Portrayal of Characters with Dyslexia in Contemporary Children’s Fiction Picture Books

The purpose of this mixed methods critical content analysis was to identify fiction picture books containing characters with dyslexia and to examine the depiction of the characters. In general, the fifty-nine fictional picture books analyzed in this study captured the immense mental stress and challenges faced by children with dyslexia, particularly in the school setting. However, some themes are problematic, including ableist messaging, portrayals of the characters as highly misbehaved, and the message that dyslexia can be cured swiftly and entirely. In addition, dyslexic characters were portrayed negatively in illustrations much more often than non-dyslexic characters, and the written text included more instances of negative character descriptors.