'Highly concerning': picture books bias worsens as female characters stay silent

Guardian research shows that the top 100 illustrated children’s books last year showed growing marginalisation of female and minority ethnic characters

The most popular picture books published in 2018 collectively present a white and male-dominated world to children, feature very few BAME (black, Asian and minority ethnic) characters and have become more biased against girls in the past year, Guardian research reveals.

In-depth analysis of the top 100 bestselling illustrated children’s books of 2018, using data from Nielsen BookScan, has been carried out by the Guardian and Observer for the second year in a row.

In the top 100 books* of 2018, 41% of characters were female, while 59% were male. (Characters with no clear gender identification were disregarded in this calculation.)

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