Over the years, I've written about children's books that were revised.
A few days ago I compiled links about revised books (some are mine and some are from others who work in children's literature) and inserted them in my post about A Fine Dessert. Today, I'm putting them on a stand-alone page. If you know of other changes, do let me know. This set of links will eventually appear at Teaching for Change.
We are rarely told why these books were changed, and we're rarely told when the change itself is made. Some changes are no-change, really, because the ideology of the book (writer?) is still there, beneath the words that get changed. Some changes--like the ones in picture books--are significant. All of them are, nonetheless, important to know about.
- Apr 21, 2009. They Were Strong and Good for 1940 by Peter Sieruta at Collecting Children's Books
- Nov 1, 2009. Edit(s) to 1935 edition of Little House on the Prairie by Debbie Reese at American Indians in Children's Literature
- Sep 19, 2010. Censoring Ideology (about Doctor Dolittle) by Philip Nel at Nine Kinds of Pie
- Sep 22, 2010. Social Change and Richard Scarry's Best Word Book Everby Lisa Wade at Sociological Images
- Jan 10, 2011. Changing "Injun" to "Indian" in Tom Sawyer by Debbie Reese at American Indians in Children's Literature
- Apr 3, 2013. Joan Walsh Anglund's The Brave Cowboy by Debbie Reese at American Indians in Children's Literature
- Jan 5, 2014: Travers (author of Mary Poppins): "I Lived with the Indians..." by Debbie Reese at American Indians in Children's Literature
- Oct 1, 2015: Big News about Hoffman's Amazing Grace by Debbie Reese at American Indians in Children's Literature
- Nov 20, 2015. A Beloved Classic: 95% Less Offensive by Elizabeth Bird at School Library Journal
- Nov 11, 2015. Ladybug Girl in Headdress? Gone! by Debbie Reese at American Indians in Children's Literature
- Nov 13, 2015. Revisions to The Case for Loving by Debbie Reese at American Indians in Children's Literature
Mary Hoffman is the best-selling author of picture book Amazing Grace, which is currently celebrating its 25th Anniversary, as well as its six picture-book and chapter-book sequels and other acclaimed picture books such as The Colour of Home, An Angel … Continue reading ... →
In a comment to his post about weeding books, Roger Sutton said that Horn Book just received the 25th anniversary edition of Amazing Grace and that the page on which Grace is shown playing Indian is gone (she's pretending to be Longfellow's Hiawatha). Here's his comment:
This is the illustration he's talking about. It was in the original version of the book, published by Dial in 1991. The author is Mary Hoffman; the illustrator is Caroline Binch:
For those who don't know the book, the main character is a girl named Grace who wants to be Peter Pan in the play her class is going to do. Other kids tell her she can't be Peter because she's a girl and he's a boy, and, that she's Black and he's White. Stung--as any kid would be--she imagines herself in all kinds of roles, including Hiawatha. That she's "by the shining Big-Sea-Water" tells us she is imagining herself as the Hiawatha of Longfellow's imagination (there was, in fact, a real person named Hiawatha).
But see how Grace "plays" Hiawatha? In a stereotypical way. She sits cross legged, torso bare, arms crossed and raised up (I don't know why so many statues show Indians with arms crossed and lifted off the chest that way), barefoot, with a painted face and stoic look.
Amazing Grace came out in 1991. In 1992, a person from whom I've learned a great deal, wrote about it. That person: Ginny Moore Kruse. In her article "No Single Season: Multicultural Literature for All Children, published in
Wilson Library Bulletin 66 30-3, she wrote:
Are the book's multiple themes so welcome that the act of "playing Indian" escaped comment by most U.S. reviewers...that critics relaxed their standards for evaluation? No, such images recur so frequently that when they do, nobody notices. Well, almost nobody but the children who in real life are Indian.
Claiming that only American Indian children are apt to notice "playing Indian," "sitting Indian style," or picture book animals "dressed up" like American Indians does not excuse the basic mistake. Self-esteem is decreased for the affected peoples, an accurate portrayals are skewed for everyone else.
This change is big news in children's literature. I'm grateful to Roger for sharing it. But let's return to his words. Roger suggested that the absence of Grace/Hiawatha in the new edition is the result of "public shaming."
Its absence can be seen as the result of public shaming---but it also be seen as a a step forward in what we give to children.
Might we say it is gone because its author, illustrator, and publisher decided that the self-esteem of Native children matters? And, maybe, they decided that having it in there was a disservice to non-Native readers, too, skewing what they know about Native peoples? Maybe they just decided it was dated, and in an effort to market the book to today's readers, that page would hurt sales.
Today, I wish I was near Ginny's hometown. I'd call her and see if she wanted to join me for a cup of tea. I'm sure it'd be a delightful conversation.
Yesterday (October 13, 2014), The Guardian ran an article titled "Diverse voices: the 50 best culturally diverse children's books."
I don't know all the books on the list, but I do know two that shouldn't be on any list of culturally diverse books.
Culturally diverse books must not have stereotypes!
Amazing Grace is in the Early Years section of the article. Its selling point is its theme: "we can be anything we want to be." Many find that theme disingenuous. While we want to encourage children to persevere, we also must be mindful of realities. We live in racist societies. Studies show that African American or Latino names, for example, can be the basis on which someone's application for a job or mortgage is denied--unconsciously--but denied, nonetheless. A second problem with
Amazing Grace is this image from the book:
That illustration, unfortunately, perfectly reflects several stereotypical ideas about Native peoples.
- She's sitting "Indian style."
- She's holding her arms crossed and away from her chest as shown in countless statues (that's the pose, by the way, that students at the University of Illinois assumed when the now-retired mascot came onto the playing field at halftime to do his "dance")
- She's barefoot. You know that Native people wore shoes, right?
- She's wearing what we might generously call a Plains headdress--the item that shouts INDIAN to the world.
- She's not smiling, because, as everyone knows, Indians don't smile.
- Hiawatha. There was an actual person named that, but the one she's portraying is a character created by a non-Native person.
The second stereotypical book on the list is Tanya Landman's
Apache. In its description, the article says:
Following the vicious murder of her brother, orphan Siki vows to become an Apache warrior to take revenge upon her brother, Tazhi's, killers.
Page after page, Landman feeds the perception of mindless, bloodthirsty Indians. She sets us up to think this relentless killing is justified by Tazhi's murder, but goodness! It goes on and on and on. For details on problems with it, see the three posts AICL did on it:
I don't know who put the list together for
The Guardian. The problems with these two books are blatant. Or, they should be! That they're not is an indicator of how much we have yet to do with regard to Native imagery. I'll tweet my post to them and others who are tweeting/retweeting it. Please share it with others in your networks.
Today we bring you the first in a series of “Top-10″ posts as part of our 10th Anniversary celebrations. First up is a selection of “Books that Open Windows” by award-winning writer Deborah Ellis.
Deborah’s latest novel came out last month: My Name Is Parvana (Groundwood Books, 2012) is the long-awaited sequel to her acclaimed The Breadwinner Trilogy. As well as fiction, Deborah has written non-fiction highlighting global social issues from children’s perspectives, such as war, AIDS and bullying, and giving affected children a voice. You can read PaperTigers’ interviews with Deborah here and here.
Top 10: Books that Open Windows by Deborah Ellis
Jean Little is a wonderful Canadian author of books for young people. She has a special place in my heart because when I was a child, my parents were friends with a friend of Jean’s – Jane Glaves – and I would get Ms. Little’s books for Christmas. One of my favorite Jean Little books is Look Through My Window, where one character talks about looking through someone’s window into who they are and what their lives are like.
The following books are ten I would recommend to anyone interested in seeing what’s inside someone else’s window.
1. From Anna, by Jean Little ~ Novel for young people about a German family who comes to Canada just before the start of World War 2. The youngest, Anna, has struggles with her eyesight, her awkwardness and figuring out where her place is in her family and in this new world.
2. All of a Kind Family, by Sydney Taylor ~ First in a series of books for young readers about a Jewish family in turn of the century Brooklyn. As the girls go about the adventures of their lives – such as earning money to pay for a lost library book – the family celebrates the calendar of holidays. As a Protestant-raised small-town girl, this was my first window into a different religion, and set off a respect and fascination for Judaism that continues to this day.
3. Obasan, by Joy Kogawa ~ Moving telling of a young girl’s experience in a Japanese internment camp in Canada during World War 2.
4. Nobody’s Family is Going to Change, by Louise Fitzhugh ~ Novel for young people about a girl in New York who can’t make her father see her for who she is. She grows to learn about other kids in other families and their struggles.
5. A Dog on Barkham Street and The Bully of Barkham Street, by Mary Stoltz – Look at the same story from two points of view. They taught me how to look for more than one side of the story.
6. Mighty Be Our Powers, by Leymah Gbowee ~ A powerful memoir of a woman who survived the Liberian civil war and won the Nobel Prize for her work to rebuild the country.
7. Amazing Grace, by Jonathan Kozol ~ About homelessness and poverty in America and the power of the education system to hurt or help the children in its care.
8. Shannen and the Dream for a School, by Janet Wilson – part of the Kids’ Power Book series for young activists, this is a profile of Shannen Koostachin and her First Nations community of Attawapiskat as they try to get a safe school built.
9. Bury Me Standing, by Isabel Fonseca ~ A moving, detailed history of the Roma people.
10. Grey is the Color of Hope, by Irina Ratushinskaya ~ Prison diaries of the Soviet poet who spent seven years in the Gulags. One of the few records we have about what that time and place was like for women.
Last night, in the second tier at Verizon Hall in the Kimmel Center, a three-year old boy sat beside me. He was flawlessly dressed—his burnt orange jacket matching the laces on his shoes, his collar up around his ears, his pants dark, his shirt bright white—and his eyes were two fully rounded moons.
He sat on his grandmother's lap beside his mother, his uncles, his aunts, another child, perhaps his brother, while beyond, on the stage in that gorgeous, vibrant space, the Soweto Gospel Choir sang, and not only sang, but danced. Songs in Sotho, songs in Zulu, and the most revering, reverberating rendition of "Amazing Grace" that I will ever hear.
Through it all, the boy sat there on his grandmother's lap—undistracted, utterly seduced—his hands coming together for the beat, and sometimes he would syncopate that beat, and sometimes he would yield to the left, to the right, bend like a reed, for the choir's songs required dance of all of us. The colors of its costumes—mango, plum, lemon, salted lime—would not let our eyes go.
And then one among them on that stage said (a lilt in her voice, a song even as she spoke) that the Soweto Gospel Choir was singing for peace and global union. She said that, and the place went absolutely wild—first the clapping, then the roaring, then some standing tall, to say yes, yes, global union—and the child beside me went wild, too. As if he knew.
For he has his whole life ahead of him, and peace is still a possibility.
Amazing Grace (25th Anniversary Edition)
This must have been such a joy to watch. The choir, the boy, the audience. It is comforting to read this. Thank you.
Vivian, oh it was. it was joy...
I'm thinking of you.
I bet it was amazing.
But to inject my humor because it seems to be what I like to do...he sounds much like my kids - except for the flawlessly dressed part. And the sitting undistracted part. And the syncopating part.
Actually the only part that sounds like my 4-year-old is the going wild part.
I bet you had a GREAT time!
PJ... Okay. Um. Hmmm. Does it count that this three year old's going wild was of the most resonant and sophisticated wild-making sort?
I would have loved to hear that choir. Thanks for sharing the concert with us.
Oh, Sherry. It was a dream. Thank you for your vicarious visit...
Dear Beth:
Thank you for your beautiful words about the concert. As Vice President of programming for the Kimmel Center my goal is to create the atmosphere every night where audiences and artists alike can share an enriching experience together that moves, excites, questions long held perceptions and thought, sends them into new territories or even terrifies them.
It won't happen every evening but the beauty is that you never know when it will.
Thanks for sharing your experience and that of the young boy. It has made my holiday season more special!
My goodness, Mr. Mehta. I am so touched that you found me here, found these words. It was an unforgettable evening, in an extraordinary place.
I've sent an email to you just now that I hope you will receive.
All best to you,
Beth