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[CCBC-Net] Favorite Books of 2000
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From: Monica R. Edinger <edinger>
Date: Thu, 07 Dec 2000 11:54:47 +0000
Amy Timberlake writes:
I too am a Peter Sis fan and have this book in my classroom next to The Three Golden Keys and Tibet Through the Red Box. It is a visual feast and wonderfully constructed. However, I do admit I was bothered by some of the cultural generalizations made. The neighbors are from Latin America, Germany, France, Italy, Asia, India, Egypt, and Africa. This jarred me when I first looked at the book, but I decided to overlook it because it was by Peter Sis whom I greatly admire. It was, therefore, a relief to see A. O. Scott's November 19th New York Times review where he noticed the same thing:
Scott writes:
Peter S?s has a ravishing pictorial style -- he is a prominent illustrator, as well as the author of, among others, a wonderful book about Galileo for intermediate readers and two fine books about trucks for their younger siblings -- but his whimsical, well-intentioned multiculturalism strikes a few troubling notes. Madlenka's friends embody their countries of origin in speech and costume, which is to say that they're stereotypes.
This, by itself, is inoffensive (though it does seem unfortunate that Cleopatra, a young black girl, greets her playmate with the phrase ''cool, baby''). But S?s' sense of cultural geography is peculiar. France, Italy, Germany and India are of course more complicated and diverse places than his pictures of them suggest, but they are nonetheless discrete nations, which Asia and Latin America are not. Eduardo wears a bowler hat, which suggests the Andes, but the jaguars and pyramids associate him with Central America. He speaks Spanish, which is not the language of the largest and most populous country in Latin America. If you asked him -- as a curious and friendly child like Madlenka surely would -- where would he say he was from? (Would Mr. Gaston say he was from Europe?) And what about Mrs. Kham? Is she Vietnamese? Korean? Chinese? These distinctions matter
-- surely they would matter to her --and a children's book that takes its readers on a trip ''around the world'' would do better to acknowledge them.
(http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/11/19/reviews/001119.19scottt.html)
Monica Edinger The Dalton School New York NY edinger at dalton.org monicaedinger at yahoo.com
Received on Thu 07 Dec 2000 05:54:47 AM CST
Date: Thu, 07 Dec 2000 11:54:47 +0000
Amy Timberlake writes:
I too am a Peter Sis fan and have this book in my classroom next to The Three Golden Keys and Tibet Through the Red Box. It is a visual feast and wonderfully constructed. However, I do admit I was bothered by some of the cultural generalizations made. The neighbors are from Latin America, Germany, France, Italy, Asia, India, Egypt, and Africa. This jarred me when I first looked at the book, but I decided to overlook it because it was by Peter Sis whom I greatly admire. It was, therefore, a relief to see A. O. Scott's November 19th New York Times review where he noticed the same thing:
Scott writes:
Peter S?s has a ravishing pictorial style -- he is a prominent illustrator, as well as the author of, among others, a wonderful book about Galileo for intermediate readers and two fine books about trucks for their younger siblings -- but his whimsical, well-intentioned multiculturalism strikes a few troubling notes. Madlenka's friends embody their countries of origin in speech and costume, which is to say that they're stereotypes.
This, by itself, is inoffensive (though it does seem unfortunate that Cleopatra, a young black girl, greets her playmate with the phrase ''cool, baby''). But S?s' sense of cultural geography is peculiar. France, Italy, Germany and India are of course more complicated and diverse places than his pictures of them suggest, but they are nonetheless discrete nations, which Asia and Latin America are not. Eduardo wears a bowler hat, which suggests the Andes, but the jaguars and pyramids associate him with Central America. He speaks Spanish, which is not the language of the largest and most populous country in Latin America. If you asked him -- as a curious and friendly child like Madlenka surely would -- where would he say he was from? (Would Mr. Gaston say he was from Europe?) And what about Mrs. Kham? Is she Vietnamese? Korean? Chinese? These distinctions matter
-- surely they would matter to her --and a children's book that takes its readers on a trip ''around the world'' would do better to acknowledge them.
(http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/11/19/reviews/001119.19scottt.html)
Monica Edinger The Dalton School New York NY edinger at dalton.org monicaedinger at yahoo.com
Received on Thu 07 Dec 2000 05:54:47 AM CST
