Post Scriptum: What Critical Literacy Means to Me Now

As a lawyer with some familiarity with the area of Critical Legal Studies (CLS), I came to this class with some expectation that Critical Literacy would entail deconstructing texts to examine issues such as bias, power, agency, and reader positioning, essentially approaching literature in the way that CLS approaches jucicial opinions. Over the course of the semester, I have broadened my thinking about Critical Literacy to take into account its focus on reading for social action -- the notion that examining issues of bias without taking remedial action may be tantamount to enabling or perpetuating the bias. CLS has a similar focus on using law as a tool for social change, but I hadn't really thought about how that might play out in Critical Literacy when I began this class. While I see enormous value in empowering children to take social action, I have to say that I also believe that there is great benefit in the awareness-raising and attitude-modification that can come from "mere" examination of and deconstruction of texts; I would not subscribe to the more extreme position that all discovery of bias and inequity must lead to a social action project in order to be meaningful.

As a writer, and in a vein that has more to do with flavor than contours, I have to say that I've really appreciated Vivian's continual effort to remind us that literature always provides an opportunity to "create space" for various discussions, and that teachers need not, and, in fact, probably should not, come to such discussions with predetermined talking points; our role should rather be that of facilitators, helping students to find the answers -- and questions -- that resonate for them, both collectively and as individuals. Thus, books like Into the Forest, with ambiguous, or perhaps not fully realized, messages can nonetheless be wonderful vehicles for discussion in the critical literacy spirit.

Through the course, I've also developed a greater appreciation for the importance of what I'll call "literary enfranchisement" in the classroom -- the notion that it is not only valuable but critical for students to be see their own experiences and identities reflected positively in both the stories and the authorship of the books that surround them and inform their learning.

Vivian is a lovely person and a delightful teacher :) This class was definitely the highlight of the MAT program for me. Thank you!

Media Research

I have to confess that I watch so little TV that the one example I came across of a children's literature theme in the TV media was almost twenty years old -- from a recorded episode of "The Wonder Years" that aired in 1989. The commercial, for Huggies diapers, featured Sleeping Beauty, a two-year old who had been asleep in her royal crib for about a hundred years and was finally woken by the arrival of Prince Charming, a two-year old boy bearing the gift of Huggies leak-proof diapers. Apparently, in bringing Sleeping Beauty the diapers, Prince Charming fulfilled the girl's ideal of happiness.

I was a bit skeptical about how a girl with a leaking diaper would have been able to sleep through the night, much less for a hundred years, but the tongue-in-cheek message of the ad was clear: life begins (again) when a girl meets the prince who can rescue her from adversity, and the prince in such cases is well-advised to consult commercial sources in the pursuit of material, and romantic, success.

It would be interesting to compare the commercials of that era with modern commercials, but I just don't watch any prime time TV, and CNN and MSNBC don't seem to run commercials with kiddie lit themes. Looking at the reports of my peers, however, it seems, that princess themes are alive and well, but also counterbalanced in some instances by edgier messages that deconstruct or at least pull at the edges of the traditional themes.

Interview with a Classroom Teacher

For this assignment, I interviewed a good friend who is a gifted and inspiring teacher of 2nd and 3rd grade public school students in California. Her teaching philosophy is rooted in the Whole Language movement, with a focus on high-quality literature and integration of literacy skills into all areas of the curriculum. With a mixed grade classroom, she is a proponent of small reading groups and shared reading, with an emphasis on reading for meaning and building and sharing connections, which the children journal about in their "literature logs." She highly recommended The Reading Teacher as a source for literature study ideas.

In my friend's classroom, the school supplies the books, which I find interesting, since in DC it seems that teachers are required to build their own libraries from scratch, for the most part. She characterized her library as reflecting diversity of ideas as well as of authorship and characters, but she did say that her primary focus is always on high-quality literature, with diversity playing only a secondary role in book selection.

My friend's mother was a longtime kindergarten teacher in Phoenix before her recent retirement. One of the things that she did with her students was to send books home with children, along with a list of questions to begin discussing with parents. The goal, central to the Whole Language approach, was to stimulate a love of literature and to build a positive foundation of questioning and discussing books in the search for meaning. A concern that I have with this sort of approach is whether, in a socioeconomically diverse community, it has the potential for exacerbating the built-in head start that certain children have when their families place a premium on education and are in a position to offer this sort of after-school support. In DC there would certainly be many students whose parents would not be able to participate in this kind of activity, and it seems important to me to maximize the learning that occurs within the school environment, where children are more ostensibly on an equal footing in terms of their access to resources, including adult time.

As I look forward, towards the time when I have my own classroom, I know that I will strive to the greatest extent that I can, consistent with the needs of the curriculum, to incorporate the many insights and lessons of the Whole Language philosophy, which, interestingly, shares with the Critical Literacy movement a broad view of "text." As I discussed in my banned books entry, I view literature as a powerful tool in shaping ideas -- much more so than the cold pages of textbooks. While Tarry Lindquist makes a powerful case in Seeing the Whole Through Social Studies for relying more heavily on nonfiction, as a way of integrating learning and creating cross-curricular connections, as a writer, I would be very sorry to see fiction leave the classroom. Like my friend, my first priority in book selection would always be to choose high-quality literature, which is apt to be more motivating to students as well as to offer richer, more multifaceted opportunities for learning and teaching. I have come to see in this class, however, that it will be critically important not only to talk about issues of authorship and positioning but also to offer children regular exposure to literature that reflects their experience in a meaningful way, which is consistent with Constructivist teachings. Diversity will accordingly also be an important consideration as I build my classroom library.

Banned Books

It was very interesting to look at the lists of banned or challenged books at the ALA website. Many are books that I was required or encouraged to read as a child; many are books that my son, in private school, is required to read now, and still others are books that I sought out on my own. One thing they all share, to my chagrin, is that I have failed to retain a strong enough command of them to feel able to discuss intelligently the reasons that they are challenged or the value -- or harm -- that they might hold for today's students. That having been said, here are some reflections on a few of the more prominent titles on the lists.

At the moment, my son is reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which was one of my favorite books in high school. I didn't have time to reread the book myself in preparation for this class, but I did read Wallace Stegner's thoughtful introduction to one edition, written in 1960, and I'm looking forward to discussing the story with my son from a critical literacy standpoint as he digs further into the book.

Another favorite that I was worried about revisiting is Uncle Tom's Cabin. I know that, as a child and teen, I was drawn to books that explored the terrible injustices of slavery and, I think, managed to bring my own critical literacy reading to books like Uncle Tom that, by modern standards, may be regarded as complicit in perpetuating harmful stereotypes. One thing that I took away from all of these books was a powerful feeling that slavery was America's Holocaust -- a gaping abyss from which our nation may take many centuries to recover. It's possible that I was influenced without knowing it by the offensive stereotypes in these novels, but I have to believe that the dividends that I gained from reading them, in the form of deep human compassion and a very palpable sense of grief and pain over this part of our past are things that I could not have picked up from the cold pages of history books. While I do appreciate the reasons for the recent backlash against Uncle Tom, I hope that, over time, the book will be remembered more for its pivotal role in galvanizing popular feeling against slavery prior to the Civil War than for some of the unfortunate stereotypes it employs that seem so glaring and distasteful when examined under a modern spotlight.

Another old favorite that seems to figure prominently on banned book lists is To Kill a Mockingbird. This wonderful story, by Harper Lee, was required reading in my favorite year of school -- 5th grade. It was also one of my favorite books of all time. I assume that it's challenged because of the allegations of rape and the theme of family violence. While I think there's room for legitimate discussion about whether 5th grade is the ideal year to be reading a story with so many adult themes, I really can't see any legitimate grounds for keeping it out of the curriculum altogether. Madonna's trashy, self-exploitative Sex, on the other hand, I have read and am completely comfortable keeping out of school libraries.

Cinderella and Friends

I'm very sorry to have to miss tonight's class, in which we begin discussing Cinderella narratives. Cinderella is an issue very close to my heart on many levels -- so much so, in fact, that it forms part of the chorus of one of my songs, "Hollow Victory."

As a mother of young children, I always sought to expose my children to high-quality literature while sheltering them from narrative suggestive of stereotypes. At the same time, I recognized that there is, as Vivian has discussed, "cultural capital" in familiarity with popular stories, both within and across generations, so I didn't want to avoid the classic children's stories entirely.

Instead of Jack and the Beanstalk, we read Mary Pope Osborne's Kate and the Beanstalk, and my children's first association with beanstalks will always be that of a headstrong, brave, and perhaps reckless girl determined to save her family and right a wrong. Another interesting retelling of a traditional story is Virginia Hamilton's The Girl Who Spun Gold, a Caribbean spin on Rumpelstiltskin, featuring a father afflicted with hubris and a daughter blessed with the cunning and humor to redeem at least part of his mistake. One of the great pleasures of reading this story, for someone who loves language and accents, as I do, is trying to read it in the lyrical Caribbean voice in which it was written.

We have several Cinderella retellings in our home library, but one that has always had a special place in my heart is Erica Silverman's Raisel's Riddle. Raisel takes place in long-ago Poland, where the poor granddaughter of a Talmud scholar is forced to find her own way in the world during the harsh winter in which her "zaydeh" dies. She finds work as a housekeeper in a rabbi's home, over the objections of his head housekeeper, who is determined to make Raisel's days miserable and to thwart any social contact between Raisel and the rabbi's family.

The Cinderella parallels in Raisel are strong, as Raisel is granted three wishes by a magical woman in repayment for her kindness and uses her wishes to attend a Purim party in the costume of Queen Esther. Although Esther's story is not retold in the book, it bears note that Esther was a Jewish woman in ancient Persia who risked her life by standing up to her king and his advisor to save her people.

Raisel does offer marriage as the basis for salvation from hardship -- perhaps as an homage to the traditional Cinderella narrative, or perhaps just in recognition of the fact that most hardships are borne more easily in a context of love and partnership -- a point minimized by counternarratives like Princess Smartypants. In a twist that improves upon stories like Princess Smartypants, however, Raisel does not peddle attractiveness as the key factor in determining a woman's marriage prospects. Although the wise and kind rabbi's son does comment on how lovely Raisel looks in her Queen Esther costume, her true appeal for him lies in her wisdom and interest in learning. Best of all, her answer to his ultimate query is not a foregone conclusion.

Children's Literature Web Sites

Looking for good children’s literature websites was a frustrating exercise! If it weren’t for the fact that I’ve actually searched for good children’s literature sites in vain before, I would have been truly shocked at the paucity of such online resources (or at least their weak claim to Googling). I went through a couple of pages of Google results using separate searches for “Children’s Literature,” “Children’s Books,” and “Critical Literacy” and was really disappointed in what I came up with. Maybe my classmates will have had better success. I’ll look forward to reading their blogs and finding out. Meanwhile, here’s my rather dreary list.

Database of Award-Winning Children’s Literature: A+

http://www.dawcl.com/



This was the one find that I was really jazzed about. The stated purpose of this non-subscription website, maintained by CSU, San Bernardino librarian Lisa R. Bartle, is “to create a tailored reading list of quality children's literature” as an aid to help librarians, teachers, and parents guide child-readers. To our enormous collective benefit, Ms. Bartle is “deeply committed to the idea of providing information for free.”

The coolest thing about the site is that it allows users to search the database not only by award, genre, and book format, but also by reference to elements such as the ethnicity, nationality, and gender of the protagonist, whether the book is multicultural (defined as including two or more cultures interacting), and the use of languages other than English. As a result and by way of example, I was able to locate in moments 20 award-winning picture books with female Native American protagonists. The book blurbs were simple summaries, rather than reviews, and there was no explicit discussion of critical literacy, but the site’s search engine creates a powerful tool for teachers to create inclusive classrooms and launch critical literacy discussions. I love this site!!

Fact Monster: All About Books: B-

http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0768701.html?utm_source=google&utm_medium=ppc&utm_campaign=books&gclid=CJT17JKohZYCFQ8QagodNCFvEg

This site is very kid-friendly. It has many different recommended lists of books, including best sellers by year (5 years only, plus “all-time”), teachers’ top 100, kids’ top 100, books with girl characters (be warned – Amelia Bedelia is included here under “novels”), and one of the more substantive categorizations – books by award (with subcategories for several different awards going back 30-86 years in some cases). Like most of the other sites I came across, this one was thin substantively. Except for the award lists, its indexing was so general as to be almost useless as a tool for choosing a book for a particular topic or age group. I upgraded it to a B- from a C only because of its special appeal and accessibility to child-users.

Carol Hurst’s Children’s Literature Site: C+

http://www.carolhurst.com/

This site describes itself as “a collection of reviews of great books for kids, ideas of ways to use them in the classroom and collections of books and activities about particular subjects, curriculum areas, themes and professional topics.” I found the site’s promise to be only marginally fulfilled, with good depth in some areas and huge gaps in others. An initially promising section entitled “Looking Critically at Picture Books” turned out not to be about critical literacy at all but seemingly about having children look closely at pictures for meaning. The exercise was at once rote and odd – not something I’d be in a hurry to do with children.

About.com: Children’s Books: C

http://childrensbooks.about.com/

A subset of the greater About.com world, the purpose of this site, as described by its administrator, Elizabeth Kennedy, is to help those “who work with children and value children’s literature” locate the children’s books and other online resources best suited to the children in their world. The site struck me as thin on substance and heavy on advertising. There are many interesting topics discussed on the forum – this month, for example, the site is highlighting the issue of Cinderella stories, but the discussions typically don’t have the depth that I’d like to see. The Cinderella article, for example, discusses the elements of a Cinderella story and provides sources for locating multi-cultural Cinderella stories, but it neglects entirely the critical literacy issues surrounding the Cinderella paradigm and omits any reference (that I could find, at least) to counter-narratives.

Library Visit

It seems apt to begin this entry with a confession: I don’t like public libraries much. In fact, I tend to avoid them. When I want to browse, I head to a bookstore ten times out of ten and will generally buy something used on Amazon before checking it out of the library. Between the dreariness of the atmosphere, the often supercilious attitudes of the librarians, the inscrutability of the collections, and the poor condition of the books, public libraries tend to depress me; bookstores, on the other hand, lift my spirits. Go figure.

That having been said, Chevy Chase’s library, on Connecticut Avenue, NW, between McKinley and Northampton, is no exception. I’ll begin by addressing the questions posed in our syllabus and then highlight a few of the more interesting books that I was able to find.

The children’s section at CC library occupies the entire second floor of the building. It is well-lighted, clean, and spacious, with ample tables for studying or perusing, if one can tolerate the free-for-all vocal stylings of the library’s youngest patrons. (I don’t do this well.) On the day that I went, there were astonishingly few displays. The central display, on elections, was in a glass case at the center of the room, facing the stairwell. In that display, two of approximately ten books dealt with topics of concern in this class: Madam President: The Extraordinary, True (and Evolving) Story of Women in Politics, by Catherine Thimmesh, and Elizabeth Leads the Way: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the Right to Vote, by Tanya Lee Stone. I’ll discuss these in greater detail below, but for now I’ll just note that both books were interesting and substantive, unlike the cheesy new picture book Madam President that I wrote about in my bookstore entry. A careful search of the room revealed only two other displays – a haphazardly organized table on gardening and a bookshelf that appeared to me to have no discernible theme. The rest of the books were organized according to the good old Dewey Decimal System, tucked away on shelves or, in rare cases, in picture book bins.

As a result of the way that the library is organized, it’s impossible to answer most of Vivian’s questions with any degree of confidence. I have no idea whether there were an appropriate number of books on a satisfactory range of topics, whether the authorship of the books was diverse, or whether they employed cultural stereotypes. When I told the librarian why I was there and asked about books on social issues or dealing with diverse cultures, she took exception to the term “social issues,” pointing out that that could cover any topic from adoption to transgender issues. She explained with great forbearance that there was no single place where such books were collected and directed me to the 100s and 300s section of the nonfiction, where I came across books on animal rights, astrology, and the Great Depression, among other topics. Nestled between these two sections was the 200s section, which contained books on religion. When I tried to plumb the question further, the librarian informed me that librarians go to school to learn the Dewey Decimal system and brought out a number of posters to help me correlate numbers with topics. She also referred me to the online card catalog.

The upshot of this experience was that I had the chance to survey a somewhat random smattering of books on social issues but concluded that the books are chiefly accessible to either those who are very motivated to uncover them or those who are focused at the outset of their search. The library does not do much to meet people halfway in stretching their consciousness about different issues or cultures, though it may well support those already engaged in that pursuit.

The library does not seem to be especially influenced by its location in wealthy, liberal-leaning Chevy Chase, except perhaps in the fact that it is clean and well-lighted. Rather, it seems more to be a product of a city government that tends to be entrenched and weary, not actively searching for new ideas. The librarian was quick to note, when discussing the election collection, that, while the library does have on its shelves children’s books on both Obama and Clinton (which were, interestingly, not included in the elections display case), it does not have any on McCain.

Here are a few of the more interesting books that I came across in my search for books on social issues and representing diverse cultures:

Pink and Say, Patricia Polacco



This book was in a picture bin and just happened to be “displayed” by virtue of the fact that someone had set it down in an empty section. The story is about two teenaged boys – both Union soldiers – one white and one a former slave. Although it’s a picture book, the story is text-heavy and deals with difficult subjects, including the Confederate execution of an innocent teen as well as the murder of the boy’s mother. It’s definitely not appropriate for very young children, but it would be appealing to older elementary and middle school-aged children. In vintage Polacco style, the book takes important social topics – slavery, the Civil War, and race relations – and treats them in an intimate, personal way, ultimately drawing a meaningful personal connection, as so many of Polacco’s books do, between the author and the characters in the story.

Madam President: The Extraordinary, True (and Evolving) Story of Women in Politics, by Catherine Thimmesh



Unlike the cheesy book by the same title that I wrote about in my bookstore entry, this book, part of the children’s section’s central glass display case, actually attempts to take a meaningful look at the issue of women’s participation in governance around the world. Although not comprehensive by any stretch, it does highlight the fact that women have achieved much higher levels of participation in governance in other countries (67, to be specific) than they have in the U.S. It also notes that the U.S. has lost ground in this area over the past twenty years, falling from the 52nd position to 68th.

The book artfully intersperses a dialogue between two young female characters about the quest of one girl to be president with informative, two-page profiles of women who have broken barriers in U.S. politics, as well as abroad. I learned, for example, that FDR had the first woman cabinet member in U.S. History – Frances Perkins, Secretary of Labor. At the back of the book is an interesting, if incomplete, timeline of women’s achievements in government with a focus on the U.S.

Elizabeth Leads the Way: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the Right to Vote, by Tanya Lee Stone



This book, featured in the central glass display case and tailored to a younger audience than Madam President, begins with a very direct and engaging question: “What would you do if someone told you you can’t be what you want to be because you are a girl?” Using succinct and on-point text interspersed with attractive and inviting pictures, the book chronicles the life of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, offering even very young readers compelling insights into Mrs. Cady Stanton’s life, from a childhood in which her father often told her that it was a shame, given her talents, that she wasn’t a boy to her reading of the “Declaration of Rights and Sentiments” at the 1948 Seneca Falls Convention that she spearheaded.

Children of the Great Depression, Russell Freedman



This beautiful book was tucked away on a shelf in the 300s section and caught my attention because my podcast deals with the Great Depression. Written for upper elementary and older children, the book combines a textual account of the experiences of children in the Depression with some of the gorgeous, haunting photos taken by Russell Lee and other FSA photographs to document the Depression. The book is effective in its effort to help today’s children understand the experience of their counterparts in the 1930s, supplementing photos and text with things like charts comparing the prices of typical items in the 1930s with other charts outlining typical salaries and wages of the era.

Rights for Animals?, Deidre Rochford



I wish I’d checked to see whether this book was shelved in Dewey’s “Controversial Knowledge” section or the “Ethics” section (001.9 and the 170s, respectively). It seemed to be in that general neighborhood. The book caught my attention immediately, as my children and I are vegetarians who avoid meat on grounds of conscience. The book seemed to present a fairly balanced view of the issues surrounding cosmetic, agricultural, medical, and other uses of animals without actually taking a position. For example, it pointed out that “[s]ome people think breeding animals for meat is an inefficient way to feed the world when 11 million children die of hunger each year: For every 20 pounds (10 kg) of grain fed to animals, only 2 pounds (1kg) are converted to meat. On average, a meat eater’s diet uses twice as much land as a vegetarian’s, and good land is scarce throughout the world.” On the other hand, it noted issues surrounding the growing of grains and vegetables without manure as a fertilizer and concluded, somewhat abruptly, that “it is not yet possible for the world to be vegan.” Notwithstanding its shortcomings, the book had effective photographs and fairly solid text for a book geared toward an upper elementary or middle school-aged audience – sort of a neutral, junior introduction to vegetarianism for children too young for Animal Liberation.

Reflection Point 2.6

Having waxed prolific in my last entry, I'm going to keep this one very brief. I thought that David took the Nike issue as far as he sensibly could or should have. Between the research, surveys, graphs, maps, charts, posters, logs, alternative ads, and letters to the CEO, I really think they covered Nike as well as they could, and I honestly don't think much would have been gained by going further there.

Rather than going deeper with Nike's campaigns, I think it might have been profitable to encourage children to look for other ways that advertising positions people to think about (or simply absorb) ideas about class and money. Even more broadly, it's fascinating to look at who the target markets are for different ad campaigns and what this tells us.

When my son was a baby -- a year old or so -- he was mesmerized by the Joe Camel cigarette billboards. More than any other kind of advertising, these billboards caught his attention. I found it infuriating that this peddler of harmful products was reaching out and trying to grab my child's heart -- successfully! This would be a very interesting issue to consider with children, so many of whom shockingly still grow up to become smokers.

Another advertising issue that has always bothered me, as a mother, is the marketing of Huggies "Little Swimmers" diapers. These diapers are not appropriate for swimming in any sense other than that they don't absorb a lot of water and become heavy; therefore, a parent has less baby to hold up in the water. They are not sanitary at all, allowing fecal matter to leak right out into the water and potentially spread harmful E. Coli bacteria. The fact that the company is allowed to get away with marketing these products as swim diapers is infuriating, and, while not a social issue in the traditional divisionist sense, is certainly a public health issue.

Observations in a Local Bookstore

This assignment called on us to visit a local a local bookstore for 75 minutes and record our observations on how well the store integrates books representing diverse cultures and highlighting social issues like racism and sexism.

I have to begin this entry by saying that the children’s section of Politics and Prose is perhaps my favorite indoor venue in the Washington Metropolitan Area. Being required to spend 75 minutes there was a treat – something I used to do often when my kids were younger and do all too infrequently now. As I engaged in my observation, I was especially grateful for two things – first, the 75-minute target, which stretched into 90 minutes easily before I even looked at my watch, and second, the fact that my kids are older now – 13 and 11. Five years ago, I would have walked out of this observation considerably poorer. With older kids, I felt able to “bookmark” some of my finds for future consideration.

I found the literary environment at Politics and Prose very inclusive, which didn’t surprise me given its reputation as an intellectual hub and its location just south of liberal-leaning Chevy Chase, DC. Immediately before me as I walked into the children’s section were prominent seasonal displays of picture books on Ramadan and Islam, as well as the fall Jewish holidays – Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Sukkot. At the author events table We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball, by Kadir Nelson, was featured almost front-and-center, and on the new picture book shelf was Rapunzel’s Revenge, by Shannon and Dean Hale, a very long comic-style counter-narrative to Rapunzel and many of the other traditional fairy tales.

The rotating new literature book rack, designed to feature new children’s literature in hardcover, included a book about a female president as well as a book with very obviously African characters on its cover. Closer examination of the first, Madam President, by Lane Smith, showed it to be a little girl’s humorous fantasy about the role she might one day assume. Much as we all probably find the idea of a woman executive topical, I wasn’t crazy about the execution in this case. The book was weak on both story and illustrations, and the humor was very much Washington-insider. I had mixed feelings about the African-themed book, The Fisherman and His Wife, by Rachel Isadora. Ms. Isadora is a white woman who lived in Africa for ten years and whose literary focus is in telling or retelling fairy tales in an African setting. Her illustrations are absolutely gorgeous and, to my eye at least, portray African characters in a beautiful way. The Fisherman was about a humble, accommodating husband and his greedy, overbearing wife. While the theme of strong women may represent a cultural reduction in some people’s eyes, the story was taken from the Brothers Grimm and, to my mind, was more a timeless parable than a stereotype. My chief complaint was that the language didn’t match the beauty of the pictures.

Walking around the store, I was struck by the fact that virtually every section highlighted books that either addressed social issues directly or focused on characters from diverse cultures. By way of example, the novel section displayed The Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963, by African-American Newberry-winner Christopher Paul Curtis, and Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry, by African-American author Mildred Taylor (featuring a photo of African-American children on the front cover and a back “blurb” discussing racism and the importance of land in holding a family together); the poetry section displayed a book entitled Hip Hop Speaks to Children: A Celebration of Poetry with a Beat, edited by Nikki Giovanni and including an audio CD that tracks the poems; the biography section displayed My Heart Glow: Alice Cogswell, Thomas Gallaudet, and the Birth of American Sign Language, by Emily Arnold McCully, At Her Majesty’s Request: An African Princess in Victorian England, by Walter Dean Myers, and She Touched the World: Laura Bridgman, Deaf-Blind Pioneer, by Sally Hobart Alexander; the geography section displayed a book entitled What the World Eats, by Faith D’Aluisio (a book about different cultures and their cuisine); the world history section displayed Sea Queens: Women Pirates Around the World, by Jane Yolen (author of Owl Moon) and Let’s Talk About Race, a well-intentioned but less-than-engagingly executed picture book by Jewish African-American author Julius Lester; the American history section displayed The Devil on Trial: Witches, Anarchists, Atheists, Communists, and Terrorists in America’s Courtrooms, by Phillip Margulies (examining the role of justice in some of our nation’s most notorious trials), As Good As Anybody: Martin Luther King, Jr. and Abraham Joshua Heschel’s Amazing March Toward Freedom, by Richard Michelson, and Students on Strike: Jim Crow, Civil Rights, Brown and Me, a memoir by white author John A. Stokes; the fine arts section featured Art from Her Heart: Folk Artist Clementine Hunter, by Kathy Whitehead (about a self-taught African-American artist who earned artistic acclaim within her own lifetime but was prevented by segregation laws from attending her own exhibits) and Painting the Wild Frontier: The Art and Adventures of George Catlin, by Susanna Reich (about a white artist who dedicated his life to meeting and painting many of the native peoples of the Western Hemisphere). The one that was hardest for me to resist was not displayed but tucked in next to the Clementine Hunter book. It was entitled Story Painter: the Life of Jacob Lawrence, by John Duggleby, and it was a gorgeous book that paired many of Lawrence’s seminal paintings with fairly lengthy accounts of his personal and artistic journey.

Unfortunately for me, I reached my personal favorite section – children’s picture books – last and was, therefore, able to give it only a cursory survey. A few books that caught my attention as I passed through were Thunder Rose, by Jerdine Nolen and Kadir Nelson (a story about an African-American cowgirl heroine that opened with the promising line, “Rose was the first child born free and easy to Jackson and Millicent MacGruder.”), Red Butterfly: How a Princess Smuggled the Secret of Silk Out of China, by Deborah Noyes, The Origami Master, by Nathaniel Lachenmeyer and Aki Sogabe, and two more books by Rachel Isadora featuring African children on their covers.

In conclusion, the store did a very good job of highlighting a wide selection of books both by and about a diverse range of people and important social issues. Some author/illustrator repetition was present, though probably inevitable (Walter Dean Myers, Kadir Nelson, Rachel Isadora). A few groups were notably absent from the displays; these included Latinos, poor people, those with physical disabilities, and, to some extent, Native Americans, including the Inuit. There were books involving these groups on the shelves, but none were on display this particular evening. I didn’t see negative stereotypes at play in the books I examined, but I did notice that in a few, though certainly not all, cases books about members of non-white ethnic groups were authored by white writers, Rachel Isadora being the most prominent example. I would have been interested to see how others reacted to her illustrations -- whether they were struck more by their beauty or by their stereotypical aspects (like crazy hair on the cover of The Princess and the Pea).

Three ancillary points warrant mention. The children’s section featured two inviting wall posters – one featuring a multi-ethnic group of children and the statement “Lift Every Voice and Read,” over the Coretta Scott King Book Awards insignia, and another featuring the cover of the book Jazz, about Louis Armstrong, by Walter Dean Myers, a prolific African-American children’s book author. These were at the eye level of children and offered a subtle message of inclusion. Also, the wrapping paper at checkout was cheery and colorful paper that featured children from virtually every racial and ethnic group, a very positive message that can be “read” easily from many vantage points around the store.

The final point has nothing to do with diversity or social issues but relates to a terrific employee at this store. Bookstores, in my experience, occasionally attract arrogant employees with weak people skills, and Politics and Prose is no exception. Sylvan, the man who generally works the children’s book department at P&P, however, is one of the loveliest book-lovers I’ve ever met. He greets every customer’s request for recommendations with fresh but not overbearing enthusiasm and is genuinely knowledgeable and lit-up about children’s literature. He contributes a great deal to what is visually already a very inviting environment.

"Self as Informant" Reflection

The assignment asks us, first, to blog about our first encounter with a children's book, and, second, to blog about a book that made a difference in our lives.

I honestly cannot recall my first encounter with a children's book, so I'll have to rely on general impressions. There was one book I enjoyed as a child that I probably would not have remembered had I not had the good fortune to stumble across it again as an adult. It's called When I Have a Little Girl, written by Charlotte Zolotow and illustrated by Hilary Knight, who also illustrated Eloise. The book is a little girl's fantasy about how she'll change all the rules when she has a daughter of her own. Now it's paired with another title, When I Have a Little Boy, in a push-me, pull-you kind of way. (You flip the book over and start the Little Boy book from the back.) I remember loving the illustrations in this book and the exuberant abandon of its star, who skips out of the house in the snow without a jacket and pulls dress-up clothes and jewelry from her mother's drawers without permission. I think I can remember feeling soothed, as a child, by the notion that I could change all of the unfair rules when I grew up.

The first book I remember reading on my own was Dr. Seuss' Green Eggs and Ham. I was in kindergarten, and I checked it out of the big library at my preschool-12 school, feeling very grown up. I took it out to the back yard and read it on the swing set and was pretty puffed up about the fact that I finished it in a single afternoon. I think I even remember counting the pages for later boasting rights.


As for a book that made a difference in my life, there are so many that it's hard to choose. I read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy for the first time one summer in college and was deeply moved by the good-and-evil allegory. In the summer after college I fell in love with Ayn Rand -- especially The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. I was really impressed with Rand's political philosophy at the time but am pretty sure that I'd have a very different reaction if I were to read her again today (which is part of why I haven't). Sadly, the passage of time also revealed that I'm not much of a Frank Lloyd Wright fan but prefer the more neo-traditional architecture that the book decries so viciously. Ellsworth Toohey, however, wormed his way into my consciousness and makes frequent appearances in any situation in which I have the feeling that someone is dissembling for manipulative effect or trying to subvert independent thinking to a debasing end.












In high school I devoured Hemingway and Fitzgerald, and after college I ate up Thomas Hardy, D.H. Lawrence, and Charles Dickens. It was Lawrence who really awakened my love of the English language and prompted me to begin "collecting" words. When my first son was an infant and sleeping a lot, I discovered and adored Barbara Kingsolver and Frank McCourt. My favorite author, by far, though, and one whose work only charms me more with the passage of time, is Jane Austen. While I was convalescing last year after an emergency surgery, I read all of her novels -- Pride and Prejudice twice. The stories are small, in a way, and certainly reflect only a tiny, very privileged part of English society, but Austen never fails to capture my heart and lighten my spirits with her wonderful writing and wry wit, even if, in the end, every plot centers on woman's ability to marry for love in a time when many women married for position.

Welcome!

Welcome to my brand new blog, created for Vivian Vasquez's Critical Literacy class! So far all I've done is create a working list of my favorite children's picture books. I'm a huge children's picture book aficionado and have been meaning to do this for years. I'm glad to have the excuse now, as the titles are beginning to fade a bit from memory as my kids get older. I started out my parenting life (back in 1995) without a good library or good leads and spent the first year or so of motherhood bored senseless with the books that we had. I'm a firm believer that shared parent-child pursuits should be fun for both the parent and the child -- that we parents shouldn't fall into a pattern of faking it, so I've selected books that were rich for both my kids and me time after time. Some are better than others; quite a few feature animals in starring roles; many have humor, and most have some sort of hook into a child's emotional life, which tends to be an important theme for me in parenting. Enjoy, and thanks for reading : )