Introducing our Representation and Inclusion in Children's Book Illustration seminar series

What does it take to create inclusive books? Illustration by Rose Robbins.

Who can be a main character in a children’s picturebook? Do these characters reflect the diversity of their readership? What are the stories we tell about ourselves and the world we live in? What are inclusive picturebooks and why do we need them?

We've launched a new series of research seminars that aim to answer some of these questions and hopefully ask more. Representation and Inclusion in Children’s Book Illustration: Research and Practice will have three seminars per academic year, with a focus on illustration and visual communication.

Our invited speakers are researchers with an interest in children’s books and education, published author-illustrators, or publishing professionals. They bring unique insights from their ongoing research projects or from their reflective creative practice.

Sarah Caré: Diversity in Children’s World Atlases

The first lecture for 2025-26 was by Sarah Caré, who is a postdoctoral researcher within the European Research Council-funded project WONDRE (Ways of Imagining in Children’s Lives with Information Texts) at Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic.

Sarah spoke about Diversity in Children’s World Atlases. Children’s atlases are powerful educational resources that help children develop their exploring and imaginative skills, acquire intercultural competence, familiarise themselves with different places, and understand their own place in the world.

In this study, Sarah examined twelve children’s world atlases published between 2014 and 2024 in Europe. She conducted a mixed-methods analysis and collected both quantitative and qualitative data. Through an inductive thematic analysis (Beach et al., 2009), Sarah coded the illustrations on each map and identified 10 main themes. Her findings were examined from a deconstructive, decolonial, and demystifying lens based on the works of Barthes (1957), Wood (1987), and Abebe et al. (2022).

Sarah discovered a persisting presence of gender and cultural stereotypes in the book sample and expanded on how caricatural representations in world atlases for children result from and reinforce subtle yet long-lasting Eurocentric views. For example, out of all the famous people depicted in the sample of Children’s Illustrated Atlases, only 10% are women.

Sarah’s talk might at first have been met by surprise by those of us who love illustrated world atlases; then surprise was followed by a moment of revelation. The lecture demonstrated the importance of data collection and analysis in understanding both the outcomes and the context of commercial art practices such as illustration.

There were numerous questions from students and staff regarding a wider dissemination of Sarah’s research outcomes with schoolteachers, illustrators, and publishers. After the seminar, some of us went back to the illustrated atlases on our shelves to check through and verify Sarah’s insights. We are looking forward to hearing more from Sarah’s research in the future.

Rose Robbins: Inclusive books for children

The second, and last seminar for this academic year, was delivered by Rose Robbins. Rose is a graduate of the MA Children’s Book Illustration course at ARU and a UK-based author and illustrator. Her internationally published picture books are highly character-led and explore subjects around disability and neurodiversity. As an autistic person herself, with family members who are also autistic, she is passionate about inclusion in children’s literature.

Titled Inclusive books for children: towards authentic representation of disability and neurodiversity in picture books, Rose’s talk asked big questions: What makes an inclusive book in the children's publishing industry? Why make children’s books inclusive? How do you make an inclusive children's book?

Rose’s definitions were informed by current discourse, and she acknowledged that they might evolve and change with time. One of the questions that often comes up in studio practice is that of ‘own voice’ in writing and illustration, and Rose was able to guide us through this, and shared with us methods and insights from her own experience and practice.

We also discovered the work of other children’s book authors, illustrators, publishers, and charities that are creating books for and about disabled and neurodiverse children. These examples of good practice were juxtaposed with data on picturebook publishing in the UK: for example, a 2025 survey from Inclusive Books for Children concluded that only 5.9% of children’s books published in the UK in 2024 featured marginalised neurodivergent, disabled, or minoritised ethnic main characters.

Finally, Rose reflected on her own creative practice and how she creates children’s picturebooks inspired by her lived experience. At the end we were able to browse her books, comics, and dummy books, and have conversations about the topic of inclusivity.

Get involved

We aim to build a community of researchers and practitioners who are advancing understanding of how children’s book visual narratives communicate representation and inclusion. We also want to showcase research projects and contemporary publishing practices and offer methodology insights for practice-based researchers and postgraduate students.

If you would like to be involved or attend one of our seminars in the next academic year, email [email protected]

Dr Katherina Manolessou, Senior Lecturer, Cambridge School of Art