{"id":3051,"date":"2019-04-23T11:42:29","date_gmt":"2019-04-23T10:42:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.gre.ac.uk\/diversity\/?p=3051"},"modified":"2019-04-23T11:42:29","modified_gmt":"2019-04-23T10:42:29","slug":"author-sharna-jackson-bringing-diversity-into-childrens-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.gre.ac.uk\/diversity\/2019\/04\/23\/author-sharna-jackson-bringing-diversity-into-childrens-books\/","title":{"rendered":"Author Sharna Jackson: Bringing diversity into children&#8217;s books"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/660\/cpsprodpb\/2376\/production\/_106487090_sharna_book_comp.jpg\" alt=\"Sharna Jackson and her debut book\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Author Sharna Jackson is something of a rarity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As a black children&#8217;s writer, she&#8217;s already in a minority. But her debut book High-Rise Mystery, a detective story starring young black sisters and featuring a diverse cast, puts Jackson in an extra select league.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;When I was young, I kept on reading and watching but the representation wasn&#8217;t there,&#8221; Jackson tells BBC News. &#8220;It was hard to find role models outside popular culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;When I read, the default in my head was &#8216;white&#8217;. Unless the character was black, it wouldn&#8217;t be stated.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to the recent report\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.booktrust.org.uk\/booktrustrepresents\">BookTrust Represents<\/a>, covering 2007-2017, just 5.6% of published UK children&#8217;s authors and illustrators are from a black and minority ethnic (BAME) background. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/entertainment-arts-47883118\"> More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Author Sharna Jackson is something of a rarity. As a black children&#8217;s writer, she&#8217;s already in a minority. But her debut book High-Rise Mystery, a detective story starring young black sisters and featuring a diverse &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-diversity","category-race"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.gre.ac.uk\/diversity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.gre.ac.uk\/diversity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.gre.ac.uk\/diversity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.gre.ac.uk\/diversity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.gre.ac.uk\/diversity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.gre.ac.uk\/diversity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3051\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.gre.ac.uk\/diversity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.gre.ac.uk\/diversity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.gre.ac.uk\/diversity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}