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14 SOCIAL JUSTICE AT STORYTIME ones, family, friends, or teachers. Promoting social justice in storytime gives children the opportunity to hear, discuss, and create narrative through engagement as well as see positive images and outcomes. Since 2018, there has been an uptick in organizations taking action toward addressing social justice issues by choosing people of diverse back- grounds as their face in advertisements for example, Colin Kaepernick for Nike, the ongoing global initiative by Barbie, or the Dream Gap Project, where they are introducing girls to women’s stories from all walks of life to show them they can be anything. This Dream Gap campaign is to combat gender bias. There are also big firms standing against immigration inequi- ties, customs issues, and more. Some may be concerned that promoting social justice in storytime is pushing personal agendas. It is not. It is devel- oping social awareness and consciousness, which leads to a strong sense of community empowerment and unification through the ability to take on different perspectives. When people are able to dispel implicit biases, it transforms into a culture of positive thought toward diverse cultures and creates spaces of acceptance and belonging. NORMALIZE CULTURAL DIVERSIT Y A social justice storytime should be a space that is welcoming and safe— a place where all feel accepted and have a voice. Social justice in storytime creates this type of environment by encouraging unity, equity, and self/ community empowerment through social justice themes, such as bullying, respectfulness, religious diversity, LGBTQ+ identity, ethnicity, diverseabil- ities, and more. To normalize cultural diversity, there have to be best practices for social justice storytime. In Chapter 6, we will discuss how embracing our com- munity can contribute to normalization through representation of charac- ters in books portraying everyday activities, fairness, respect, and kindness. These things normalize and celebrate diversity and build confidence. REFERENCES CHARACTER COUNTS!®. (1992). The Six Pillars of Character®. https:// charactercounts.org/character-counts-overview/six-pillars/ Christman, D. E. (2010). Creating social justice in early childhood education: A case study in equity and context. Journal of Research on Leadership Education, 5(3), 107–137. https://doi.org/10.1177/194277511000500304 Hamilton, R. N. (2020, September 16). Why Is Social Justice Important? Around Robin. https://www.aroundrobin.com/importance-of-social-justice/