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Re: Using Multicultural Literature: Making Choices
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From: Uma <uma_at_gobrainstorm.net>
Date: Tue, 11 Feb 2014 09:17:24 -0800
Thank you, Sarah, for your note about the opening chapter of The Secret Garden. When I read the book as an adult, I was grateful that my ten-year-old self had not encountered it. I believe we need to keep child readers—all child readers—at the heart of this and other such discussions. We need to remain aware of the effects of words on the page.
Finally, in speaking of marketing and the bottom dollar that publishers and libraries, consumers and writers and illustrators, must all contend with, we need to remind ourselves, from time to time, that we are not just any old business. We are creating art, and art by its nature has the ability to challenge what’s comfortable and known. In order to exercise this power, in order to grow the artist who works with images and words, and the young reader who engages with them, our art must exist in areas of discomfort, must almost seek to create those spaces, and must expect opposition.
Thank you to everyone for such a rich conversation.
Uma
On Feb 11, 2014, at 8:58 AM, Sarah Hamburg <srhf92_at_hampshire.edu> wrote:
> 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.
…snip…
> 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.
Date: Tue, 11 Feb 2014 09:17:24 -0800
Thank you, Sarah, for your note about the opening chapter of The Secret Garden. When I read the book as an adult, I was grateful that my ten-year-old self had not encountered it. I believe we need to keep child readers—all child readers—at the heart of this and other such discussions. We need to remain aware of the effects of words on the page.
Finally, in speaking of marketing and the bottom dollar that publishers and libraries, consumers and writers and illustrators, must all contend with, we need to remind ourselves, from time to time, that we are not just any old business. We are creating art, and art by its nature has the ability to challenge what’s comfortable and known. In order to exercise this power, in order to grow the artist who works with images and words, and the young reader who engages with them, our art must exist in areas of discomfort, must almost seek to create those spaces, and must expect opposition.
Thank you to everyone for such a rich conversation.
Uma
On Feb 11, 2014, at 8:58 AM, Sarah Hamburg <srhf92_at_hampshire.edu> wrote:
> 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.
…snip…
> 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.
---
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Received on Tue 11 Feb 2014 11:17:49 AM CST
