CCBC-Net Archives
Re: Muslims and Muslim Cultures - accuracy
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From: Karen Leggett <leggett_at_comcast.net>
Date: Sat, 16 Aug 2014 20:02:07 -0400
As a journalist and children’s author, I believe accuracy in art and text may be even more important in books for children than adults since they typically have a smaller frame of reference and less world experience. Details are important: you never know what phrase or image will resonate with a young reader. I’ll offer one detail from my own book, Hands Around the Library: Protecting Egypt’s Treasured Books, so richly illustrated with Susan Roth’s cut paper collage. The first spread shows children seated around a librarian at the great library in Alexandria, Egypt. My Egyptian-born husband “ground-truthed” our art and manuscript, noticing immediately that one boy’s legs were straight, leaving the soles of his feet pointed toward the teacher: an insult in Middle Eastern cultures. Susan immediately redesigned the boy so that he sat cross-legged. Our Dial editors also chose to keep my husband’s original handwritten script in Arabic for the revolutionary protest signs in the book (which were copied from actual signs used during the 2011 revolution.)
I do think Marc Arsonson offered an excellent idea to promote critical thinking by having students compare multiple sources or different accounts of actual events, countries or time periods. And as for the discussion of camels in Cairo, we happen to have house guests from Egypt and I posed the question. There might be small herds of camels in outlying areas near markets or butchers, but not in the central city and definitely not decorated for a caravan, as Elsa pointed out. My friend did say, however, that in poor areas of both Alexandria and Cairo, young boys could be delivering the heavy gas canisters because the income would help support their families.
Karen Leggett Abouraya
Hands Around the Library: Protecting Egypt’s Treasured Books
Malala Yousafzai: Warrior with Words
www.handsaroundthelibrary.com
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Received on Sat 16 Aug 2014 07:02:30 PM CDT
Date: Sat, 16 Aug 2014 20:02:07 -0400
As a journalist and children’s author, I believe accuracy in art and text may be even more important in books for children than adults since they typically have a smaller frame of reference and less world experience. Details are important: you never know what phrase or image will resonate with a young reader. I’ll offer one detail from my own book, Hands Around the Library: Protecting Egypt’s Treasured Books, so richly illustrated with Susan Roth’s cut paper collage. The first spread shows children seated around a librarian at the great library in Alexandria, Egypt. My Egyptian-born husband “ground-truthed” our art and manuscript, noticing immediately that one boy’s legs were straight, leaving the soles of his feet pointed toward the teacher: an insult in Middle Eastern cultures. Susan immediately redesigned the boy so that he sat cross-legged. Our Dial editors also chose to keep my husband’s original handwritten script in Arabic for the revolutionary protest signs in the book (which were copied from actual signs used during the 2011 revolution.)
I do think Marc Arsonson offered an excellent idea to promote critical thinking by having students compare multiple sources or different accounts of actual events, countries or time periods. And as for the discussion of camels in Cairo, we happen to have house guests from Egypt and I posed the question. There might be small herds of camels in outlying areas near markets or butchers, but not in the central city and definitely not decorated for a caravan, as Elsa pointed out. My friend did say, however, that in poor areas of both Alexandria and Cairo, young boys could be delivering the heavy gas canisters because the income would help support their families.
Karen Leggett Abouraya
Hands Around the Library: Protecting Egypt’s Treasured Books
Malala Yousafzai: Warrior with Words
www.handsaroundthelibrary.com
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Received on Sat 16 Aug 2014 07:02:30 PM CDT
