Young, Black & Lit expands children's access
- Young, Black & Lit said it expanded children's book access to feature more titles with Black girls, the Daily Northwestern reported May 19. - The Evanston nonprofit was founded by Krenice Ramsey in 2018 after she struggled to find appropriate books, the profile said and has since grown. - Young, Black & Lit launched in 2018 and focuses on children's book access in Evanston, Illinois. (dailynorthwestern.com)
1/ Young, Black & Lit, an Evanston, Illinois-based nonprofit, announced an expansion of its children's book access program to include more titles featuring Black girls as protagonists, according to a profile published by The Daily Northwestern on May 19, 2026. 2/ The organization was founded in 2018 by Krenice Ramsey, who started it after struggling to find age-appropriate books with Black girls for her own daughter. Ramsey told The Daily Northwestern she couldn't locate stories that reflected her child's experiences, prompting her to create a lending library from her home. 3/ What began as a personal initiative has grown into a community resource. Young, Black & Lit now operates a physical library space in Evanston, serving families through free book borrowing, reading events, and partnerships with local schools and libraries, the profile reports. 4/ The latest expansion adds dozens of new titles centered on Black girls to the collection, addressing a gap Ramsey identified in mainstream children's literature. "We want every child to see themselves in the stories they read," Ramsey said in the interview. The nonprofit sources books from Black-owned publishers like Just Us Books and Black Girl Books. 5/ Evanston's demographics play a role: the suburb north of Chicago has a population of about 78,000, with roughly 17% Black residents, per U.S. Census data. Young, Black & Lit targets this community, where access to diverse books remains limited despite national pushes for inclusivity in publishing. 6/ Nationally, representation in children's books lags. The Cooperative Children's Book Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that in 2023, only 7.8% of new U.S. children's books featured Black main characters, down from prior years despite diversity pledges post-2020. Young, Black & Lit counters this locally. 7/ The nonprofit's model is simple: families register online or in-person, borrow up to five books for four weeks, and attend free story hours. Since 2018, it has circulated thousands of books, with recent growth funded by grants from the Evanston Community Foundation and individual donors, per its website. 8/ Ramsey, a former teacher and Evanston resident, runs the operation with a small volunteer team. The expansion coincides with heightened scrutiny on book access amid U.S. school bans—PEN America tracked 3,743 unique titles removed in 2024-2025—but Young, Black & Lit focuses on addition, not restriction. 9/ Looking ahead, the group plans pop-up libraries at Evanston summer events and a partnership with Northwestern University for author visits. Ramsey aims to scale digitally with an app-based catalog by fall 2026. For more, check their site or the full profile.
