The world of Children’s Publishing has come on leaps and bounds when it comes to representation and diversity. Although there’s still room to grow, the industry has begun to embrace authors from a wider range of backgrounds, acknowledging that this is what both children and parents want to see; but what is often overlooked is how important the accuracy of the representation is.

This year I had the pleasure of virtually attending The Bookseller Children’s Conference held on Monday 26th September. The event had many talks that touched on the representation we see in children’s literature, but the one that caught my eye was by award-winning author Elle McNicoll called “Why I Write”.

In her talk, Elle McNicoll talks about her experiences growing up as a person with autism and learning difficulties, and how this influenced her choice to become a children’s author. As a child, she recalls “you never saw the ‘a’ word” – referring to ‘autism’ in books – and how this affected her own reading experience.

She mentions the first book she read with an autistic character – not the protagonist but the protagonist’s sibling – and how the author’s portrayal of autism was less than kind. She doesn’t name the book in question, as not to promote it, but reflects on how it shaped her view of herself and how she thought she was being perceived.

What impacted me most was the way this experience went on to inform her career as an author, finding her place in the industry that once misrepresented her and pushing for a better portrayal of neurodiversity.

“[T]he only difference when I write for children and I write for adults is the protagonist and their age”

elle Mcnicoll, the bookseller children’s conference 2022

She mentions how one of the mistakes that some children’s authors make is removing all the nuance from life as if this isn’t something a child would understand. In writing about subjects that perhaps need more awareness it is important to respect the children you are writing for.

Although Elle talks very personally about her own experience with the matter, her talk makes crystal clear that “representation is a political issue” and something that publishers need to take into careful consideration in what they publish. Her own experiences simply serve to articulate how impactful representation in books can be for a child.

Elle’s debut novel ‘Some Kind of Spark’ won The Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, The Blackwell’s Book of 2020, and the Blue Peter Book Award. The book has a neurodivergent character at its heart and goes to show how important authentic voices are in children’s books. She has since published two more children’s novels and founded The Adrien Prize, following the closure of The Blue Peter Book Award. The Adrien Prize is awarded to a children’s or Young Adult book featuring a disabled protagonist, giving a nuanced portrayal of disability.

Photo credit: Andrew Ebrahim via unsplashed