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RE: How much...?
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From: Nancy Bo Flood <wflood_at_hotmail.com>
Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2011 07:49:08 -0700
Thank you, Christine, for your thoughtful response. I agree, "k ids ar e astute" and are hungry to learn about this world and the people in it. T hey sniff out deception or "feel good" white-washing. They also choose appr opriate to what they can take in. Reading a book is an active, interact iv e process, so different from sitting in front of a screen with images a nd information pouring out.
Picture books offer one level of developmentally appropriate and understand able ideas. Books read by an adult to a child and then talked about offers another way of sharing. WE ARE ALL BORN FREE, is a picture book that wi th stunning simplicity shows the thirty articles of the universal declarati on of human rights in pictures. No issue is dodged. For example, "Nobo dy has any right to hurt us or to torture us" is depicted using a doll - a sm iling bleeding doll. "We all have the right to belong to a country" is illustrated showing a v ast empty sea with a boat full of people looking directly at the reader. Wh at a book to share as a family during this time of thanksgiving.
Nancy Bo Flood
Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2011 01:12:02 -0500 From: kansascitymom_at_earthlink.net Subject: Re:
How much...? To: ccbc-net_at_lists.wisc.edu
Rosanne,
You make a good point. My counter to that is of course, if there is a s tu dent in the classroom who has faced horrors first hand, then adjusting cl assroom material appropriately is in order. And I certainly wouldn't introd uce - for instance - Middle Passage to younger children or someone who is a current victim of child trafficking. Heck - it's hard to digest as an adu lt unless taken in small chunks. And even Tom Feelings told me he had to be dragged out of his depression discarding his original draft and crafting o ne closer to the emotional truth.
What I think some of us are saying is that the industry tends to "err" on t he side of a one note approach to difficult topics. To gloss over the real details in favor of a more "feel good" approach especially as students get older. Some of it is driven by the reality of wanting a huge school and/or library buy to boost profitability.
But to have options and choose not to select one is much different than to not have the option at all because the gatekeepers tried to anticipate what the buyers wanted and completely missed the mark.
I contend balance is needed across the board. And more acknowledgment that students, when presented with material, seem to handle it much bet ter than we give them credit for. I know that when I talk about the Everest bo ok, I can cover all the amazing obscure facts about its geology, en gage the students in a conversation about the unfairness of the Europeans namin g a mountain they didn't own and educate students on the life of Sherpa - b ut in the end, the number one question I get from 4th graders and the s ub ject of almost every fan letter and hand drawn sketch is "what happens to t he dead bodies of the people who don't come down" -- a topic I wasn't allow ed to address in the book.
To put things in a scientific sense: children who grow up in a sterile, a ntiseptic environment never develop the antibodies necessary to fight off d isease later in life.
Kids are astute and they know more than we think. Sometimes it's the adults in their lives than need to get out of the way of their curiosity.....:-). ...C
Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2011 07:49:08 -0700
Thank you, Christine, for your thoughtful response. I agree, "k ids ar e astute" and are hungry to learn about this world and the people in it. T hey sniff out deception or "feel good" white-washing. They also choose appr opriate to what they can take in. Reading a book is an active, interact iv e process, so different from sitting in front of a screen with images a nd information pouring out.
Picture books offer one level of developmentally appropriate and understand able ideas. Books read by an adult to a child and then talked about offers another way of sharing. WE ARE ALL BORN FREE, is a picture book that wi th stunning simplicity shows the thirty articles of the universal declarati on of human rights in pictures. No issue is dodged. For example, "Nobo dy has any right to hurt us or to torture us" is depicted using a doll - a sm iling bleeding doll. "We all have the right to belong to a country" is illustrated showing a v ast empty sea with a boat full of people looking directly at the reader. Wh at a book to share as a family during this time of thanksgiving.
Nancy Bo Flood
Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2011 01:12:02 -0500 From: kansascitymom_at_earthlink.net Subject: Re:
How much...? To: ccbc-net_at_lists.wisc.edu
Rosanne,
You make a good point. My counter to that is of course, if there is a s tu dent in the classroom who has faced horrors first hand, then adjusting cl assroom material appropriately is in order. And I certainly wouldn't introd uce - for instance - Middle Passage to younger children or someone who is a current victim of child trafficking. Heck - it's hard to digest as an adu lt unless taken in small chunks. And even Tom Feelings told me he had to be dragged out of his depression discarding his original draft and crafting o ne closer to the emotional truth.
What I think some of us are saying is that the industry tends to "err" on t he side of a one note approach to difficult topics. To gloss over the real details in favor of a more "feel good" approach especially as students get older. Some of it is driven by the reality of wanting a huge school and/or library buy to boost profitability.
But to have options and choose not to select one is much different than to not have the option at all because the gatekeepers tried to anticipate what the buyers wanted and completely missed the mark.
I contend balance is needed across the board. And more acknowledgment that students, when presented with material, seem to handle it much bet ter than we give them credit for. I know that when I talk about the Everest bo ok, I can cover all the amazing obscure facts about its geology, en gage the students in a conversation about the unfairness of the Europeans namin g a mountain they didn't own and educate students on the life of Sherpa - b ut in the end, the number one question I get from 4th graders and the s ub ject of almost every fan letter and hand drawn sketch is "what happens to t he dead bodies of the people who don't come down" -- a topic I wasn't allow ed to address in the book.
To put things in a scientific sense: children who grow up in a sterile, a ntiseptic environment never develop the antibodies necessary to fight off d isease later in life.
Kids are astute and they know more than we think. Sometimes it's the adults in their lives than need to get out of the way of their curiosity.....:-). ...C
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