Ashley Evans Books

Racism can sometimes be a difficult subject to broach and to discuss in primary schools. Children have perceptive questions that seem to adults, to require rather complex answers. This book seeks to address these questions and open up a forum to enable children to talk about how they feel as well as address possible misconceptions and myths. It provides the teacher or parent with a starting point from which to support children understand an issue that must not be avoided.

The format is simple: questions under the main headings of the what, why and how of racism and answers provided when you lift the flap. Each page groups together questions under the main headings in order to probe each area more deeply – for example, to consider not just what racism is but what it feels like as well as questions about what we mean by ethnicity and why we use particular terms e.g. heritage and ethnicity rather than ‘race’.

The book seeks to support children in thinking more deeply about their behaviours, like whether it could be racist to copy people’s clothes and traditions. It tackles some of the things that children will hear in wider society – why the Black Lives Matter slogan is not the same as saying that not all lives matter. The book also addresses the causes of racism from slavery to fake news and explores questions about our identities and how each of us can play our part in tackling racism. The book finishes with some fairly unsettling facts – that in the past, humans were exhibited in zoos; that people are still enslaved today; and that in wars, millions have been killed because of racism. The book’s author was supported by the ‘Show Racism the Red Card’ organisation, a child psychologist and a history professor ensuring that the answers are clear, accurate and approached with sensitivity and respect.

This is a powerful and necessary addition to a primary classroom.