Re: A response to Kristof's "Best Kids' Books Ever"

Yesterday, as I was perusing the New York Times, I noticed that columnist Nicholas Kristof has a list of "The Best Kids' Books Ever." Since I LOVE reading and developed my love of reading as a child, I was interested in his list.

So I guess a few caveats about Kristof and his list. To the best of my knowledge, he's not an expert. What I mean is, his academic training isn't as a Children's librarian, in reading education, or education/English at all. I'm sure he is a father (I think he alludes to this) and thus has as much "hands on" experience as any parent engaged with their children. I mention this because I'm trying to cut Kristof some slack, because I was, quite frankly, a bit shocked at his list.

My first reaction is, it's pretty antiquated. And I use that word purposely--he's got Little Lord Fauntleroy and The Prince and the Pauper on his list. Now don't get me wrong--some of the best stories that the world has produced are its oldest stories. But Kristof opens his piece by citing stats about U.S. levels of literacy and reading levels, and particularly lamenting the gaps that emerge with kids who don't come from affluent backgrounds or rigorous school districts--lower-middle, and working class kids essentially. He actually refers to them as "poor" kids (which, to the best of my knowledge, has a certain condescending ring to it, although it's also brutally honest I think in some cases).

Anyway, Kristof seems to offer his list as a exhortation to these "poor" families to get their kids to read rather than to be stuck in front of the Ninetendo wii all day. And yet, who does he thinks he's talking to? I mean, first of all, kids who grow up in working class families and communities are not going to rush out to read Little Lord Fauntleroy or the Hardy Boys series. I mean, some will and will love it, but those are the kids who are readers and who take a flashlight to bed and spend all their time in the library. We aren't worried about those kids, whatever class background they come from. The real question is, how do you get the kid who hates to read--who doesn't see anything in the books s/he is assigned in school and who doesn't see his/her LIFE reflected in these books--to start reading? Having books that either take place in the late 20th early 21st century or that were written in this time period may just be one place to start.

But my other beef with Kristof's list is its unrelenting MALE-ness. I mean, he does list Charlotte's Web as his #1 book, but if you look down the list, at the books that HE remembers liking and reading, it's no surprise that most of them have male protagonists or fairly masculine themes or were written by male writers (including Charlotte's Web, although I am a big E.B. White fan).

Let me be clear, it's not that I don't appreciate kids' books written by men or with male characters/protagonists. But this is Kristof's list for kids--all kids, not just little boys who grew up in predominantly white suburban families. With the exception of Anne of Green Gables and the author J.K. Rowling, it's a pretty masculine list--and he makes a fairly disparaging comment about Nancy Drew that I particularly take offense to, given the fact that Nancy Drew, as a children's book series, emerged at a time when there just weren't a lot of female literary role models for young girls to draw on. Books that Kristof failed to mention, either written by women or featuring strong girl characters include: The Little House on the Prairie book series, works by Madeline L'Engle, such as A Wrinkle in Time, Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising Series, a truly wonderful series of fantasy books with a central male character (like Harry Potter) but with equally strong female characters and lovely writing, plotting, character development, and works by Ellen Raskin, particularly The Westing Game, one of my favorites (and I should note that Raskin is one of the few writers to include multicultural characters in fairly nuanced ways).

Which brings me to my final bone of contention with Kristof's list: his vision of race in kids' literature. It's pretty white. No, let me amend that. It's ALL white. Maybe with the exception of a few characters in the Harry Potter series (like Cho Chang and others, but they are not main characters) there are no characters of color and there are no writers of color in his list. My guess is that at least some (dare I saw 1/3) of the "poor" people that Kristof is trying to reach out to with this list are people of color, families of color (I'd guess for some of his readers when they read "poor" they are equating "black/Latino" in their minds, but let us not forget that many rural poor families in the South and mid-West are poor WHITE families--and there are also urban poor white families as well, which isn't to say that there isn't a correlation between race and class, especially given the way that racism has operated in this nation, but you all know that already so I'll stop preaching it).

What was I saying?

Oh yeah, race. Or rather the fact that Kristof's vision of his "best" kids' books are a rather monochromatic lot. And even if all the "poor" kids he envisions are white kids, don't they still deserve to read about non-white kids? In fact, in a mixed-race America--given the demographics of race and ethnicity in America, it seems criminal nowadays not to acknowledge that the world is really racially diverse. So giving kids a list of books to read that doesn't help them see a variety of races and cultures and ethnicities (and I mean I don't even know where to begin with sexuality and I already covered gender) just seems to be of PARAMOUNT importance.

While I was in grad school I paid the bills by working for a summer program that mentored high school kids, predominantly non-white, helping to prep them to get into college. We assigned a common reading, a novel, to them, and my second summer with the program I recommended Frank Chin's Donald Duk as an appropriate reading level book, but more importantly, as a book that the kids in the program (about 1/3 of them were SouthEast Asian) could relate to. It was a big hit--not just among the Asian American kids but among the black and Latino and white kids as well. They could relate to the main character, Donald, and his feelings of ethnic self hatred and his feelings of pride that eventually grew. But especially for the Asian American boys in the program, they said that this was the first time they read a book with someone who "looked" like them--who had similar experiences and who came from similar class and ethnic backgrounds. They were profoundly moved by the experience of reading Donald Duk, and I was profoundly moved by how much literature could make a difference--the right literature. There were kids who had JUST learned English the year before, who really struggled to get through the book--but they said it was the first time they read a book in English that they enjoyed--that they finished AHEAD of schedule.

So the last thing I want to leave you with, dear readers, is a plea for some suggestions of your own--ones that will combat the whiteness, the maleness, and the out-of-touch nature of Kristof's list (and especially if you have suggestions about works that touch on sexuality, that'd be great). I'm a bit out of the loop with the world of kids' books. I grew up reading (and loving) books like The Phantom Toll Booth and fantasy works by Lloyd Alexander (like the Prydain series). But I know that the world of kids' books has really grown since the mid-1970s (thank Goodness!) and works by writers like Allen Say have grown in popularity, so hearing your suggestions in the comment section will help all of us have a better sense of what "Best Kids' Books" should be on the reading list of a Mixed Race America.

[UPDATE: This post has been cross-listed on the Anti-Racist Parent blog (click here) and California NOW (click here). Thought I'd mention these cross-postings because especially on Anti-Racist Parent, there are some great suggestions for kids' books that are much more diverse than Kristof's list]

Putting race and gender front and center

I'm a little bit of a political junkie, which I'm sure you have gleaned if you have been following this blog over the last year. And I mean political junkie not just Obama fan (although I'm sure that the two are often confused nowadays). But in the last primary I voted in, I also paid attention to who was running in local elections, and even attended a few precinct meetings, because I figured that I shouldn't just say I want change, I should try to make change (although I recognize that volunteering a few hours to canvass for Obama and going to a few meetings isn't really revolutionary).

At any rate, I've been hearing and reading a lot of politicos and talking heads go on about whether the extended primaries for the Democratic nominee is a good or a bad thing for the party and for the chances of a Democratic contender taking back the White House in November. Some say it's good because this gives a chance to educate people on the electoral process and more first time voters have gotten involved in the political process (for both Obama and Clinton) than ever before. Some say it's bad because it's dividing the party and draining resources and letting Obama and Clinton attack one another in the primaries only helps McCain's machine gear up for the real race post-Denver.

But I think one great thing to emerge from the extended Democratic primaries are the conversations in the public sphere over race and gender. Because lets face it, no matter who gets the nod it's going to be historic: the country's first female presidential candidate or first African American/mixed-race candidate*.

[aside: I put a little asterisk (*) when alluding to Obama because race being what it is, that slippery, flexible category, there very well may have been a President or Presidential candidate with African American heritage and certainly with a mixed-race background--but Obama is the first openly mixed-race and African American candidate, so I still think it's appropriate to think about him under these parameters.]

And because of the historical precedent and because race and gender are issues that Americans are fascinated by, there have been many conversations about race and gender, about racism and sexism, about white Americans and African Americans and all other racial categories, about mixed-race Americans, about a history of sexism and gender discrimination against women in public life, about a history of racism and race discrimination. And by and large, I think this has all been to the good.

I don't mean that all of the discussions have been good. I think that there have been very heated exchanges, editorials that have been anger producing, and comments from various bloggers, talking heads, media figures, newscasters, journalists, academics, politicians, public figures, celebrities, and average Americans that suggests that we are not getting along when it comes to gender and racial issues.

And that's what I think has been good. Because when's the last time you had SO MUCH ATTENTION focused on issues of gender and race and SO MUCH DEBATE, DISCUSSION, DISSENT, DISAGREEMENT, DISATISFACTION openly expressed in newspaper editorials, magazine articles, blog posts, television talk shows, radio call-in shows, and just general water cooler conversation about race and gender?

I had been thinking about writing a post about the various conversations I've seen going on in the blogosphere alone that have been inspired by Obama and Clinton. There are too many to mention, but I have to acknowledge first and foremost Lesboprof's excellent post that spurred me to finally write the one you're reading. Her post, "Good Racial Conversations" also has a link to the Atlanta Journal Constitution's article about a former white Southern roommate of Michelle Obama and the woman's revelation of her own racism (you can go to Lesboprof's post linked above or to the link here). The Wall Street Journal recently did an article about race and politics and college campuses, noting the disconnect between white students who support Obama but who don't have any black friends and who remain largely ignorant of African American culture and history (click here). And as other bloggers such as What Tami Said and Racialicious have already chimed in about, there was an article in The Nation, "Race to the Bottom," by Besty Reed that very eloquently and forcefully talks about entwined and twinned issues of race and gender, of racism and sexism, and of how we have seen these issues play out in the Democratic primaries and the campaigns and the spin camps of both Clinton and Obama, as well as the mainstream media outlets and the blogosphere.

There's so much else I could write about--there has certainly been a fair amount of discouraging things to comment on, regarding the divide I've been seeing in the blogosphere among women of color and white feminists. And I continue to be amazed by the ignorant things that come out of people's mouths, in terms of race and gender, but also class and sexuality and region. And I continue to amaze myself with my own naivete over others' ignorance and anger and my own biases and prejudices, which I struggle with (I was recently called out by some folks over anti-Southern things I had said or stereotypes I had made that I didn't think were stereotypes or anti-Southern--but in hindsight I can see why a Southerner would have taken my remarks in an anti-Southern way and seen me as a "Yankee elitist"--because my own prejudices against "The South" are ones I'm still blind to and working out).

But like Obama, let me end on a message of hope--that I think it IS possible for us to try to come together. That dissent and disagreement do not have to be bad things--in fact, we need to have a certain amount of tension around issues of race and gender to have things move forward. We have to be ready to live with a certain amount of discomfort and to work through our defense mechanisms and pride in order to try to hear one another and to be allies for each other.

So with that note, I'm leaving you with one final link to Latoya Peterson's series in Racialicious "On facing your bias, owning your prejudice, and allies" -- this is the link to Part II, and the post includes the link to Part I (and Peterson alludes to a Part III, which I'm looking forward to). I find her series to be thoughtful and thought provoking--I hope you do too. And I am glad that America is finally talking about race and gender in the public sphere. While some of the discussions are discouraging and draining and makes you want to hit your head against a brick wall, there are also moments when I've been astounded at the level of discourse--the high level of discourse and self-reflection and candor that people are engaging in over these very tough and complex subjects.

Lets keep the conversation flowing.