Searching for Anti-Racism Resources for a 5-Year-Old? Start Here
I was on the floor of our local bookshop, surrounded by picture books with bright covers and bold titles, trying to find something that would help my five-year-old understand race. Not in a forced way, not a lecture. Just something to open the door. My daughter was kneeling beside me, flipping through a book about a fox who lost his tail, and I kept pulling out one title after another. Antiracist Baby – I’d heard about it. I opened it. “Antiracist Baby is raised to learn there’s a lot to discover…” I wasn’t sure she’d get it. I put it back. All Are Welcome? She already had that at preschool. Sulwe – maybe too old? I felt stuck. The truth is, I didn’t know what I was looking for. I just knew I wanted my kid to grow up knowing that racism exists, but also knowing that she can do something about it. That’s a big ask for a little person. And it’s a big ask for a parent who never learned how to talk about it either.
It wasn’t until later that week that I realized I’d been overthinking it. We were at a playground, and my daughter pointed at a little girl across the slide. “Why is her skin brown?” she asked, loudly, without a hint of embarrassment. The girl’s mom looked up. I froze. But what I said was, “Because her skin has more melanin – it’s a kind of pigment. Some people have more, some have less. Isn’t it nice that we’re all different?” And then we moved on. It wasn’t perfect. But it was something.
After that, I started looking at anti-racism resources differently. I stopped searching for a single book or curriculum that would “fix” the issue and started looking for tools that could fit into ordinary days. The best thing I found wasn’t a workbook. It was a set of wooden dolls with different skin tones, hair textures, and eye shapes. We put them in a basket in the living room, and my daughter named them all “Lily” or “Pancake” depending on her mood. She didn’t talk about race. She just played. But the dolls were there, part of the furniture. That, I think, is the first step for a five-year-old: normalization.
Still, there were moments that required more than dolls. One afternoon, we watched a cartoon where the main character was excluded because of her skin color. It was a subtle subplot, but my daughter noticed. “Why wouldn’t they let her play?” she asked. That was my opening. Instead of giving a lecture, I said, “I think that hurt her feelings. It wasn’t fair, was it?” She nodded. We talked about what “fair” meant, and why someone’s skin color shouldn’t matter. We didn’t use the word racism that time. We used the word “unfair,” which at five is the root of it.
The books I ended up buying were less didactic than I’d expected. I Am Enough by Grace Byers – it’s a poem about self-worth, but it also shows kids of different backgrounds together. The Day You Begin – it’s about being different, and the fear of being left out. And yes, Antiracist Baby – I did get it, but I realized it’s not a storybook. It’s more like a series of prompts. The pictures are great, but the text is abstract. What worked was not reading it straight through. We looked at one page, like the one about making things fair, and I asked her, “What does fair look like here?” She pointed to the kids sharing a doll. That was enough.
One resource I didn’t expect was Sesame Street’s “Coming Together” initiative. They have short videos and printable activity sheets that talk about race in a way that’s actually developmentally appropriate. My daughter loved the video with the kids explaining what they like about their hair and skin. It wasn’t preachy, and it showed real kids, not cartoons. We watched it a few times, and afterward she told me, “I like my eyes because they’re sparkly.” That was it. She tagged on a tiny piece of self-awareness, and I felt like we were moving in the right direction.
But I also had to accept that anti-racism for a five-year-old isn’t always about positive representation. Sometimes it’s about pointing out what’s wrong in the world. There’s a picture book called Something Happened in Our Town by Marianne Celano and Marietta Collins, and I read it to my daughter once. It’s about a police shooting, and it was way too much for her. I put it away, and I didn’t feel guilty. Not every resource is for every kid. The trick is to find what fits your child’s sensitivity and attention span. For us, that meant skipping the heavy stuff and focusing on everyday fairness.
I remember reading a parenting article that said, “Don’t talk about racism; talk about kindness.” I respectfully disagree. Kindness is necessary, but it’s not enough. If all we do is teach our kids to be “nice,” they might end up being nice to everyone while still ignoring inequality. At five, they can understand that a rule that treats one group differently is unfair. They can understand that if a book has no Black characters, or if a show only has princesses with blonde hair, that’s a kind of imbalance. We can ask, “Why do you think we don’t see more dark-skinned princesses?” and let that sit. I’ve had some pretty interesting conversations that came from that question.
So if you’re looking for anti-racism resources for a five-year-old, here’s what I’ve learned so far: start with representation – dolls, books, shows that reflect the real world. Then add conversation – not lectures, but short, honest replies to their questions. Then, when they’re ready, add the concept of fairness – not as a lecture, but as a way to understand why we work to make things equal. You don’t need a full curriculum. You need a few good books, a set of diverse toys, and the willingness to answer a question when it comes up, even if the answer is awkward.
It’s been about a year since that moment in the bookshop. My daughter is now six, and we’re still figuring it out. She knows that racism is something that happens in the world, and that we should speak up if we see it. But she also knows that her family is made up of different skin colors (her dad is white, I’m mixed, and she’s a lovely shade of light brown). Some days, we talk about race freely and it feels easy. Other days, I forget to say anything, and I wonder if I’m missing opportunities. I guess that’s the honest truth: it’s not a checklist. It’s an ongoing, slightly messy, everyday thing. And sometimes, the best resource is just you, being willing to kneel on the floor and point to what’s unfair, and then ask, “What can we do about it?” You might not have the answer. But you can look for it together.
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