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From: Fitch <fitchg>
Date: Fri, 26 Mar 1999 10:41:11 -0600 (CST)
Hi! I'm new to the discussion - my name is Grant Fitch, I'm a children's librarian at Lansing Library in Illinois - but I just wanted to throw in my two cents on the discussion of parents that might be grandparents, in the children's eyes. Maia Cheli-Colando pointed out that children tend to think all families are like their families, until they learn otherwise through their friends and through books read to them. That's why books about "other families" and "families around the world" are interesting and important - though they just don't get the message across as subtly as engaging fiction.
In a similar way, I try not to shy away from two fun picture books that the kids seem to love, which show "other" kinds of families. In "Yucka Drucka Droni" (which is fun to say) three brothers (of various complexions) with silly names marry three ladies with sillier names and have kids with very silly names - but they don't match up along the expected racial lines. Though there is clearly one African-American out of each group of three (the men and women), the illustrator chooses for them to fall in love in interracial couples, just like life. I've read this story perhaps 20 times, and maybe twice has there been a comment. I remember one boy saying, "No, *she's* supposed to be with *him*," because that's what we're conditioned to expect. This is an opportunity for discussion, and an opportunity to let it pass without comment, as the illustrator and author do.
Also showing a loving family without commenting on what makes it
"different" is "Something Good," one of many terrific, funny stories by Robert Munsch. In this one, a bearded man who looks exactly like the author is getting frazzled grocery shopping with his three kids, who are named after - and look like, I assume - the author's own children. The boy is White, like Munsch and wife, and the two girls are Black - but this is never made mention of in the story or in the wonderful illustrations by Michael Martchenko, who always brings vibrancy as well as a broad band of human "types" to his pictures for Munsch's books. I must have read this book 30 times, without a single comment - while slying pointing out that an adoptive family is exactly as exasperating and loving as any other kind.
Books actually about the subject of single parents, adopted children
(like Jamie Lee Curtis'), older parents, interracial couples, etc. are very useful. But I think even more useful are those that, like "Pete's a Pizza" - which immediately became one of my favorites as soon as it arrived this month, by the way, and is a game I know I'll play with my own kids - show a family that may be unlike a child's own family, but don't treat them with extra attention as something "special."
Grant Fitch Youth Services Librarian Lansing Library
Received on Fri 26 Mar 1999 10:41:11 AM CST
Date: Fri, 26 Mar 1999 10:41:11 -0600 (CST)
Hi! I'm new to the discussion - my name is Grant Fitch, I'm a children's librarian at Lansing Library in Illinois - but I just wanted to throw in my two cents on the discussion of parents that might be grandparents, in the children's eyes. Maia Cheli-Colando pointed out that children tend to think all families are like their families, until they learn otherwise through their friends and through books read to them. That's why books about "other families" and "families around the world" are interesting and important - though they just don't get the message across as subtly as engaging fiction.
In a similar way, I try not to shy away from two fun picture books that the kids seem to love, which show "other" kinds of families. In "Yucka Drucka Droni" (which is fun to say) three brothers (of various complexions) with silly names marry three ladies with sillier names and have kids with very silly names - but they don't match up along the expected racial lines. Though there is clearly one African-American out of each group of three (the men and women), the illustrator chooses for them to fall in love in interracial couples, just like life. I've read this story perhaps 20 times, and maybe twice has there been a comment. I remember one boy saying, "No, *she's* supposed to be with *him*," because that's what we're conditioned to expect. This is an opportunity for discussion, and an opportunity to let it pass without comment, as the illustrator and author do.
Also showing a loving family without commenting on what makes it
"different" is "Something Good," one of many terrific, funny stories by Robert Munsch. In this one, a bearded man who looks exactly like the author is getting frazzled grocery shopping with his three kids, who are named after - and look like, I assume - the author's own children. The boy is White, like Munsch and wife, and the two girls are Black - but this is never made mention of in the story or in the wonderful illustrations by Michael Martchenko, who always brings vibrancy as well as a broad band of human "types" to his pictures for Munsch's books. I must have read this book 30 times, without a single comment - while slying pointing out that an adoptive family is exactly as exasperating and loving as any other kind.
Books actually about the subject of single parents, adopted children
(like Jamie Lee Curtis'), older parents, interracial couples, etc. are very useful. But I think even more useful are those that, like "Pete's a Pizza" - which immediately became one of my favorites as soon as it arrived this month, by the way, and is a game I know I'll play with my own kids - show a family that may be unlike a child's own family, but don't treat them with extra attention as something "special."
Grant Fitch Youth Services Librarian Lansing Library
Received on Fri 26 Mar 1999 10:41:11 AM CST
