From: Hopkinson, Deborah <Deborah.Hopkinson>
Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 13:29:23 -0800

We've certainly seen a lot more about women's history in children's literature in the last few years. There have been wonderful biographies and historical fiction, and some great nonfiction as well.

But, as someone who's been passionate about women's history since all I could find were those orange biographies on Clara Barton, I guess the interesting issues for me are how long this has taken, how challenging it is still to get these stories into children's hands (boys and girls), and how little, it seems, has changed in the way history is covered in textbooks and taught in average classrooms. Looking at both my children's experiences, and my son's a senior in high school now, I don't see that much progress has been made in integrating an understanding of women's history into the curriculum. If their mother wasn't writing these books and had others lying about the house, I don't know that my kids would have gotten much more about women's history than the same shaded boxes that I did.

Deborah Hopkinson
Received on Tue 02 Nov 2004 03:29:23 PM CST