Resumen:
This research addresses ethnic-racial relations in children's books offered for basic education. The focus of the study is understanding how ethnic-racial relations have been addressed in children's books aimed at children in the early years of elementary school. Within the scope of ethnic-racial relations, the study examines the cultures of Black people who emerged in the African diaspora in Brazil. The study aims to investigate how ethnic-racial themes are addressed in children's literary books made available by the 2023 National Book and Teaching Material Program. To this end, the study maps children's books approved by the 2023 Literary PNLD; analyzes ethnic-racial themes in the books located; and finally, categorizes the works based on the authors' approaches. Thus, it concludes that the literature offered for basic education is still strongly guided by traditional, hegemonic, white values, which do not reflect the reality of children in public schools in Brazil. We also believe this result can be attributed to the lack of a relevant place for literature in the school curriculum. Even with the limited guidance available in official documents on literature, we conclude that there are contradictions between what education laws stipulate and what is actually being implemented. Therefore, children end up having access to literary works that fail to motivate them to be critical and to formulate their own conceptions of social inequalities and the hierarchical structure of cultures and peoples in Brazil
