Look closely at popular contemporary media, cartoons and many made for TV shows for our youngest viewers. Have you noticed that many shows feature four to six young heroes, all boys, with only one girl character? Until very recently all Paw Patrol episodes featured only “Sky” as the sole doggie on a mission. Why is this? We might look to a long legacy of female tokenism as an explanation for current media narratives in children’s fiction. In the original “I can read!” Fancy Nancy books from the early 2000s “Fancy Nancy” seems to have one token black friend, Bre, who follows along with everything the protagonist does and says.

Learn more about how Louise Derman-Sparks pointed it out in her many writings as well as how to spot tokenism in children’s literature. This interactive multi-media video inspired by Derman-Sparks was co-produced by Ashley Causey-Golden and THENCE.