CHARLOTTE — Families and organizations came together at the Methodist Home Recreation Center on Saturday morning to bring diversity to libraries and fight a book desert in the Charlotte area.
The Black Child Book Fair came to Charlotte on Saturday, around 10 a.m., to help improve literacy in Charlotte’s African-American community. The organization has been working toward this goal nationwide since it started up in Chicago in 2019.
Organizers said one of the problems they see is that only about 10% of mainstream children’s books have African-American faces in them. So they have looked for their solution in independent authors.
The Black Child Book Fair brings independent, African-American authors of children’s books that provide characters that look like their audience, according to organizers.
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The event provided free admission and free books. And, through the Black Child Literacy Fair, the event provided free literacy activities, organizers said.
LaToya Chapman is the literacy chair of the Queen City chapter of the National Hook Up for Black Women. She said her organization worked with the Parks and Recreation Department to organize the event and set up a location.
More than 2,500 homes in Charlotte have fewer than 100 books, creating a book desert, Chapman said. By providing free, diverse books, the fair can create more and more diverse libraries, she said.
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