Insights into Children's Lit

When you read books to your class, you aren't just using them so students can practice identifying the main idea or learn about characterization.  I've seen how children's books can be an inspiration for investigating issues that students care about.  Children's books are rich with opportunities for further learning.

I thought our discussions on banned books and children's themes in the media were particularly interesting. I came to the conclusion that society has these engrained notions of what children should and shouldn't be exposed to.  The irony is that I think often times these notions aren't reevaluated and so we are advocating some things that we may not realize.  For example the high sex appeal in some of the commercials we watched seemed to say that outward beauty is important and should be flaunted.  Whereas there are many books that have been banned because young girls are highly promiscuous.  After looking deeper into these issues I've noticed that we contradict ourselves a lot.

However I am encouraged by the fact that there are lots of books out there that deal with difficult subjects in terms that kids can understand.  We read and discussed many of them, but the one that stood out the most to me was And Tango Makes Three.  I like that it challenged the idea of a typical family.  In my experience, the difficult or uncomfortable topics were rarely discussed in class and I was left to figure out how to deal with them on my own.  Now that I know there are books that can introduce these topics to students I think there is no excuse not to use them to start some discussions and explorations.

Cinderella Counter Narrative

Write about 'what differences' made a difference in relation to the counter narrative text you created.


Big feet etc.—I've never really liked how Cinderella's step sisters are always depicted as big ugly oafs and Cinderella is a petite beauty.  I wanted to change that by making Cinderella taller than everyone else.  In my version Cinderella is the one with big feet and all the other girls that try on the shoe have feet that are too small.  I know it's a minor difference, but I'm a tall girl and I don't like the notion that the boy always has to be taller than the girl.  I wanted to change that around a little to give more girl power to the tall, big, curvy, non-petite girls out there.  The typical image of the princess is so idealized, I want my "princess" to be real!


Dreaming of going to the ball—I also wanted to have "Cinderella's" family be the ones who want her to go to the "ball."  My Cinderella character doesn't really want to go, but her family convinces her to go to have fun (not to meet a boy, just to meet people).  I hope that shows that not all girls love balls, parties, dancing and contrived social events.


Prince notices her—Then once she's there I wanted Cinderella to be the one to ask to dance with the boy (he's not a prince or anything close in my version, he's just a peer).  Boys don't have to do all of the asking, girls can take initiative too.


Love at first sight—Also I didn't want them to fall instantly in love.  Love at first sight isn't possible—lust is, but love takes longer, so I wanted to emphasize that through their conversations.  They simply see each other as friends because they enjoy talking with each other and they have fun together—it has nothing to do with appearances.


Marriage—Then in the end I didn't want them to get married—that would be way too fast!  That was just their first meeting.  I set it up for them to continue to get to know each other and who knows what will happen from there...


Magic—I also didn't really include any magic because I wanted to make this more realistic.  You make your own path in the world.  Fairy godmothers don't just pop out when you're in a pinch.  In this case I had her family help her get ready last minute because I know in my experience family and friends turn out to be my helpful fairy godmothers—real people who care about you.


Climbing the social ladder—I also didn't want class to play a role.  I never specify "Cinderella" or "the prince's" socio-economic status.  That issue is totally irrelevant to the story.  True friends and/or lovers like someone for their personality, not their money or status.

Community Research

For my research in a bookstore I only looked in the children’s section, so my observations are limited to the children’s literature that Kramerbooks had.  They didn’t have a lot of display space, but there were some culturally diverse books more prominently displayed and the authors seemed to have some connection to what they were writing about.  I was surprised that the children’s books were located on an entire wall, which means kids couldn’t reach the ones that were higher up.  Kramerbooks has plenty of “islands” of books where the children’s books could be displayed making them completely accessible to kids.  Most of the diverse books dealt with racism.  The main message the culturally diverse books conveyed was that the characters were strong and we should celebrate everyone’s differences.  I think this is reflective of the neighborhood that Kramerbooks is situated in.  Dupont Circle is an artsy, progressive, gay-friendly place and so I was not surprised by the variety of children’s books they had.

I went to the Tenley-Friendship Interim Library.  I found it was a lot harder to tell if the authors were diverse or had some connection to what they were writing about, but I’d tend to say the authors were less diverse.  Diversity of any sort was definitely lacking in the teen-lit section.  All of the books seemed to be about rich, white girls and the few with other cultures were not “normal” portrayals, but rather an unusual story.  The books that were on display (which were too high for kids to reach) were often centered on diversity, which made it seem like they were trying too hard to be diverse.  Also, diversity seemed to mean African American.  There was little Asian, Latino or Middle Eastern literature.  Once again I think the selection is reflective of the neighborhood.  Tenleytown seems to be made of mid to upper class white folks, although the actual people in the library were very diverse.  In fact one woman was giving English lessons to a Latina woman in the library.

In the library and in the bookstore I found a critical literacy-type book in the kids/teen section.  One was The Teen Guide to Global Action—How to Connect with Others (Near and Far) to Create Social Change by Barbara A. Lewis and the other was I Can Make A Difference—A Treasury to Inspire Our Children by Marian Wright Edelman.

I was really disappointed by the lack of diversity in the teen section.  I was also surprised by one display entitled “Folktales from Africa” where they had several books that had surprise surprise, folktales from Africa.  One of the books was The Girl Who Spun Gold by Virginia Hamilton.  I started reading it and realized that it was the story of Rumpelstiltskin but with illustrations of Africans.  Is that really an African folktale?  This book just seemed like a very superficial translation of Rumpelstitskin into the African culture.  However the collections as a whole seemed more diverse than I remember my library being.  I think there are more culturally diverse books available now then there used to be.  However, part of that may be due to the fact that DC is a big city and would tend to be more diverse than a smaller town (like where I grew up).

I have kept my eyes open for children’s literature themes in the media, but I really haven’t seen much.  I did take a photo with my phone of an ad I saw on a bus shelter that had a picture of Tinkerbell and it said, “You don’t need magic to use energy wisely.”  I realize that Tinkerbell isn’t really a theme from children’s literature, but she is a recognizable icon.  I also found an ad in Marie Claire from the American Society for Dermatologic Surgery with a photo of a woman’s lower face, neck and shoulder.  The text says, “don’t let beauty become a beast” right next to a beauty mark (that could be a melanoma?) in the iconic place near the corner of her mouth.  I think it’s kind of funny that the ones I did see are basically public service announcements.

For the online research I found several websites:

It's A Small World: International Nursery Rhymes is a site that compiles nursery rhymes, stories and songs from around the world.  The library of literature they have is dependent on people sending in the songs and stories for their database.  What I think is especially cool is their “Book Crossing Experiment” where the book My Village: Rhymes from Around the World gets mailed to people all over the world and people can log on and track where it has gone (similar to the Where’s George project) and send messages to the people who get the book next.

http://itsasmallworld.co.nz/index.php

Project Gutenburg is a useful database of free ebooks.  The link I’m including is the list of children’s books.  You can search for a specific book or author and then download the book to read on the computer.  A lot of these books are older; I’m talking 1800s.  But that’s why I think this is so cool, because it would be difficult to find some of these rare or not often heard of books in public libraries.  I can think of all kinds of fun projects using this amazing database.

http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/results?subject=Children

American Indians in Children's Literature is a blog with all kinds of resources and information about American Indians in children’s literature.  There are links to articles, lists of books by native authors for your library, and lots of things to get you thinking about American Indian stereotypes in literature.

http://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com/

Database of Award-Winning Children’s Literature has a search feature that lets you set parameters for the kind of book you’re looking for.  I loved that some of their parameters included setting, which had a variety of countries and regions to choose from in addition to urban or rural settings.  Another parameter was ethnicity/nationality of the protagonist.  (Although they didn’t have Filipino as an option in the pull down list, one option was “others not listed above” which included books about the less common nationalities, and two books were about the Philippines).

http://www.dawcl.com/search.asp

KidLit is a website where students from elementary school through high school can send their poems, short stories or book reviews and they will be published on the website.  It is aimed at kids and gives them a chance to see their work published on the internet and is completely free.

http://mgfx.com/kidlit/

Banned Books

I read ttyl by Lauren Myracle as my banned book, which I really enjoyed.  I can see why some adults would be cautious about having this book in school—underage drinking, cyber bullying, "intimate" student-teacher relationships, cuss words and instant messaging grammar and language are some of its themes.  However, I think those are topics that need to be discussed with teens and pre-teens and I don't think that banning the book is the solution to preventing that kind of behavior.  As I've talked about with some of my friends and we also mentioned in class, kids can see much more explicit things on tv and in the movies now, so why can't they read about it?

I remember being in classes where we weren't allowed to watch a certain video because one parent objected so I assumed that parents were usually the ones complaining to the school about banning certain books.  I was surprised to learn that a lot of the time when books get banned it wasn't instigated by a parent, but often some group working through the parents.  I think that's really underhanded and doesn't promote independent thinking, which I think is ironic since supposedly we want to encourage students to think independently.

ttyl actually has a good message that I think is being overlooked.  The three friends go through rough patches but they decide that their friendship is more important then petty arguing.  They also learn from their mistakes and they go through their ups and downs with a sense of humor.  This book can start some important conversations with young people and it can also give them insight to real life situations and the mistakes that the protagonists make so that they won't make the same ones.  I'd argue books that get banned often make the best teaching tools because they have something more outside of the norm to say.

Critical Analysis Podcast Assignment Brainstorming

I haven't officially decided on a book yet or even the issue that I want to address, but I'm leaning toward the book My Home is Over Jordan by Sandra Forrester.  It is about a family of newly freed slaves who are trying to establish a new life in the post-Civil War south.  (I've only read the first chapter so far), but I think race will be the main issue that the book focuses on.  There might also be some currents of classism related to the economic hardships after the war.  Since this is a chapter book, I'm worried that there will be so many facets of racism that I'll want to discuss, but won't have time to in the 4 minute podcast.  Forrester said that "if a young reader comes away from this book wondering why things haven't changed more than they have, I will be happy."  So I might relate the themes in the book to attitudes that are still present today in regards to race.

I'm also thinking about the book We Shall Not Be Moved by Joan Dash which is about women in a garment factory standing up for their rights.  I haven't read this book at all, but I'm interested in the topic because I don't remember studying about factory workers much in school and I think it would be an interesting perspective that I'm not familiar with.  So the sociopolitical issue that this book would introduce would be sexism and women's rights, I think.

Since I have a Mac, I'm planning on using Garage Band to record my podcast.  I'm actually really glad to have a chance to figure out how to use Garage Band.  Since I'm not particularly musical I hadn't used it and didn't really plan on using the program, but this is the perfect opportunity to become familiar with my own computer!

Quotable Quotes

p. 35 "In the middle of the aisle a young girl of five or six was playing with a dirty doll on the floor.  The doll had curly yellow hair and big china eyes that opened and closed.
'What's your doll's name?'
'Miss Shirley,'  The young girl held the doll up shyly.  'Mama bought her for me from the Sears catalog.'
'She's beautiful.'"

I was struck by the contrasts here.  This Japanese American girl was playing with a blonde doll, which is called a china doll and has connections to Asia, while on a train patrolled by white people which will take her and all the other Japanese Americans to detainee camps in the US.  And both of these Japanese American girls think that this "white" doll is Beautiful with a capital B.  It shows that decades ago there was even less diversity in the media, in toys for children and in American products in general.  We've talked about how many children's books just depict white children, but I have a feeling there is more diversity now than there was then.  This book makes me think of just how oppressive the "white ideal" was back then.  The daughter in the story repeatedly talks about not being pretty and comparing herself to the white women she sees in magazines.  When I was reading this I just felt so sad for the girls because they didn't have a much, if any validation for their heritage.  They only knew that to fit in you needed to act like whites, dress like whites, eat like whites, etc.


p. 112-113 "Without thinking, we had sought out the room whose dimensions—long and narrow, with two windows on one end and a door at the other—most closely resembled those of the room in the barracks in the desert where we had lived during the war.  Without thinking, we had configured ourselves exactly as we had in that long narrow room during the war: our mother in the far corner, away from the windows, the two of us lying head to toe along the wall on the opposite side of the room.  Without thinking, we had chosen to sleep, together, in a room, with our mother, even though for more than three years we had been dreaming of the day when we could finally sleep, alone, in our own rooms, in our old house, our old white stucco house on the broad tree-lined street not far from the sea."

This passage stuck out to me because I thought it was surprising, but at the same time not surprising at all that they would all sleep together in the same room.  It wasn't even a bedroom, but because of the size and characteristics of the room it felt familiar to where they had been living for several years (despite the fact that those several years had been undesirable to say the least).  The mother and children had endured so much hardship and stress and discomfort that even when they got back home, they gravitated to what felt familiar and comfortable—being together.  It seemed to be a way to create some normalcy in their turned-around lives.  I think this passage just really reminded me that when we are uncomfortable and feel out of place, we tend to resort back to what we always do, to what feels familiar.  It also showed the importance and strength of family.  Throughout their ordeals, the family stayed together, talked and supported one another and that is reflected in the fact that they all slept together even when they didn't have to.  I think it also suggests that they had been conditioned while they were evacuated.  They were used to the routine, they did similar things everyday, there wasn't much variety and there wasn't much choice.  So when they got back home, they fell back into that routine of sleeping in the same configuration that they had before.

Hello, my names are...

Lina Schneider, Robusto, Bean, Lines, Linaste, Liner.

I tell people to call me Lina.  (Line-ah)  That is the name I was given and I like it.  I like telling people about my name, (it was my grandmother's name, it is the female version of Linus) and I like it when people tell me, "Oh, that's an interesting/pretty/I like that name."  Lina is what I am called or referred to most of the time.  I use Lina (Schneider) in formal settings, in casual settings, on legal documents and for assignments.  Since most people aren't familiar with the name Lina it often gets mispronounced.  I supposed if you want to judge what kind of person I am just by my name, then Lina probably doesn't sound disadvantaged, but doesn't that depend on whose making the assumptions?  I feel like "Lina" is part of me and I don't know that I use this name as a tool (or if I do I'm not sure how).  I know that when I encounter another "Lina," whether in real life or as a name in a book, I get excited and feel a strong connection because Lina isn't a common name.  I feel comfortable using Lina in pretty much any setting, the only exception to that would be telling a stranger who asks for my name.  They may want to get my number or are trying to make conversation on the bus, but I just don't trust them.  In those situations I am hesitant to use my real name because it is less common and I don't know what their intentions are.  Then I might withhold my real name for my own personal privacy or security.

The first nickname I had was Robusto.  My uncle called me Robusto shortly after I came home from the hospital.  "Robusto" is almost exclusively a family joke, except for the fact that I mentioned it in one of my high school classes once and some of my friends tease me about it occasionally.  I don't use it because it positions me in a joking light.  Apparently I was a robust baby, but the name didn't stick, although it was used affectionately.  I guess when I shared this name with my class I used it to make conversation, to get my friends to laugh or admire it or just to get some kind of response.

Bean was a nickname I acquired in 4th grade from one of my best friends (because Lina Bean sounds like Lima Bean).  My friends used it and then my 4th grade teacher caught on and for several years some of my teachers actually called me Bean.  But as I continued through school it wore off.  Some of my childhood friends still call me that sometimes and even my parents have gone through phases of using it, but for the most part Bean has been retired.  Bean is definitely a casual term.  I don't and probably wouldn't use this name with an employer.  Now I guess I just use it with old friends when we are remembering childhood memories or when I go back to visit my 4th grade teacher.

Lines, Linaste and Liner are all nicknames I've acquired here at college.  "Lines" came from a Canadian friend who has found a way to shorten or at least change all of his friends' names into his own nickname for them (for example Emily becomes Em and Christina becomes Na).  The way he pronounces it the s at the end is very extended—Linesss.  It has caught on with our circle of friends and most of them call me that about half of the time.  I never refer to myself as Lines or tell other people to call me that, friends have just picked it up from other friends.  That's not to say I don't like the name.  I answer to it and I like the fact that someone came up with a nickname for me.  That seems to show they care about me or like me.  "Linaste" and "Liner" are two nicknames that my roommate has come up with and they are purely joking names and are not used very much.  I really only use them when I am emailing her and I'll sign my name Linaste or Liner.  I use them to create a friendly or joking mood or just to reinforce our friendship in a way.  "Linaste" is supposed to sound slightly Spanish and I don't know if that comes across.  Since it is sort of Spanglish, that might suggest less privilege simply because our society doesn't have a high regard for Latinos stemming from immigration issues.

Hello, my names are not...
Lina (Lee-nah), Lina (Lin-ah), Carolina, Snyder
As I said, my name has been mispronounced over and over.  Sometimes I use "Carolina" to explain how to pronounce may name: "It's like -lina in Carolina."  But I've stopped doing that because then they assume my whole name is Carolina, Lina for short.  Lina isn't short for anything, it isn't a nickname.  Having the name Carolina could imply that I'm Southern (which I am more or less) and all the stereotypes that go along with that most of which seem negative.  Teachers, secretaries at doctors' offices, reservation clerks, hostesses at restaurants, etc. pronounce my name Leenah and Lin ah all the time (not to mention spelling it wrong too).  My last name isn't spared either.  I get Snyder rather often.  Sometimes I correct them if I will see them again, like a teacher, but most of the time I go with the flow because they have no reason for remembering the correct pronunciation of my name.  And sometimes I feel pompous correcting people.  I think that done in poor taste can make you seem privileged more so than just the name itself.