From: Kathleen Horning <horning>
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2002 11:34:40 -0600

Megan Schliesman asks: "How well does children's literature reflect the diversity of family life that we know exists in our culture?"

If your definition of family diversity constitutes interracial / biracial / multi-ethnic and/or same-sex parents or even single-parent families, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say: "Not very well."

Arnold Adoff's "Black Is Brown Is Tan" was recently reissued by HarperCollins with new illustrations by Emily Arnold McCully, and, unfortunately, it is as revolutionary today as it was when it was first issued in 1973 as the first picture book about an interracial family. There haven't been many since then (and, interestingly, most of what we do have has come from England).

And while there have been a few picture books from small/alternative presses (most notably Alyson and Two Lives) about children living in gay/lesbian families, we have yet to see anything from one of the mainstream presses. It's even hard to find picture books with single-parent families, even though single-parent families are quickly becoming the norm in our society.

I look forward to the day when this sort of family diversity apprears regularly in children's books, not as the topic or issue per se, but just as part of the ordinary fabric of life.

KT


Kathleen T. Horning, Acting Director Cooperative Children's Book Center University of Wisconsin-School of Education 4290 Helen C. White Hall 600 North Park St. Madison, WI 53706

horning at education.wisc.edu Voice: 608&3721 Fax: 608&2I33 www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/
Received on Tue 12 Nov 2002 11:34:40 AM CST