International Picture Books

Continuing my series of book lists to help parents find multicultural children’s books, the following is a list of picture books set outside the United States, Canada, or the United Kingdom.  All of these books have human protagonists; while animal stories from around the world can be interesting, they do not address the fundamental problem of the lack of diversity in children’s publishing.

Picture books range widely from stories you can read to your baby to long tales for early elementary students. I have broken the list down by age group.

Series Review: Anna Hibiscus

Anna Hibiscus is a young girl, approximately five years old (she has her first day of school in one of the books), who is a lot like the little kids I know: she likes to climb trees, play with her cousins, listen to her grandparents tell stories, swim at the beach, and sing (although audiences make her nervous).  Unlike most kids I know, Anna Hibiscus also lives in Africa (Amazing Africa!) in a compound with her parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and her twin brothers Double and Trouble. The books are real page turners–we find out that Anna dreams of seeing snow in the first book, and by the time she goes to visit her Granny Canada in the fourth book I was just as excited about snowmen and sledding as Anna (and I grew up in Ohio!)

Written by Atinuke, a Nigerian-born storyteller currently living with her family in Wales, the Anna Hibiscus books paint a picture of Africa rarely seen in Children’s Literature: an Africa that is urban, with happy, comfortable people, living out their lives much like people do in the rest of the world. While most of the children’s books set in African countries that I have seen focus on either the triumph of the human spirit in times of catastrophe, like A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park or Brothers in Hope by Mary Williams (both about the Lost Boys of Sudan) or retell folk tales like The Tortoise’s Gift: A Tale from Zambia retold by Lari Don. Of course, there is nothing wrong with either of these types of children’s books per se, but as a whole children are left with a picture of Africa where either everyone is suffering the ravages of starvation or living in a timeless village setting that places Africa outside the flow of history. The Anna Hibisicus books are a welcome change. On her website, Atinuke says that she wrote Anna Hibiscus to because of the ignorance most children in the UK had about Africa. I am willing to guess that children in the United States know as little or less than the children in the United Kingdom, so I am grateful to Atinuke for writing these books.

Atinuke does not paper over the real struggles African countries, like other places across the world, have with poverty. In Anna Hibiscus, Anna becomes bored one day and decides to join the “gate girls” in selling oranges along the street outside her family’s compound. She enjoys the hustle of it and is proud of the money she has earned until her uncles come home and wonder why the gate girls haven’t been able to sell any fruit. When Anna confesses to what she has done, her family chastises her for turning the work that those children, many of whom are orphans, do into a game and thereby depriving them of their livelihood. The next day Anna spends all day walking back and forth to the fruit market to get more fruit for the gate girls so that they can make up the money lost the previous day. Thus the poverty some people in African cities face is acknowledged without judgement and without poverty becoming the defining characteristic of African life.  Similarly in Hooray for Anna Hibiscus, Anna wants to see the other side of the city across the lagoon, and when finally allowed to ride the ferry, chooses to wear her best clothes. But when she gets there she learns that the other side of the city is very impoverished and she ends up giving all of the clothes she is wearing to children foraging for food in a trash heap.

But lest you think that the Anna Hibiscus series is too weighty for young readers, Anna also plays flash-light hide and seek with her cousins during a power cut (Hooray for Anna Hibiscus), gets blamed for the antics of her twin brothers (Good Luck Anna Hibiscus!), makes new friends (Have fun Anna Hibiscus!), and finds herself acting mama to a baby chick (Welcome Home Anna Hibiscus!).

What makes the Anna Hibiscus stories so wonderful is the way that Atinuke weaves the familiar and the unfamiliar so that children reading the books in the UK or US can see the ways that their lives might seem strange to other people–keeping dogs in the house, sleeping alone in a room–while normalizing things that are different from most Western children’s experiences.  Deep questions of modernity and tradition, poverty and privilege, racism and acceptance, weave seamlessly into stories of visiting relatives, playing children, and making friends.

My only complaint is that Atinuke is not more specific in naming the setting of these books. We are told only that Anna lives in Africa (Amazing Africa!), and while the descriptive details of the story indicate a West African setting–a city with roads and lagoons, Harmattan winds–no explicit country is named. By not naming the setting, Atinuke unwittingly contributes to misconceptions that Africa is one homogenous place, or even a single country.

That one flaw aside, I highly recommend the Anna Hibiscus books to  young readers and anyone interested in seeking out more diverse Children’s Literature.

Queer Picture Books

Families come in many forms and our children deserve books that reflect that. The following is a list of queer picture books, by which I mean books that feature gay and lesbian parents, gender non-conforming and trans* children, or other GLBTQ characters. These books are important, not only for children in the queer community, but also for children who are raised in more hetero-normative families. This list focuses on story books that feature queer characters.

The list is divided by age group, and where I felt more explanation is necessary I have included a brief summary in parentheses.  This list is work in progress and will grow as I continue to find and read more queer picture books. Please leave your suggestions in the comments!

Ages 1-3

• Mommy, Mama, and Me by Lesléa Newman, illustrated by Carol Thompson
• Daddy, Papa, and Me by Lesléa Newman, illustrated by Carol Thompson
• This Day in June by Gayle E. Pitman, illustrated by Kristyna Litten
• They He She Me: Free to Be by Maya Gonzalez and Matthew SG (Shows a diverse group of people for each pronoun, including ze and tree. The end has a guide for parents on using gender inclusive pronouns)

Ages 4-6

• Uncle Bobby’s Wedding by Sarah S. Brennan (Chloe is sad when Uncle Bobby is getting married, but comes to love her new Uncle Jaime)
• And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, illustrated by Henry Cole (the true story of two male penguins and their egg)
• King and King by Linda Haan, illustrated by Stern Nijland (The Prince rejects all the princesses in favor of another prince)
• Jacob’s New Dress by Sarah and Ian Hoffman, illustrated by Chris Case (Jacob’s mom helps him make a dress)
• Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress by Christine Baldacchino, illustrated by Isabelle Malenfant (Morris likes his tangerine dress because it swishes and is a great color; faces teasing at school)
• Sparkle Boy by Lesléa Newman. Illustrated by Maria Mola (Casey loves all things sparkly; the older boys tease him but his big sister defends him)
• Introducing Teddy: A Gentle Story about Gender and Friendship by Jess Walton. Illustrated by Dougal MacPherson (Errol’s teddy bear is sad until she confides that she is actually a girl teddy, not a boy teddy and changes her name to Tilly)
• My Princess Boy by Cheryl Kilodavis. Illusrtated by Suzanne DeSimone (A story of unconditional love a mother has for her gender nonconforming son)
• Prince & Knight by Daniel Haack (A prince and a male knight find true love together)
• A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo by Jill Twiss (The Pence family’s bunny finds his true love with another boy bunny. Proceeds from the book benefit the AIDS action network)
• A Peacock Among Pigeons by Tyler Curry. Illustrated by Clarione Gutierrez
• From the Stars in the Sky to the Fish in the Sea by  Kai Cheng Thom. Illustrated by wai-yant li and kai yun ching (Miu Lan is neither a girl or a boy. They are happy and loved, but have some difficulty when they start school)
• Worm Loves Worm by J.J.  Austrian. Illustrated by Mike Curato (When Worm and Worm get married who will be the groom and who will be the bride?)
• A Tale of Two Dadies by Vanita Oelschlager. Illusratated by Kristin Blackwood
• A Tale of Two Mommies by Vanita Oelschlager. Illustrated by Kristin Blackwood
• Home at Last by Vera Williams. Illustrated by Chris Raschka. (Lester finds a forever home with Daddy Rich and Daddy Albert)

Ages 7-9

•  In Our Mothers’ House by Patricia Polacco (Life with Marmee and Meema as told by the oldest of three adopted children)
• 10,000 Dresses by Marcus Ewert, illustrated by Rex Rey (Bailey dreams of dresses but her family insists that she’s a boy)
• Pride: The Story of Harvey Milk and the Rainbow Flag by Rob Sanders

 

This post is part of my Diversity in Children’s Literature list series.

Dad reads

After some research and web chatter focused on how dads are less involved in encouraging their kids to read –  and reading with their kids -the Good Men Project has started a social media campaign called Dads Read to encourage fathers to read to their children (and celebrate the dads that already do). The website doesn’t cite any of this research or web chatter, but that’s ok. First of all, nationally speaking, fathers spend about half as much time as moms on childcare related work in families with two working parents. This is according to a Pew study done in 2013 that seems to assume all two parent families have one  mother and one father. I am not sure what the statistics look like in queer families. So it makes sense that fathers are probably also spending less time reading to their kids than moms are. I also don’t really care that the Good Man Project doesn’t have any citations because I think that encouraging parents of both genders to read to their children (and celebrating book culture in families) is a good idea regardless of the numbers on the ground

Without further ado, my contribution to #DadsRead:

Floob is for Floob-Boober-Bab-Boober-Bubs

I generally consider myself a mother, rather than a father, so to celebrate Father’s Day here is a lovely picture of my husband reading On Beyond Zebra by Dr. Seuss to our two-year-old son.

 

 

Book Review: Karma by Cathy Ostlere

A novel in verse, Karma by Cathy Ostlere alternates between the journals of Jiva/Maya – the Canadian born daughter of a bi-religious Indian family –and Sandeep–a Hindu adolescent orphan with amnesia. Karma is the story of a girl from a troubled family navigating troubled times. Born to a Sikh father and a Hindu mother who emigrated to rural Canada to escape the censure of their families, Jiva’s identity is conflicted. Perhaps nothing symbolizes this more effectively than her name: Jiva is the name her father gave her and the name on her birth certificate, but it is Maya–the name her mother gave her in defiance of her father– that she uses throughout the book.  The book opens with Maya and her father on a flight to India with an urn containing her mother’s ashes and as the story unfolds through flashbacks we learn how unhappy her mother was in Canada, in part because of the racism of the community, but also because of the expectations of her husband.

Just after Maya and her father arrive in India, Indira Gandhi is assassinated by her two Sikh bodyguards in retaliation for  her decision to send the army into the Golden Temple in Amritsar, a Sikh holy site, to suppress a militant Sikh separatist movement. In response, anti-Sikh mobs instigated an organized pogrom in which at least 8,000 Sikhs were murdered, 3,000 in the city of Delhi alone. Maya and her father are caught up in the violence and separated when their hotel is attacked. Maya disguises herself as a boy, flees Delhi, witnesses several atrocities, and when found by Dr. Parvati Patel, refuses to speak.

At this point the narrative switches to Sandeep’s diary, which he is keeping on the insistence of his adoptive sister, the doctor who treats Maya.  Parvati sends Maya to live with her family and hopes that Sandeep, who is a friendly, sociable guy, will be able to draw Maya out of her shell so they can find out who she is, where she belongs,  and how to get her back home. But Maya is not welcome in Sandeep’s conservative village, and Sandeep’s adoptive father concocts a plan to get her out. During the ensuing adventure in the Thar desert, Sandeep and Maya fall in love.

I read this book in two days and it has taken me just as long to figure out what how to review it. Clearly it pulled me in–there were several times I found myself glaring at my husband for daring to interrupt me while I was reading. But even while I was reading it, I felt vaguely uneasy with it and it took me a while to put my finger on why.

So, first the good stuff. Writing a novel is an ambitious undertaking. Writing a book-length manuscript of poetry is an ambitious undertaking. So writing a novel in verse is doubly ambitious and difficult and I applaud Cathy Ostlere for the simply act of sitting down and writing this book. The language is beautiful and powerful and often moved me to tears (and not just because of the tragic subject matter. Here is one of my favorite poems, from early in the book when Maya first gets to Delhi:

Chai

A hand tugs at my arm
holds up a small earthen cup.

chai chai

It belongs to a boy, small,
yet his face is old. he could be
nine or twenty or thirty-seven.

one rupee chai

He puts the chai into my hand,
presses my fingers around
the unbaked clay.

drink now chai chai

The tea is brown like a puddle

one rupee

And swirling like an eddy.

chai rupee rupee chai

I hear voices rising out of the cup.

chai rupee rupee

Crying.

chai rupee rupee chai

Weeping.

chai rupee chai chai

Like crows plucked alive.

eat rupee rupee eat
aii hungry rupee chai

The air rings with longing
and pain.

aii rupee aii rupee

The ground shakes with heartbreak
and sorrow.

aiii rupee aiii chai

I raise the cup to my lips.

aiii aiii aiii

The tea slides down my throat
and I swallow India.

(p. 46-47)

Ostlere captures the chaotic energy of the Indian capital and the everyday tragedy of poverty in this and other poems. Once the anti-Sikh riots begin, the poems stretch to encompass the horrors of murder and the darkest acts human beings are capable of.

Where she loses me is love.

Sandeep’s diary begins on November 13 and ends on December 4. The diary begins as “a record of the comings and goings of a troubled mute girl” (p 182). In other words, Dr. Parvati Patel has asked her brother to follow Maya around and write down everything she does.  Ostensibly this is in the hopes that Maya will reveal something of her past to Sandeep, either through her actions, or Parvati hopes, through a return to speech prompted by Sandeep’s easy-going nature.  What it actually means is that Sandeep is something between a spy and a stalker, talked into keeping his diary because Parvati describes Maya as “too pretty to be mistaken for a boy” (despite her disguise) and about his age. The final hook? The girl’s name is Maya, the name that Sandeep cries out in his sleep–the only remnant from his forgotten life before the Patel family adopted him. How does Maya feel about all this? Who knows, she’s not talking! But apparently by December 5 when she starts a new diary, she has totally fallen for Sandeep as well.

While Maya’s self-imposed silence may make sense from a trauma perspective, it makes me uneasy in the context of romance.  Voiceless, Maya becomes an object of mystery, an object of pity, and an object to be fought over, but never a subject of her own making. In the roughly 175 pages of Sandeep’s notebook, we see him watching her, overhearing conversations about her, punching people who malign her character, but rarely actually interacting with her. Where does the love come from? Instalove is a common problem in young adult (and well, any romantic) literature, but given the overall weightiness of Karma the superficial nature of the relationship between the two main characters is particularly unfortunate. If this is supposed to be a story about how love can flourish and triumph in the worst of times, the love must be more believable.

Despite these misgivings, I found Karma to be an important and compelling read. The winner of more than half a dozen awards, including the South Asia Book Award Highly Commended Book and the R. Ross Annett Children’s Award, Karma is the kind of book that will stick with you long after you finish reading it. It makes you think about the big questions of human nature, love, and forgiveness.

Book Review: P.S. Be Eleven

P.S. Be Eleven by Rita Williams-Garcia

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The sequel to One Crazy Summer, P.S. Be Eleven follows Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern back to Brooklyn after their summer visiting their mother Cecile in Oakland, CA. While the Gaither sisters spent the summer learning about the Black Panthers and the power of the People, they must now re-learn how to live with Big Ma and her constant fear of creating a “Negro Spectacle.” Uncle Darnell returns home from the Vietnam War, Pa has a new girlfriend, the Jackson 5 are creating a sensation, and the Delphine has to navigate sixth grade.

Once again Rita Williams-Garcia captures the turbulence of growing up in the late 1960s by placing the larger social changes in the context of everyday childhood. The themes and conflicts of this book as familiar as sixth grade–how can I impress my teacher? will anyone ask me to the sixth grade dance? will I get to see my heart-throb perform live?–and family–what is my place in this new family dynamic? The big questions of racial and gender equality and war and peace are woven into the smaller spheres of home and school.

View all my reviews

Picture books that show disability

Ableism is perhaps one of the most systemic forms of discrimination within children’s literature. Defined as discrimination or social prejudice against people with disabilities, ableism manifests in children’s literature largely through omission. There just aren’t that many books for children or young adults that include characters with disabilities, let alone feature them prominently. While you can find a few books about kids with autism and learning disabilities, these are generally published by foundations and are explicitly pedagogical. While books that tell “day in the life of a person with _____ disability” are important, we also need stories where disability is just one aspect of a person’s multifaceted identity.

The following is an incomplete list of picture books that have one or more characters with a disability. An asterisk next to a book’s title indicates that the protagonist of the story has a disability. Titles without an asterisk either have a secondary character with a disability or are simple picture books for toddlers and preschoolers that do not have a protagonist. Links are to reviews on this blog. Please leave suggestions for other books to include in this list in the comments.

Picture books that show disability

Animal Boogie by Debbie Harter (shows a girl who uses a wheelchair)

Touch and Tickle by Sanja Rešček

*Brian’s Bird by Brian’s Bird by Patricia A. Davis, illustrated by Layne Johnson (the protagonist is blind)

*Jessica’s Box by Peter Carnavas (in the American edition Jessica uses a wheelchair; in the Australian edition she does not).

*King for a Day by Rukhsana Khan, illustrated by Christiane Kromer (the protagonist uses a wheelchair)

*Hello Goodbye Dog by Maria Gianferrari, illustrated by Patrice Barton (the protagonist uses a wheelchair)

 

Glittery Dinosaurs and Pink Mittens

I’m standing in line at Sullivan’s Pharmacy waiting to pick up a prescription. My two year old is sitting in a chair nearby and the new baby is strapped to my chest. One of the women behind the counter says, “Look, its our little buddy! Isn’t he adorable?”

I like living in a neighborhood where most of the people who work in the square’s assorted businesses recognize me and my family. And of course, I like it when people gush about my children. The woman continues to talk about what a handsome boy my two year old is. Another woman I haven’t met before is ringing me up. She gives the first woman a weird look then her expression clears.

“Oh!” She says, “I thought  you were talking about the baby. Clearly the baby is a girl.”

I look down. I can just see the top of the hat my friend crocheted for the baby–blue spikes run along the center of a green dinosaur head. The rest of the baby disappears into my kindercoat.

“How can you tell?” I ask.

“The hat has glitter. Of course a girl would have glitter hat. At least I hope you wouldn’t put glitter on a boy.”

I blink at her for a minute. I look back down at my daughter’s hat–yes there are metallic gold threads in the yarn that glitter in the light. I don’t really know how to respond.

“I would totally put glitter on my son,” I say. “I used to put him in pig-tails. His hair was down to here,” I say, pointing to the middle of my back, as if my son’s hair has any relevance to the conversation. I just feel the need to broadcast some sort of gender nonconformity in my parenting to counter the blue of my son’s shirt and the pink of the second-hand onesie that the woman behind the counter can’t even see. My son is at an age where he is a sponge–conversations no longer fly over his head and I know he is absorbing all of the subtle messages society sends about gender. My attempt to counter those messages in this moment is clumsy, but I am caught off guard.

I am always stunned at how one little detail that can be coded as feminine trumps everything “masculine” around it. My son’s hair is short now, his coat a boyish black and green, his boots are blue, and his mittens are pink. I can’t count the number of times we’ve been tramping around in the snow and I’ve been told how beautiful my daughter is. Because no matter how many ways he signals “boy,” the pink mittens override them all.

Our culture isn’t used to looking for signposts that “male.” Androcentrism is alive and well: despite moves by many writers to move away from a supposedly generic “he” to the more gender inclusive “he or she,” most people (sadly myself included) tend to absentmindedly  revert to he in speech. “What’s that snake doing mommy?” “Oh, he’s wiggling in the dirt!” In our language, and therefore maybe also our culture, you are masculine until proven female.  People see glitter or pink mittens or pony-tails as evidence that marks the wearer as “other” than the masculine standard by which the world is measured.

Picture books with Racial or Ethnic Diversity

The second post in my Multicultural Book List series showcases non-narrative picture books that don’t really have a protagonist and feature a diverse cast of people. These are picture books aimed primarily at toddlers and preschoolers. These are all books that have read and include illustrations of people of various skin colors, racial and ethnic identities, disabilities, and family structures. If you know of a book you would like to see on this list, please leave a comment below.

Ages 1-3

• Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes by Mem Fox, illustrated by Helen Oxenbury
• Everywhere Babies by Susan Meyers, illustrated by Marla Frazee
• The Babies on the Bus by Karen Katz
• If You’re Happy and You Know It by Laura Freeman
• Whoever You Are by Mem Fox
• Ten Tiny Babies by Karen Katz
• Now I’m Big by Karen Katz
• Touch and Tickle by Sanja Rešček
• Flip-a-Face: Baby Talk by Sami
• What a Wonderful World by George David Weiss and Bob Theile, illustrated by Ashley Bryan
• Ten, Nine, Eight by Molly Bang
• Clap Hands by Helen Oxenbury
• Feelings by Susan Canizares
• Sleepy ABC by Margaret Wise Brown, illustrated by Karen Katz
• My Nose, Your Nose by Melanie Walsh

Ages 4-6

• Brothers and Sisters by Ellen B. Senisi
• Toys Galore by Peter Stein, illustrated by Bob Staake
• If You’re Happy and  You Know It, by Anna McQuinn, illustrated by Sophie Flatus
• Animal Boogie by Debbie Harter
• Bread, Bread, Bread  by Anne Morris, photographs by Ken Heyman
• Hats, Hats, Hats by Anne Morris, photographs by Ken Heyman
• Houses and Homes by Anne Morris, photographs by Ken Heyman
• Smiling by Gwenyth Swain
• Wash Up by Gwenyth Swain
• Only You by Robin Cruise, Illustrated by Margaret Chodos-Irvine

If you like this post, you may also like my list of Picture Books with Protagonists of Color.

Picture books with protagonists of color

Following the publication of the 2013 statistics on children’s books by and about people of color by the Children’s Cooperative Bookstore (CCBS) the showed that of 3,200 books surveyed only 93 were about black people (either Africans of any nationality or African-Americans), Walter Dean Meyers and Christopher Meyers wrote moving op-eds for the New York Times about what this disparity means for young people of color.  Both men are accomplished authors of children’s literature and their essays speak eloquently to the larger issues that the numbers in the CCBS study represent.

I often see parents posting in online forums for recommendations of multicultural children’s books. This blog post is the first in a series of book lists I am compiling to make finding books about under-represented groups of people a little easier to find. All of these lists are a work in progress, so please post suggestion in the comments and check back often for updates. All of the books listed here are books I have personally read where the main character is a person of color. Because racial, cultural, or ethnic identity is not always obvious if they are not the focal point of the story, I am including all picture books with protagonists of color in this list. When the protagonist’s racial, cultural, or ethnic background is explicit in the text or otherwise obvious, I have included it in parentheses in the list. Links are to reviews on this blog. Without further ado, the list: