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Parsing the Numbers
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From: Megan Schliesman <schliesman_at_education.wisc.edu>
Date: Tue, 04 Feb 2014 11:57:59 -0600
Marc Arsonon wrote:
"For example, books related to math it would seem to me have little to nothing to do with the self-identified ethnicity of the author -- outside of a very limited few about counting, say, in a given culture.
Books about most aspects of science, again, seem irrelevant to any study of representation and authenticity -- other than that, as I've written, I think more authors from under-represented groups should be encouraged to write about anything and everything that interests them."
But is is relevant. For example, the terrific book "The Frog Scientiest" by Pamela S. Turner is one of the Scientist-in-the-Field series, and I appreciate the book for it's writing, but I also appreciate--and find it important--that the scientist profiled is African American. Because how many books do we have profiling scientists of color? And a writer of color who loves math and writes about math or geology or whatever may be writing about their passion, but they may be getting their foot int the door of publishing, and doing the groundwork for a career that will include books with cultural substance. I will appreciate teh book about math if it's good. But we need the books with cultural substance.
I also want to bo back to us differentiating between "by" and "about." I want to make clear that the "by" number is not necessarily representative of the number of individual book creators, since some authors and illustrators write or illustrate multiple books in a given year. The "about" includes books by authors of color and white authors, such as the case with "The Frog Scientist" book.
You can see a more in-depth explanation of what we look at, and a history of the numbers we've documented, at:
http://ccbc.education.wisc.edu/books/pcstats.asp
I don't disagree that more work looking at the what exactly these numbers represent may yield things of interest, and I would love if someone wanted to take that on. At the same time, I think parsing the numbers to deep levels gets us only so far. The bottom line to me--and this is, yes, a matter of opinion--is irrefutable: the numbers are dismal if we think about who we are as a nation.
But of course the numbers are just the outline. The books themselves are the substance, and how we draw attention to the best books by and about people of color, and in doing so create an environment that demands we have more of them, is crucial.
Megan
Date: Tue, 04 Feb 2014 11:57:59 -0600
Marc Arsonon wrote:
"For example, books related to math it would seem to me have little to nothing to do with the self-identified ethnicity of the author -- outside of a very limited few about counting, say, in a given culture.
Books about most aspects of science, again, seem irrelevant to any study of representation and authenticity -- other than that, as I've written, I think more authors from under-represented groups should be encouraged to write about anything and everything that interests them."
But is is relevant. For example, the terrific book "The Frog Scientiest" by Pamela S. Turner is one of the Scientist-in-the-Field series, and I appreciate the book for it's writing, but I also appreciate--and find it important--that the scientist profiled is African American. Because how many books do we have profiling scientists of color? And a writer of color who loves math and writes about math or geology or whatever may be writing about their passion, but they may be getting their foot int the door of publishing, and doing the groundwork for a career that will include books with cultural substance. I will appreciate teh book about math if it's good. But we need the books with cultural substance.
I also want to bo back to us differentiating between "by" and "about." I want to make clear that the "by" number is not necessarily representative of the number of individual book creators, since some authors and illustrators write or illustrate multiple books in a given year. The "about" includes books by authors of color and white authors, such as the case with "The Frog Scientist" book.
You can see a more in-depth explanation of what we look at, and a history of the numbers we've documented, at:
http://ccbc.education.wisc.edu/books/pcstats.asp
I don't disagree that more work looking at the what exactly these numbers represent may yield things of interest, and I would love if someone wanted to take that on. At the same time, I think parsing the numbers to deep levels gets us only so far. The bottom line to me--and this is, yes, a matter of opinion--is irrefutable: the numbers are dismal if we think about who we are as a nation.
But of course the numbers are just the outline. The books themselves are the substance, and how we draw attention to the best books by and about people of color, and in doing so create an environment that demands we have more of them, is crucial.
Megan
--
Megan Schliesman, Librarian
Cooperative Children's Book Center
School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison
600 N. Park Street, Room 4290
Madison, WI 53706
608/262-9503
schliesman_at_education.wisc.edu
www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/
My regular hours are T-F, 8-4:30.
---
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Received on Tue 04 Feb 2014 11:58:37 AM CST
