Slater, D. (2016, September 9). The uncomfortable truth about children’s books. Mother Jones. Retrieved from http://www.motherjones.com/media/2016/08/diversity-childrens-books-slavery-twitter
I started reading Mother Jones magazine back in high school, partly for the articles, but mostly because if you were in high school in Lodi, CA, in the late-80’s, reading Mother Jones was the second-most rebellious thing you could do, right after coming out, and was a lot less likely to get you beaten up on a regular basis. Plus, it always felt like an adventure to drive to the one magazine store in south Stockton that stocked Mother Jones, right next to the latest issue of Pravda.
I never really considered that 3 decades later I’d still be reading it. It just goes to show that you never can tell where literacy will take you.
This article is a well-written overview of some of the problems facing librarians, parents and others in creating a diverse collection of children’s literature. It discusses the business of publishing, the negative feedback loop created when multicultural books are published but don’t sell, leading to few such books, leading to non-white potential readers ignoring books that are available and so forth. It also touches on some of the recent controversies in children’s publishing, including the withdrawal from sale of A Birthday Cake for George Washington.
An important aspect of the article for library science students is the section that looks at gatekeeping. We are gatekeepers, whether we like it or not, and the decisions we make affect what our students read. Keeping this in mind through the entire process, from collection development to in-library marketing, will help us better serve our clients.
Including books that represent and appeal to a diverse patron population is an important challenge for librarians of all types. I find this is particularly true in my elementary school library. I try to select a wide array of books, and I try to encourage students to read outside their own personal comfort zones, but locating and acquiring a variety of such books is difficult. The article does not offer any major solutions, but it does a good job offering an overview of some of the problems.
Good thoughts Christopher. I have never heard of Mother Jones and I grew up in the 80's. Bummer. I do know that we all, including children, want to read stories with characters that we can relate too whether that be our unique geography or race/ethnicity. A range for everyone is important.
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