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Re: Defining Social Justice
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From: Lyn Miller-Lachmann <lynml_at_me.com>
Date: Mon, 07 Nov 2011 14:18:58 -0500
You've made a very useful distinction, Charles, between generic social issues that inspire a general consensus, and national and global political issues about which there is more disagreement. In the case of the latter, I think it's important that young people be exposed to a variety of perspectives. For instance, few books for teens in recent years feature a character who chooses abortion over having the child (things were more balanced in the 1990s), and the stories with characters who have the child are published by larger houses with more marketing presence--a reality that Ellen Levine experienced with In Trouble. The same goes for novels that depict atrocities committed by Communist regimes in the developing world and the refugees from those regimes (Christina Diaz Gonzalez's The Red Umbrella and Laura Manivong's Escaping the Tiger, published by large US houses) versus novels that depict atrocities committed by and refugees from right-wing dictatorships once supported by the U.S. (Gringolandia or Marge Pellegrino's Journey of Dreams, from small presses or publishers in the U.K.) By the same token, amid all the children's and YA books about the Holocaust, it was good to see Ruta Sepetys's excellent Between Shades of Gray, which portrays the brutality of Stalin's regime at the time.
In the case of class and class conflict, I think a good YA novel to open the discussion is Paolo Bacigalupi's dystopian tale Ship Breaker. The Horatio Alger-ish individualism--the fact that a combination of pluck and luck gains Nailer a ticket into the world of the "swanks"--that is so much a part of our culture also calls on us to look at what's out there with a different perspective. Are those kind of books that run against the cultural grain getting published, promoted, and discussed?
I thank all of you for your warm welcome and a great discussion.
Lyn
Received on Mon 07 Nov 2011 02:18:58 PM CST
Date: Mon, 07 Nov 2011 14:18:58 -0500
You've made a very useful distinction, Charles, between generic social issues that inspire a general consensus, and national and global political issues about which there is more disagreement. In the case of the latter, I think it's important that young people be exposed to a variety of perspectives. For instance, few books for teens in recent years feature a character who chooses abortion over having the child (things were more balanced in the 1990s), and the stories with characters who have the child are published by larger houses with more marketing presence--a reality that Ellen Levine experienced with In Trouble. The same goes for novels that depict atrocities committed by Communist regimes in the developing world and the refugees from those regimes (Christina Diaz Gonzalez's The Red Umbrella and Laura Manivong's Escaping the Tiger, published by large US houses) versus novels that depict atrocities committed by and refugees from right-wing dictatorships once supported by the U.S. (Gringolandia or Marge Pellegrino's Journey of Dreams, from small presses or publishers in the U.K.) By the same token, amid all the children's and YA books about the Holocaust, it was good to see Ruta Sepetys's excellent Between Shades of Gray, which portrays the brutality of Stalin's regime at the time.
In the case of class and class conflict, I think a good YA novel to open the discussion is Paolo Bacigalupi's dystopian tale Ship Breaker. The Horatio Alger-ish individualism--the fact that a combination of pluck and luck gains Nailer a ticket into the world of the "swanks"--that is so much a part of our culture also calls on us to look at what's out there with a different perspective. Are those kind of books that run against the cultural grain getting published, promoted, and discussed?
I thank all of you for your warm welcome and a great discussion.
Lyn
Received on Mon 07 Nov 2011 02:18:58 PM CST
