A Normal PIG, Written and Illustrated by K-Fai Steele, Recommended for ages 4 to 8 years.

When is Normal Different? Normalising Difference:

Pip was a normal pig who did normal stuff. But at school, as the 'new pig' who visibly stands out (she has black dots on her pink skin), her (normal) lunch suddenly stinks and she is asked whether her mom (a grey pig) is her babysitter - 'Pip hadn't changed, but she started to feel different'.

At home, she whines about not having a 'normal' lunch for school. Then her mom has an idea - a city trip. There were so many languages there, all the pigs looked different, even the food was different.

She realised that what was weird for one pig was perfectly normal for another pig.

Back home, she is asked whether she wants a 'normal lunch' but she declines. 

At school, she sits at her usual place and when the other pigs protest about her weird lunch, she gathers up her courage and says - 'maybe it's weird for you, but not for me. I like my lunch...want to try it?' Some agree and they all dig in! 'And weirdly enough, by recess Pip felt pretty normal again'!

A book that takes a sensitive look at standing out for one reason or the other. What makes this book stand out is its starting point - Pip is a normal pig, although her 'normal' may be seen otherwise. Normal is relative and her parents lead her quietly through this process, not with words but with actions - in the city, there is another 'normal'. Pip the pig can now rethink how she feels about being singled out at school and how she wants to react to this. She takes responsibility for her feelings and stands up to the other kids; she is confident in her own skin and although her lunch may be different, she likes it!

Kids are very sensitive to being different from the rest and in this extremely formative phase in their development, it is well worth investing time in helping kids deal with differences and being comfortable in their own skin. A good book with lots of prompts to engage in a healthy discussion about anything from skin colour to food to languages and travel.

Struggling to stay diverse: If you want to diversify literature, diversify its gatekeepers

An extract from an essay by K-Fai Steele which looks at the huge obstacles for diversifying children's literature and the enormous burden of money:

One way we can talk about diversity as we all struggle, hustle, and pay a lot of money to get noticed by editors and agents, is to remember why diversity is a good thing. Chris Jackson, the publisher and editor-in-chief of the One World imprint at Random House described it masterfully in a piece he wrote for Literary Hub called “Diversity in Publishing” Doesn’t Exist—But Here’s How it Can:

“When we expand the range of the industry’s gatekeepers, we expand the range of our storytelling, which expands our ability to see each other, to talk and listen to each other, and to understand each other. It allows more people to see themselves represented in literature; and it allows the rest of us to listen in, to understand our neighbors and fellow citizens, their lives and concerns, their grievances and their beauty, their stories and ideas, their language. The empathic bridges this creates between us is one of the essential functions of literature in a democracy. But it can only happen if we widen the gates of literature and diversify the gatekeepers.””