Anti-Racism Resources for a 5-Year-Old: What I Found After a Very Honest Search
My daughter pointed at the man behind the library desk and said, “Mom, why is his skin brown?”
I felt every parent at that moment — caught between wanting her to stay innocent and knowing she was already paying attention. The man, thankfully, smiled. I said something awkward about skin having different shades, like paint, and she moved on. But I didn’t. I left the library with two picture books about friendship and a small knot in my stomach. I realized I had no idea what I was doing.
So I started looking for anti-racism resources designed for a five-year-old. And let me tell you, the search was harder than I expected.
A lot of the books marketed for young children are beautiful, but they’re also vague. “All Are Welcome” is lovely. It has bright illustrations and sends a warm message. But it doesn’t actually talk about racism. It talks about belonging, which is adjacent, but not the same thing. I wanted something that would help my daughter understand why people are treated differently because of their skin color, and why that is wrong — without giving her nightmares.
A teacher friend finally recommended “Our Skin: A First Conversation About Race” by Megan Madison and Jessica Ralli. That changed a lot for us.
The book opens with a simple line about how skin has different colors, and it uses real names for those colors. It doesn’t say “tan” or “peach.” It says brown, golden, pink, beige. It talks about how noticing someone’s skin color is natural and okay, and it gently introduces the idea that sometimes people are treated poorly because of it. My daughter didn’t absorb every word, but she did ask the question that mattered: “Why would people do that?”
That moment showed me what anti-racism actually looks like at age five. It’s not a history lesson. It’s not a lecture about privilege. It’s helping a child notice unfairness and giving them language to talk about it.
The word “unfair” is huge at this age. Five-year-olds are obsessed with fairness. “He got more crackers than me” is a daily report in our house. That instinct can be redirected toward racism without much force. When we read books where characters are left out because of their skin color, I don’t say the word “racism” and expect her to understand it. I say, “That’s not fair, is it? People should be able to play together no matter what they look like.” She nods. She gets it. Then we can add a layer later.
We also tried “Antiracist Baby” by Ibram X. Kendi. It has a tiny little protagonist and lots of rhyming text. I wanted to love it. But honestly, it fell flat for us. The ideas are too abstract. “Be antiracist” is not a phrase that means much to a kid whose main goal is getting a snack without help. I think the book is more for adults who want to feel like they’ve introduced something. My daughter liked the illustration where the baby is in a laundry basket. That was about it.
The book that surprised both of us was “Not My Idea” by Anastasia Higginbotham. It’s heavier. It shows a child watching TV with her mom and seeing a news story about police stopping a Black man. The child asks questions and the mom has to sit with her own discomfort. It doesn’t shy away from the fact that ignoring racism is a choice. I almost didn’t read it to my daughter because I worried it was too much. But she listened. She didn’t panic. She just said, “That doesn’t look fair.” And then she asked for a snack. Kids process differently than adults. We can hold space for the hard parts and still let them be kids.
What I learned is that the best resources are the ones that start with the child’s actual questions, not the parent’s anxiety.
After that night, I changed how I approached the whole topic. Instead of just reading a book once and putting it back on the shelf, I let it sit. I let her bring it to the dinner table. I asked simple follow-ups like, “What did you think about that part?” Sometimes she says nothing. Sometimes she tells me about a kid in her preschool who has darker skin and doesn’t like to share the purple crayons. That’s not a perfect connection, but it’s something.
We also added more diverse toys and books to our house. Not the kind that pigeonhole every Black character into a story about slavery or struggle. Stories where Black kids are scientists, explorers, and regular kids getting ready for bed. When a child sees people of different races in ordinary roles, it builds a baseline. Anti-racism can’t happen in a vacuum. It has to be part of the background of daily life.
One afternoon, I bought a pack of “world colors” crayons — the ones that come in a dozen different skin tones. We sat at the kitchen table and drew our family. I showed her where my arm matched a crayon and where hers matched another. We talked about melanin. I gave her the simplest answer I could: “Your body makes something called melanin. More of it means darker skin. Less means lighter. It’s just something our bodies do, like growing hair or blinking.” She liked that. She tested different crayons on her arm and tried to find the exact match. That small activity did more than any read-aloud had done.
Parents and teachers sometimes worry about saying the wrong thing, so we stay silent. But silence is its own message. Kids notice when we don’t respond to somebody’s racist joke or when we avoid a topic they’re curious about. They learn that some questions are uncomfortable and shouldn’t be asked. That’s not what I want for my daughter.
Another practical thing: I stopped waiting for the “perfect” book. There isn’t one. A single resource will never cover everything, and that’s okay. What matters is that we keep reading, keep talking, and keep making mistakes. Some nights I answer a question badly and think about it for hours. But the next day, we try again. That repetition is the actual teaching.
There’s also Sesame Workshop’s “Coming Together” resources, which are free and made for kids. They talk about race in a calm, friendly way using the characters children already know. I used those short videos and conversation guides before bedtime one week, and my daughter asked about a character’s curly hair. We talked about why hair is different just like skin is different. It felt natural, not forced.
I’ve learned not to overshoot. A five-year-old doesn’t need a full account of Jim Crow history or mass incarceration. They need the building blocks. They need to know that skin color is a normal part of human variety, that some people have been treated badly because of it, and that we are the kind of family that says something when that happens.
We don’t have it all figured out. A few days ago, my daughter drew a picture of our family playing outside. She made one of us green. I asked why. “Because he’s from the green family,” she said with total seriousness. I laughed. We colored over it with a skin-tone crayon, and then she added rainbows above everyone’s head.
I don’t know exactly what she understands right now. I suspect it’s less than I hope and more than I realize. But she knows that skin color is okay to talk about, that unfairness is worth noticing, and that I’ll sit with her through the hard questions. The resources helped. But they worked because they led to conversations, not just readings.
So if you’re looking for anti-racism resources for a five-year-old, start with the practical stuff. Ask a librarian. Look for books that name real skin tones. Use the word “unfair” before you use the word “racism.” And when your child point blank asks you a question you don’t know how to answer, just tell the truth: you’re still learning too. That honesty goes further than any perfectly curated book list.
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