my 5-year-old daughter Lila pointed straight at the cashier and said, “Why is her skin darker than mine?” I froze. I’d been meaning to figure out how to talk about this with her, but every time I’d searched for age-appropriate anti-racism resources, I’d ended up overwhelmed by options that either felt too grown-up or too hollow to matter. I mumbled something about how everyone looks different and rushed us out of the store, my face hot, determined to find something that would actually fit a kid who still thinks the biggest injustice in the world is not getting extra sprinkles on her ice cream.
I went home that night and typed the exact question I had into Google: “anti-racism resources appropriate for 5 year old.” The first handful of results were lists full of books I’d heard of, so I put a few on hold at the library. First up was Antiracist Baby. I’d seen it all over Instagram, so I was excited to dive in. But when we sat down to read it that night, Lila just giggled every time it said “baby” and couldn’t follow any of the rhyming lessons about checking bias. It felt like a book written for parents, not for 5-year-olds. Next I tried The Skin You Live In, which was softer, with warm illustrations, but it didn’t have much of a story – it just said “all skin is beautiful” over and over, which left Lila asking “but why is it different?” anyway.
I texted my friend Mia, who’s a preschool teacher at the center Lila attends, and asked her what she uses in class. She suggested we meet for coffee at the playground after drop-off the next morning, while our younger kids slid back and forth on the swings. She told me something that completely shifted how I thought about all this: 5-year-olds are concrete thinkers. They don’t care about abstract terms. All they notice is that people look different, and they’re curious. So any good resource for this age isn’t going to be a lecture. It’s going to be something that normalizes difference and gives them simple language to talk about it, instead of making them feel like curiosity is rude.
She gave me specific recommendations, starting with books, and the first two she named have become our permanent go-tos. Last Stop on Market Street is about a Black boy riding the bus with his grandma, and it’s just a story about noticing the beauty in the people and world around you. Lila loves pointing out the guitar player on the bus and asking when we can ride the bus downtown, too. It never feels like a lesson; it’s just a story with a kid who looks different from her, living his life. The other is Sulwe, about a little Black girl who thinks her dark skin is too dark, until she has a dream that helps her love how she looks. Lila connects with it because she’s always worrying her freckles are too many, so she gets the feeling of wanting to look different than you do. It talks about skin color directly, but through a story about feelings that 5-year-olds actually understand.
Mia also reminded me that resources don’t have to be fancy, expensive products. The best things you can do adjust the stuff you’re already doing, which is way lower effort than buying a whole curriculum. For example, I used to just grab whatever book looked fun from the library’s picture book section, which meant most of the main characters were white kids with blonde hair, just like Lila. Now I just grab one book a week that has a main character who’s Black, Indigenous, or a person of color, and half the time it’s not even a book about race. It’s just a story about a kid going to a birthday party, or looking for a lost cat, or going to the park. Last week I checked out Juna’s Jar, about a Korean American girl who puts things in her jar and goes on adventures. Lila loved it, and didn’t think anything of it – it just became another story we love, and that’s the whole point.
Another free resource she pointed me to is the kids’ shows we already watch. I started intentionally picking shows that have diverse main characters, instead of just sticking to the ones I grew up with. Molly of Denali, on PBS Kids, is Lila’s current favorite. It’s about an Alaska Native girl who runs a dog sledding tour business with her dad, and solves little problems around her village. It never stops to give a forced lesson about race; it’s just her life. It’s free, it’s something we watch anyway on rainy afternoons, and it’s way more engaging than any worksheet I could print out.
The biggest thing I changed, though, is how I react when Lila points out a difference. I used to think I should shush her because it’s rude to point, but that just teaches kids that difference is something awkward we can’t talk about. Now, when she asks a question, I just answer it simply. When we saw the same grocery cashier a week after that first awkward encounter, I took a breath and said, “People have different colored skin because of something called melanin – the more melanin you have, the darker your skin is. It’s just like how some people have curly hair and some have straight, it’s just what makes you you.” She nodded, that satisfied her, and the cashier smiled and told me she got questions like that all the time, and she was glad I didn’t shut Lila down.
I still don’t have it all figured out. I’ve tried a few resources that fell flat, like those printable Martin Luther King Jr. activity packs that just have a coloring sheet and a quote that means nothing to a 5-year-old. I still fumble answers sometimes, when Lila asks a question I wasn’t expecting. But right now, this works. We go to the library, pick out one new diverse book a week, we watch our favorite show, and we talk about differences when they come up, simply. It’s not a big, fancy program. It’s just small, everyday stuff, which is all a 5-year-old needs anyway. I don’t expect her to understand everything about racism right now. I just want her to be used to talking about difference, so when she’s older, she’ll know how to do it.
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