CCBC Statistics for 2014: Books by/about American Indians

Today (Feb 18, 2015), the Cooperative Children's Book Center at the School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison, released statistics for books they received in 2014. For AICL, I focus on data specific to American Indians.

Important to note!

This is raw data and does not address quality of books. It also does not represent all books in any given year that have Native characters or content. A good example is Little House on the Prairie. In 2010, that book was reissued with colorized images inside. It has a Native character and a great deal of Native content, but I doubt that its publisher sent it to CCBC as a "book about American Indians." And even if they had, CCBC staff may have determined the character and content were not significant enough for it to be listed as a book about American Indians.

I am very glad to have CCBC's data each year. There is much to do with it. For now, here's the data, from 2002 through 2014. Once I have the book list for 2014, I'll do some analysis similar to what I did in 2013.

Some things I want to know: Who are the authors/illustrators of those 17 books written or illustrated by American Indians? In past years, a single author (Joseph Bruchac) Update on Sep 30 2023: I (Debbie Reese) no longer recommend Bruchac's work. For details see Is Joseph Bruchac truly Abenaki?


Still, last year the number was 18, and this year it is 17. That is significant. It is the only two-year-period in which we see consistency, and it is also the highest number(s) overall. Numbers for next year will be interesting. Will we stay up at that number? Or will it skew down again?

It is also important to note that, for 2013 and 2014, we see that approximately half the books CCBC received were written or illustrated by Native people. I like that!

And of course, the numbers for 2002 and 2003 stick out (74 and 95, respectively). I need to find that list and see if I can figure out why they were so high then.

Please share your observations, calculations, etc.

Update, 3:42, Feb 18, 2015

CCBC tweeted out a chart that I want to share here, too. The chart, as you see, covers the various groups for whom CCBC keeps data. This is an especially helpful chart. Such charts should show growth over time. That is clearly not the case and is a strong indicator of work that must be done.