After George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in May, Alli Hearne found herself looking for a way to make a difference. Hearne, who grew up in Overland Park, and now lives in Plymouth, Minnesota, just outside of Minneapolis, visited the memorial site where Floyd died, which was “a very moving experience.”
Around that same time, she was seeing a lot of diversity book lists being shared on social media. And as a PJ Library parent, she receives free Jewish books for her children each month, which lead to an idea.
“I kind of just had this epiphany moment where I thought ‘What if we could make these books accessible to more people?’” Hearne said, noting that books can be expensive to purchase and some subscription services cost $25 to $40 a month, which isn’t affordable for many.
That idea became Looking Glass Books, a nonprofit that distributes free children’s books featuring Black and Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC) so children of all races can see better representation in the books they’re reading.
“A looking glass is a mirror,” Hearne said, “so we want everyone’s bookshelf to be a better reflection of the diversity of the world.”
Lack of representation of BIPOC in children’s books is a big issue. According to the Cooperative Children’s Book Center, in 2018 there were more children’s books featuring animals as main characters than BIPOC.
Hearne recruited her sister-in-law, Overland Park resident Lisa Stolper, and they began laying the groundwork for Looking Glass Books. Over the summer they met virtually with multiple people who work at the national level for PJ Library and Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, which PJ Library is modeled after.
“I’m not sure we would have been able to connect with so many people in a non-COVID world, because everyone has been so accessible via Zoom,” Stolper said. “It made it really easy for us to connect with each other as well as connect with other people.”
Hearne, who works for General Mills, posted about their idea on several internal employee message boards focused on diversity and found volunteers to serve on their board. They also partnered with Propel Nonprofits, a company based in Minneapolis that provides training and coaching and acts as a fiscal sponsor to new nonprofits awaiting approval of their tax-exempt status. (Looking Glass is currently in the process of getting its nonprofit status approved.)
Having a fiscal sponsor allows Looking Glass to accept tax-deductible donations while it waits for its nonprofit status to be granted. Hearne and Stolper had to apply for fiscal sponsorship; Looking Glass was one of only two nonprofit startups in their application round selected by Propel.
“We felt really lucky and proud to be selected.” Hearne said.
Their initial goal is to send four books to 50 families throughout the upcoming year, which they’ve estimated will cost $10,000. They currently have raised almost enough money for the first pilot program, donated from people who’ve visited the Looking Glass website, people they know, and friends of friends. They are in the process of researching and applying for grants to raise more money.
Looking Glass Books hopes to send the first book out to families in January. They currently have 10 to 15 families signed up – mostly people Hearne knows – and are working to recruit more, particularly BIPOC families. They are looking for organizations in the Twin Cities to partner with, and hope to eventually work with schools and libraries to find participants. That has been a challenge this year, as many schools and libraries are closed or limited in terms of their programming.
“We’re really trying to make an effort hoping to get these books where they’re supposed to be,” she said. “We want to make sure we have a diverse group of people signed up to receive the books.”
There are several reasons why Hearne chose books as the way to reach children.
Books are visual and reading them together is already a family ritual for many. Books are a great medium for facilitating a conversation, she said, and it’s something where it’s easy to ask questions and have a dialogue with your child around the subject. Looking Glass has set several criteria for its books, including cultural integrity, cultural education and representation.
“A lot of books may have diverse characters, but they’re written by a white author, and illustrated by a white illustrator, so we wanted it to be more authentic,” Stolper said. “We also want the books to be more representative of the cultures that they’re depicting, we wanted it to be a true representation rather than a stereotypical representation.”
Every book selected must be age appropriate as well. Both mothers of young children, Hearne and Stolper decided to initially target children in kindergarten through second grade, so they could reach children at a young age. (According to the Looking Glass website, children begin to show racial attitudes and biases by age 4.) They want to eventually expand the program to include more age ranges and offer different books for each age range.
Hearne and Stolper are also working on building a curriculum and supplemental materials around the books, and creating programming. Those will include events (virtual for now) like story time and parent discussion groups, and possibly craft kits to send along with the books.
“We think it’s really important to foster that dialogue, both within the family and within the community. We want to be able to connect people around these books through programming,” Hearne said.
The pilot program will be available only to families living in Twin Cities, but Hearne and Stolper hope to bring Looking Glass Books to Kansas City by next school year. Although it’s just the beginning for Looking Glass Books, Hearne said she’s proud of what they’ve accomplished so far and is excited to see what the future holds.
“This has been a really tumultuous year for many reasons and we’re hoping that this will be one small, good thing that will come out of it that will hopefully make the world a little bit better,” she said.
If you’d like to learn more about Looking Glass Books, sign up for their email and waiting lists, or make a donation, visit www.lookingglassbooks.org. You can also find them on Facebook at facebook.com/LookingGlassBooksNonprofit.