Animals Are People, Too.

A few class sessions ago, we were given Scholastic Book Club catalogs aimed at certain age groups from toddlers to middle schoolers and were told to look for similarities between the featured books. The similarity we as a group noticed that I found to be the most interesting was in the catalog geared towards children in the toddler/preschool age group.
Many of the books featured had animals as the main characters, but they did not possess animal-like qualities. They walked on two legs, spoke English to each other, went to school, drove cars, lived in houses, etc. In essence, they were human beings. Apparently, the reason behind this choice was to avoid issues of diversity. None of the animals belonged to any specific race, they were just animals. For example, all the characters in The Berenstain Bears are bears, and all of the characters in Olivia are pigs. There is no need to wonder who is supposed to be depicted as white and who is supposed to be depicted as black, and so on.
If books are published like this in hopes of avoiding controversy from older readers, such as parents, I don't think it is doing the kids much justice. Kids most likely will not be terribly offended if there are more white children than Asian American children drawn as characters in a book. They may not even notice the races of the children in the book at all. However, if they do notice a slight unbalanced representation of one race over another, that would be an excellent time to give the child a small lesson as to why everyone is equal, regardless of race.
I personally think that, while it seems benign to avoid issues of race and diversity by drawing animals in the place of people, it is actually doing a disservice to the children reading these books. Being exposed to diversity at a young age is a good thing. It makes children more aware of their surroundings and more likely to be compassionate and kind towards others, regardless of race. Basically, I think that in children's books, animals should be animals, and people should be people. Plain and simple.