Although this article contained a lot of things that I have already somewhat heard about, it was very insightful. I think that it is so true that sometimes, even though an author may be trying to do a good thing by making a children's book "multicultural," they are actually making a worse impact on a child of the minority group being portrayed. The article brought up some interesting points as to how one can judge whether a book is really authentic in the way that it portrays different cultural groups. I found it interesting that there are so many subtle things that children from this group being portrayed can pick up on (which others may not even see) and that these cues can affect how a child feels about him/herself and the cultural background from which they come.
I think that authors need to be very aware of the groups they will portray before they try to make a children's book multicultural. I have read several books in which I felt the idea of multiculturalism was way too stressed. Each page contained pictures of all different types of students and their classic stereotyped ways of dressing. Reading this made me laugh a little because it looked so fake, like the author thought that by just putting a diverse group of kids portrayed by common misconceptions of how people from their culture dress/act, they would make a good multicultural book. Instead they just spread stereotypes, leaving students misinformed.
I have definitely come across the books that seem fake. They do always make you shake your head. :)
ReplyDeleteI think that there is a fine line that an author can cross between "here is a multicultural book that will positively affect the students life" and "here is a book that is so worried on being multicultural that it becomes detrimental." Hopefully most authors realize if they've gone overboard BEFORE publishing it!