Personalization effects on child involvement during shared book reading: Do children of color benefit most?

Personalization of children’s books may provide an interesting opportunity for all children to find themselves in stories. Here, we investigate the differential impact of personalization on minority groups, such as children of color, focusing on their involvement during shared book reading. We hypothesized that a personalized book has a particularly great impact on the involvement of children of color since this group of children is still underrepresented in children’s books. Eighty kindergarten children participated (n = 33 personalized book condition). Parents configured (i.e., personalized) the main character of the book (name of character, and physical appearance, including skin color). Children were then classified as light-skinned (n = 50) vs. dark-skinned (n = 30) based on parents’ ratings. A personalized or traditional copy of the book (block-randomization) was read to each child individually and various questions regarding children’s understanding of the story were asked. The whole session was video-taped and transcribed and later coded for behavioral and verbal involvement. ANOVAs revealed significant main effects of personalization on story retelling, and text comprehension, as well as verbal and behavioral involvement. The interaction with skin color was significant for behavioral and verbal involvement, suggesting that for these variables only children of color benefited from personalization (for interactive behavioral involvement both groups showed personalization effects, however, children of color benefited more). Finally, perceived underrepresentation did not moderate these effects. This is the first study to report personalization effects in a specific group of children, i.e., dark-skinned children, and thus provides valuable insights into the role of personalization in children’s books.