From: Valiska Gregory <vgregory>
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2002 14:13:02 -0500

I wonder if in our press for diversity, we haven't sometimes polarized or undermined the very inclusive views we seek to encourage, especially when the topic is race, gender, or families. Once at an autographing, e.g., a school librarian explained to me her belief that it was important for children to be able to see themselves in the books they read. I agreed. Then she told me that was why she never ordered books with African-American children in them. "We don't have any black children in this district, so we don't need them."

Another time an African-American librarian asked me if the heroine in LOOKING FOR ANGELS was white or black saying, "I'd love to buy your book, but I'm an inner-city librarian and we buy only books with black children." The illustrator for the book, Leslie Baker, chose to make the heroine a beautiful mixed race child with a white grandfather. "Too bad the grandfather isn't black," said the librarian.

Of course most librarians are more savvy (many are amazing) about finding just the right book for every child, but nonetheless, I have heard books rejected because they have the "wrong" race, the "wrong" gender, or the
"wrong" kind of family for a particular child. And I worry that in our zeal to provide children with books "about themselves," we run the risk of inadvertently encouraging less diversity rather than more. Of course, children learn from books about families "like theirs," but they also learn from books about families not "like theirs." They need to read both.

Growing up in an extended family in an immigrant neighborhood in Chicago, I thought the "See Spot Jump" traditional family I read about in first grade was hopelessly inadequate. Poor Jane, I thought, no grandparents, no hundred or so uncles and aunts to bandage her skinned knee. But reading about what to me was Jane's exotic traditional family, helped me better understand my friend Meredith's traditional family that included a working father and a mother with an apron.

Perhaps children know more than we do on this score. My new picture book, SHIRLEY'S WONDERFUL BABY (illustrated by Bruce Degen), begins with a perfectly loving traditional family. (Well, in Bruce's clever hands, it's a family of lovable hippos). But it's not her besotted parents who help Shirley learn to delight in her new baby brother. It's an eccentric babysitter named Ms. Mump who is as untraditional as they come. When I read the book at a school and came to Shirley's lament--"How can a baby with legs like a turkey be wonderful?"--a front row boy shook his head and said with great feeling, "That is JUST what I thought about my baby sister." It didn't matter that his name was John instead of Shirley, or that he had a single Mom, or that his babysitter looked like Barbie. He had already learned that a book didn't need to mirror his life exactly in order for him to delight in it.

One last example: Katherine Patterson's THE SAME STUFF AS STARS is a natural choice for a child growing up in a dysfunctional family, but I think it speaks to us all. The book is a brilliant portrayal of Angel, an eleven year old whose father is in prison and whose mother abandons Angel to take care of an elderly relative and a seven year old brother. Angel's journey to keep her own small family together and to make sense out of a starry universe, is enough to make the most hardened heart ache for her. The reader sees her sturdy resilience, her loyalty, intelligence, and humor. Despite Angel's meager circumstances, we watch her develop those corners of the heart and mind that will allow her not only to survive, but to choose the kind of family that, as an adult, she will create on her own. Those who don't have models of loving families around them--as well as those who do--will learn much from this beautifully-crafted novel.

Valiska Gregory http://www.valiskagregory.com
Received on Tue 12 Nov 2002 01:13:02 PM CST