“There is a child in a hijab, and another child uses a wheelchair.”

This sentence, or variations thereof, appears in review after review these days in describing the diversity visible in a picture-book classroom or community. Even when a protagonist is White and nondisabled, as is very often the case, their community is frequently represented as robustly diverse in race and ethnicity and, to a lesser extent, ability. These days in picture books it’s rare to see an elementary school classroom without a child in a hijab and another child in a wheelchair.

As praiseworthy as it is to include children who might very rarely have been seen in picture books as recently as 20 years ago, there can be a perfunctoriness to the gesture that flattens the very complexity the illustrator is trying to communicate.

How many of these children who use wheelchairs are in motorized wheelchairs? Very, very few—and most of the children depicted in manual wheelchairs are in conveyances that do not have visible handrims, so they are dependent on others for their mobility, which is neither empowering nor reflective of real-world children who use wheelchairs. For that matter, how many disabled kids in picture books are depicted with forearm crutches, prostheses, eye patches, or hearing aids? Crucially, how many disabled kids are depicted as children of color?

Kirkus adored Marilyn Singer and Leah Nixon’s Best Day Ever (Clarion Books, June 29) for its centering of a young boy of color who uses a wheelchair (depicted with handrims by Nixon, who uses one herself) and plays happily with his dog. But in addition to more picture books with disabled protagonists, which are grievously few, let’s also see books with thoughtful disability representation within groups. Nichola Cowdery’s illustrations for Susan Rollings’ Best Friends, Busy Friends (2020) display such consideration, as do Jessica Spanyol’s inRosa’s Big Sunflower Experiment (2020). Both of these books come from British publisher Child’s Play, a leader in inclusive disability representation.

Likewise, it’s the rare picture-book classroom that does not have a girl in a hijab. There are more kippot as well, and the occasional patka, indicating the presence of Jewish boys and Sikh boys. It’s an easily understood visual message that All Are Welcome, as in the title of Alexandra Penfold and Suzanne Kaufman’s forceful hymn to inclusion (Knopf, 2018). As we note in our review of that book, the message is “vital.”

But it seems to be aimed mostly at people who are not members of the groups being represented. Depictions of these elementary-age hijabis don’t really accord with typical Muslim practice, in which girls under the age of puberty usually do not cover their hair—not to mention the many Muslim women who do not cover. Note that the second grade protagonist of Reem Faruqi and Fahmida Azim’s Amira’s Picture Day (Holiday House, April 13) covers her hair only when she is in the masjid for Eid celebrations; when she is at school, her head is bare.And obviously, within any religious community, practices vary. Even leaving aside these variations, using these gendered signals to convey diversity erases opposite-gender and nonbinary kids of these faiths.

I get it: Picture books have very few words, and the illustrations must do a lot of heavy lifting. But can we do better than this now-stereotypical shorthand? Kids depicted wearing religious attire that they wouldn’t normally wear and children in wheelchairs they cannot move should not be the token representatives of their communities.

Vicky Smith is a young readers’ editor.