From: LeonardSMa at aol.com <LeonardSMa>
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1998 16:33:31 EDT

On books by and about minorities: during the years immediately following World War II, there was a flurry of interest on the part of publishers in children's books by and about African Americans. Viking published Ellen Tarry and Marie Hall Ets' MY DOG RINTY, set in Harlem, in 1946. Morrow Junior Books--a brand new imprint in 1946, published Hildegarde Hoyt Swift's NORTH STAR SHINING: A PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NEGRO. There were others. These books were published at a time when the American armed forces had just been integrated; evidently there was some sentiment for doing the same for American children's books, but it proved to be short-lived. The market--consisting primarily of libraries and schools--must not have responded very enthusiastically to those books. UN was personally committed from early on in her career to the cause of equal rights, yet, as the letter dated Jan. 23, 1970 shows, she was capable of publishing a book, in 1943, in which readers of a generation later
(including herself) would recognize an offensive racial stereotype. Leonard Marcus (LeonardSMa at aol.com)
Received on Wed 19 Aug 1998 03:33:31 PM CDT