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Re: Using Multicultural Literature: Making Choices
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From: Sarah Hamburg <srhf92_at_hampshire.edu>
Date: Tue, 11 Feb 2014 11:58:37 -0500
Thanks so much for the link, Megan, and for that thoughtful, nuanced approach. And thanks again to all for letting me jump in!
Staying with this part of the conversation, and the responses to Debbie's post: I've been in many past discussions where this question about censorship (removing books from libraries and classrooms) also came up, and found that the conversation often circled to a similar conclusion-- the need to keep books on shelves, and to continue recognizing their place while also using their deep flaws to teach and engage children in a critical approach to literature. This is the conclusion I gravitate to as well, for all the reasons others have said, and also because not only do I question whether we have ever achieved, or ever will reach some sort of perfection (a book that needs no further conversation), it seems like the record of our past flaws is a shared history, too? Taking books off of shelves because they contain a story that's painful to look at can feel the same as erasing, or whitewashing those painful stories from history books.
I think, too, that I would like to embrace the perspective Ebony, and others have put forth, of this as an ever-continuing conversation. We try, we make mistakes, we talk about them, we keep trying and do better. I love the account Mitali Perkins gives in her article for SLJ about receiving a criticism regarding a line in one of her own books-- and then going back to change that line in a subsequent edition. If we can't erase those lines from older books, we can talk about them, and change them and their effects in that way. Or, as authors, we can bring this wider perspective and challenge to our future work. This would be a joint endeavor, where, again, none of us is perfect. (In my book group, we just read Johnson's The Summer Prince, and one of our members shared this fascinating critique of that book: http://thebooksmugglers.com/2013/10/smugglers-ponderings-thoughts-on-the-summer-prince-by-alaya-dawn-johnson.html These questions are shared questions.)
I want this conclusion to be true-- that we (with children) come to books from a place of critical thinking and engagement, and as part of a continuing, imperfect conversation. But if I'm honest, I have to wonder if there's a leap to that conclusion that passes over a few crucial and uncomfortable realities along the way.
One, I guess, is still that question Debbie is struggling with in her post, about whose voices are actually included and heard. It's one thing to have Little House on the shelves and talk with children about its representations of American Indians, and another if the Little House books sit on the shelves beside a wide and abundant variety of books by Native authors.
There's also the reality of what feels like an urgent context for the discussion, which is the cumulative (and also singular) effect of those stories and representations on all child readers-- who live in a larger world, with a larger context-- even if we are wishing for critical engagement. I think of something like Christopher Myers' piece in the Horn Book, or even the example Debbie gives of Frances Hodgson Burnett enacting the stories she had read with dolls. Our stories shape how we see each other, and somehow it feels too simple to say we will just remind readers that the images we're giving them aren't the whole truth. Or to trust that this admonition is always included in the passing down of these stories.
There is also the pain and shame involved for child readers encountering disturbing stories told about them-- which I think we can sometimes be quick to gloss over. Speaking of Burnett, I loved both A Secret Garden and A Little Princess when I was young. I knew, and remembered, the troubling perspective on India in A Little Princess, but had somehow completely forgotten, as an adult, the entire first section of Secret Garden. Until I sat down to read it to two children I take care of, whose father's family is from India. I stumbled through that opening chapter-- trying at first to talk with them about the representations, and then trying to edit as I went along, but finally I had to put the book away. I know others might have found better ways to use, and engage the book-- and I'm sure it's entirely possible, and even probable that those children I care about would still have found pleasure in reading it. I just couldn't give them that story.
I feel, again, like we maybe don't spend enough time talking about the power these stories have-- not just in their misrepresentations, but in their entire perspective-- on all of our imaginations. To demonstrate this point, we need only look at the stories we are *still* telling. This isn't just a question that pertains to older books; these are questions we're asking, or should be asking, about the books we're putting out right now. Along with this, the reality is that the conversation *doesn't* take place on an equal playing field. Again, I feel like in rushing to the idealized conclusion, we risk disengaging from uncomfortable questions about power and privilege: What are the stories that keep being passed on, and why can it be so difficult to look at them critically, to de-center the narrative they give us, and to allow space for another story? Who gets to speak (and be heard) for themselves? What is it we can feel like we're being asked to encounter, or give up in making space? Again, it seems important to look at why there is still so much resistance to opening that space, and if there might be a relationship between an attachment to a powerful, old, familiar story, and that resistance. And whether we risk forgetting about child readers in the process.
I'm not saying that I come around to censorship, but I wonder if in the either/or of censorship vs. critical thinking, it's possible we sometimes miss the conversation.
--Sarah Hamburg
Date: Tue, 11 Feb 2014 11:58:37 -0500
Thanks so much for the link, Megan, and for that thoughtful, nuanced approach. And thanks again to all for letting me jump in!
Staying with this part of the conversation, and the responses to Debbie's post: I've been in many past discussions where this question about censorship (removing books from libraries and classrooms) also came up, and found that the conversation often circled to a similar conclusion-- the need to keep books on shelves, and to continue recognizing their place while also using their deep flaws to teach and engage children in a critical approach to literature. This is the conclusion I gravitate to as well, for all the reasons others have said, and also because not only do I question whether we have ever achieved, or ever will reach some sort of perfection (a book that needs no further conversation), it seems like the record of our past flaws is a shared history, too? Taking books off of shelves because they contain a story that's painful to look at can feel the same as erasing, or whitewashing those painful stories from history books.
I think, too, that I would like to embrace the perspective Ebony, and others have put forth, of this as an ever-continuing conversation. We try, we make mistakes, we talk about them, we keep trying and do better. I love the account Mitali Perkins gives in her article for SLJ about receiving a criticism regarding a line in one of her own books-- and then going back to change that line in a subsequent edition. If we can't erase those lines from older books, we can talk about them, and change them and their effects in that way. Or, as authors, we can bring this wider perspective and challenge to our future work. This would be a joint endeavor, where, again, none of us is perfect. (In my book group, we just read Johnson's The Summer Prince, and one of our members shared this fascinating critique of that book: http://thebooksmugglers.com/2013/10/smugglers-ponderings-thoughts-on-the-summer-prince-by-alaya-dawn-johnson.html These questions are shared questions.)
I want this conclusion to be true-- that we (with children) come to books from a place of critical thinking and engagement, and as part of a continuing, imperfect conversation. But if I'm honest, I have to wonder if there's a leap to that conclusion that passes over a few crucial and uncomfortable realities along the way.
One, I guess, is still that question Debbie is struggling with in her post, about whose voices are actually included and heard. It's one thing to have Little House on the shelves and talk with children about its representations of American Indians, and another if the Little House books sit on the shelves beside a wide and abundant variety of books by Native authors.
There's also the reality of what feels like an urgent context for the discussion, which is the cumulative (and also singular) effect of those stories and representations on all child readers-- who live in a larger world, with a larger context-- even if we are wishing for critical engagement. I think of something like Christopher Myers' piece in the Horn Book, or even the example Debbie gives of Frances Hodgson Burnett enacting the stories she had read with dolls. Our stories shape how we see each other, and somehow it feels too simple to say we will just remind readers that the images we're giving them aren't the whole truth. Or to trust that this admonition is always included in the passing down of these stories.
There is also the pain and shame involved for child readers encountering disturbing stories told about them-- which I think we can sometimes be quick to gloss over. Speaking of Burnett, I loved both A Secret Garden and A Little Princess when I was young. I knew, and remembered, the troubling perspective on India in A Little Princess, but had somehow completely forgotten, as an adult, the entire first section of Secret Garden. Until I sat down to read it to two children I take care of, whose father's family is from India. I stumbled through that opening chapter-- trying at first to talk with them about the representations, and then trying to edit as I went along, but finally I had to put the book away. I know others might have found better ways to use, and engage the book-- and I'm sure it's entirely possible, and even probable that those children I care about would still have found pleasure in reading it. I just couldn't give them that story.
I feel, again, like we maybe don't spend enough time talking about the power these stories have-- not just in their misrepresentations, but in their entire perspective-- on all of our imaginations. To demonstrate this point, we need only look at the stories we are *still* telling. This isn't just a question that pertains to older books; these are questions we're asking, or should be asking, about the books we're putting out right now. Along with this, the reality is that the conversation *doesn't* take place on an equal playing field. Again, I feel like in rushing to the idealized conclusion, we risk disengaging from uncomfortable questions about power and privilege: What are the stories that keep being passed on, and why can it be so difficult to look at them critically, to de-center the narrative they give us, and to allow space for another story? Who gets to speak (and be heard) for themselves? What is it we can feel like we're being asked to encounter, or give up in making space? Again, it seems important to look at why there is still so much resistance to opening that space, and if there might be a relationship between an attachment to a powerful, old, familiar story, and that resistance. And whether we risk forgetting about child readers in the process.
I'm not saying that I come around to censorship, but I wonder if in the either/or of censorship vs. critical thinking, it's possible we sometimes miss the conversation.
--Sarah Hamburg
---
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Received on Tue 11 Feb 2014 10:59:16 AM CST
