The Rainbow Representation Rubric: Auditing LGBTQIA+ Picture Books

Welcome to our guide for Rainbow Representation Rubric resources! The purpose of our research is to better understand representation of the LGBTQIA+ community in children's picture books and to create sources that librarians and educators can use to create more diverse and inclusive book collections. 

This guide provides resources for analyzing and understanding LGBTQIA+ representation in children's picture books: the data we have collected and analyzed so far focuses on books published from 2008-2012 and from 2018-2022 in the English language. You can find more information about our samples (and how we assembled them) in the presentations and publications available on this site.

If you're looking for links to view or download those presentations and publications, click here or on that bar on the left. If you're looking for links to view or download the rubric and glossary we've built for this work, or the tools we've created to help librarians and educators audit their own collections (or find books we've labeled using our system), click here or on that bar on the left. For your convenience, we also provide a page that just supplies the full Rainbow Representation Rubric -- again, click here or on that bar on the left.

And if you're looking to reach any of us, to learn more about our work, to find out about progress we've made that isn't yet available here, or to talk with us about work you're planning (or already engaged in) that might connect with ours, we'd love to talk with you! Use the infoboxes on the left to find contact information for all three of us: this is a shared endeavor, where we each contribute our strengths and skills, so there's no "project leader" and contacting any one of us is the right call. If you're asking a question that touches on someone's particular area of expertise, we'll make sure you get connected to the right person.

Thanks so much for your interest in our work, and for all you do to help provide high quality representation of LGBTQIA+ characters to children encountering picture books: representation is so powerful, and anything we can do to provide mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors for young readers is a step in the right direction.