About us

Our Mission

The Future Leaders Book Club is a small business with a mission to increase access to amazing children’s literature that promotes diversity and inclusion, emotional health and well-being, body positivity, and stewardship of the Earth and our communities.

We offer books for a variety of ages, that bring to the pages images and stories of diverse characters, written and illustrated BY diverse authors and illustrators.  These books will be for sale via our retail operations, but we will also bring these same researched and intentionally chosen books into the hands of children and families that may not have easy access to them.

Who are we?

Future Leaders Book Club was founded by three cousins, born and raised in Indianapolis, IN and all 3 still living in the Midwest. We are all white women, we are all mothers, raising both white children and biracial children. We are married and a single mother, we are cis-women, straight and a member of the LGBTQIA+ community. We are aware of our immense privilege afforded us all as white cis women, of the privilege of our higher education, and many other more silent privileges that run deep in our society.

As individuals we are doing the work to understand and expose our own blind spots in regards race, gender, sexual orientation, and other areas of privilege in our communities. We began Future Leaders Book Club after realizing how much intention was needed to bring content into our homes for our children that did not subtly perpetuate the deep-seated issues that are pervasive in our communities.

Our Pillars

Diversity and Inclusion

As research has shown, racism, homophobia, and sexism are all taught behaviors, sometimes unintentionally so. At FLBC we believe the best way to assist in creating a more understanding accepting world for future generations is to create positive exposure to differing cultures at an earlier age.

There are two main groups of children reading books today, those that rarely, if ever, see a positive representation of themselves and their families, and those that rarely, if ever, see positive representations of people different from themselves or their families.

We aim to bring the images and positive stories of children and families of different colors, backgrounds, and sexual orientation into the homes of children and families that historically do not see positive representation of themselves in media and desperately need to see representation in the books they read. We also aim to expose children and families of to various backgrounds unlike their own in order to promote diversity and inclusion in their homes and in our world.

Body Positivity

Images throughout our culture depict women's and men's bodies in very unrealistic ways that set unachievable standards. This starts early in books made for children and can have a deeply harmful, lifelong impact on their health and well-being. Thoughtful choice goes into the books we provide. We aim to bring positive imagery of the bodies of all people, promoting early development of body positivity, healthy living, and confidence.

Emotional Health and Well-Being

Experiencing the world for the first time is hard work. Children are constantly managing new experiences and big feelings. Learning to manage these feelings in healthy ways helps to promote lifelong emotional health.

Many books have been written to help teach our children about these new feelings they will experience. We offer books that discuss these more difficult concepts in ways that our children can understand with imagery that also promotes and celebrates diversity and inclusion.

Love of Environment and Community

Caring for the world around you and the people in your community is a key component to developing strong future leaders in this world. Books that help bring nature and the environment closer to home will help connect our children to the greater world around us and the impact we can have on it.

Learning to connect and care for our communities is a learned skill that can be cultivated early on. Creating a sense of connection and stewardship for our place in this world will be a huge foundational step for our future leaders.