Clearly I’m (semi) back to blogging
This is why I no longer take down my blog when I quit blogging — it has yet to stick.
I have a question for y’all based on the last entry. What great books from your childhood have you reread with horror? You know, like the Little House books, which are still totally awesome, swell books but also have these dark chapters of awful racism that maybe as a kid you didn’t cringe quite the way you did as an adult? For me the big one was Mary Poppins because I truly thought we were safe and then we oh so weren’t.
I can find lots and lots and lots and lots and lots (this last link is my favorite) of great multicultural books for kids but I have yet to see a good list of books I thought I loved and maybe I still love but there are parts I want to be reminded about so I can introduce them appropriately. I thought it would be a useful list for other parents about to snuggle up with their kidlings and a good book and want to be forewarned so they aren’t caught hemming and hawing when they turn the page to something surprising.
I’m surprized you thought Mary Poppins was safe after this “preview”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T5_0AGdFic
(note: this is not the real preview!)
Ok, that was pretty damn funny! I have to send that to my sister!
I love Louise Erdrich’s BirchBark House, which is kind of a Little House book told from the native American perspective. It’s a wonderful book.
i loved enid blighton’s famous five books, and so did trixie (we had to order them from the uk). there’s really interesting gender identity stuff going on in them — in the books it’s dealt with from a 1940/50’s perspective, but it led to some great discussions.
trixie was also a huge fan of the bobsey twins, which i had not read as a kid, but my partner had. when i read them to trixie — especially the early ones — i was pretty horrified, but i just edited as i read.
i’ve never previewed books — i just edit as i go (as with the bobsey twins) or use the text as a point of discussion, as in the little house books. trixie never really got into the little house books, but i think i read her two of them. i too was suprised by the racism, and stopped reading to have a Big Discussion About Racism with her. she listened and participated for awhile, but finally said, “mom, i get it okay? can we just keep reading?” i laughed and kept reading. but wouldn’t you know that months and months later, maybe even a year, something about native americans came up, and she launched into a big discussion about racism and native americans. i was pretty impressed, and assumed they had been talking about this at school, but when i asked, she said, “no, mom, don’t you remember when we talked about that when you were reading the little house books?”
you just never know what they’re taking in.
Hands down my answer is The Lonely Doll by Dare Wright. What I remember fondly as a child appears dark and pedophilic as an adult. Seriously freaked me out and I immediately cast it aside and didnd’t read it to my daughters.
If you read the reviews at Amazon you will see what I mean.
Someone in my writing group was just talking about this!!! (Lonely Doll) There are also a bunch of books where young women end up with much older men (I’m thinking Daddy Longlegs) that seemed romantic when I was younger and now tweak me out in a very bad way.
For me it’s hands-down the Lord of the Rings series. I adored them as a kid. My dad read them to me, I read them myself, I engaged in weeks-long fantasy games with my best friend in which we played the characters… and when I read them to my daughter, I could barely stand them! The faux-medievalism, the inability to figure out what to do with women, the racism…the whole package. Actually they bored me more than they offended me, and I felt the same way about the movies. Too much bombast.
I had a similar reaction to the Chronicles of Narnia (yes, I loved fantasy as a kid). The Little House books, on the other hand, still seem like a reasonable depiction of the ways real people thought and spoke, and for every Ma Ingalls hating Indians there are Pa and Laura wishing they could be them. I know they wish they were a romanticized version of them, but I still think they’re fine for opening up conversations.
I loved the Trixie Beldon books, which have mostly held up for me, and the Nancy Drew books, which have not held up as well. Even today, Trixie seems confident and smart and funny and normal for her age, while Nancy seems somehow… I don’t know. I guess it can be summed up by the Nancy Drew cookbook, which taught us how to still be a lady in the kitchen, even if you are all smart-like and have a job or something.
I also loved the Narnia books, which are more religious than I had remembered. And I am sure that I have others, as well. I’ll be back.
I adored the Chronicles of Narnia when I was seven, and was rather horrified to discover the sexism and racism — and particularly the anti-Muslim prejudice — when I reread them as an adult. I still love them, I must admit, but it’s just not the same.
I remember my mom explaining to me about prejudice against Native Americans and Pa’s blackface thing when I first read the Little House books, so that didn’t surprise/bother me when I read them as an adult. I remembered it, albeit in a vague, non-judgmental way.
From your previous post, I ran across No Flying in the House at a book sale a couple of years ago and practically jumped up and down with glee. I had completely forgetten it and instantaneously totally remembered it as soon as I saw it again. What a wonderful book!
We’re reading the little house books right now. Yikes. Others we’ve cringed at just recently include Secret Garden and A Little Princess. I’ll have to go look at the bookshelf (and the giveaway box in the closet
to see if there are others.
My box of old childhood books is sitting next to me. However, a lot of these are just simply little kids books. My older child/teen books are still in Mom’s attic. Though, I can tell you without opening the box, all the children are white. All of them. Interesting.
How about Indian in the Cupboard and Tin Tin. Lots to talk about there.
Funny, I just blogged about books last night. My daughter and I have read some of the Little House books and had some talks about how Native Americans are portrayed in the books. The recent TV series (two years ago? can’t remember) was trying to play it PC and I thought, yeah, good luck.
Oh, and Lolita.
Lately we’ve been getting into ‘chapter books’ (emma is 4 1/2 now!) and I have a whole list of books that I loved as a kid that I want to read to her…
So far, cross my fingers, I haven’t read a book yet that is making me cringe because of racist attitudes, knock on wood, but a few have for other reasons…
We read James and the Peach recently. I loved it as a 7 year old, but I totally forgot that the parents died in the first chapter and the mean old aunts were crushed (with sound effects) to death by the peach. I tried to skip by those… wasn’t ready to handle the issues of adoption/death/mean aunts just then.
Started reading “Rabbit Hill,” put it down because the words were a bit much… and I was getting bored, yet I loved it as a kid.
Charlotte’s Web: took this up instead because she was interested in it because the movie is out. Not too bad, she sobbed though when the spider died… but that did lead to a good discussion about death (maybe I’ll handle human death better in teh next book)..
anyway, great idea… I really would like to avoid those books (or at least be prepared!)
I was just rereading Anne of Green Gables the other week and was struck by some of Marilla’s derogatory comments towards the French-Canadians - which may not be racist but is certainly classist, I’d argue, as well as discriminatory of another ethnic group - and blacks, whom she calls “London street Arabs,” and later “those Italians.” There were a few other examples in there which jumped out at me, but I’m too lazy to go pick up my copy.
Not racist, but as a child I loved The Happy Hollister series, which I’d inherited from my mom, and as an adult I am horrified by how sexist they are. My mom has them still for my kids to read when they visit (note, I don’t have kids yet!) and I’m torn between not wanting my children to read them and also feeling like well, I loved them, and I turned out okay, and unlike my mom I will discuss them with my children so they’ll know why it’s not ok that 7 year old Ricky gets to go hunt for bad guys while 10 year old Pam has to stay at home and help cook dinner.
the books that i remember from my childhood are:
babar and curious george.
books my dd liked:
anything by patricia polacco-prob up to 8-10 year olds
books by the following author and illustrator:
Robert N. Munsch, Michael Martchenko
i think these would be children prob 8 and younger.
and the mr and miss books by roger hargreaves
these are very small books and appropriate for very
young kids and older (therese a lot of text and great pix)
also wanted to mention
http://www.paperbackswap.com/
at this site people exchange books at no cost except for postage.
if you decide to join, feel free to put my email down as a referral and i will get a credit for a book.
cuddly@inbox.com.
dawn, im not sure if this is ok with you, so, of course feel free to alter or delete this post.
I’ll have to think about this question because I can’t remember any offhand (of course, I don’t have the best memory, GAH!!).
BUT BUT BUT, I also want that last link and for some reason, it’s not working for me. And I don’t want to whine or I’ll have to say what I say to my son: I don’t understand you when you talk like that. “Speak in a big [girl] voice.” Heh.
Yo, any friend of Jenna’s is a friend of mine :).
- Judy
Judy, I fixed the link! I’ll be interested to hear what you think of Digging to America. I love Ann Tyler, too, and have read everything she’s written but that one ‘cuz I know some adoption-community folks hated it and I’m afraid to burst by beloved Ann Tyler bubble.
Thanks, Dawn! This librarian LURVES links! *bookmarking it!!*
I didn’t realize that about adoption communities and Tyler’s latest. Hmmmm. Well, I’ll let you know. I’d hate to have my Tyler bubble burst too, but of course now my curiosity will get the better of me and I’ll have to read it. I’m like that — curiosity killed the cat and Judy too. Oh well. I’ll be dead but well-informed.
I don’t have children and haven’t (yet) been horrified by a book, but I have a movie story. I loved the musical Oliver as a child and DH bought it for me for Christmas one year and even agreed to watch it with me since he had never seen it before. I happily watched it, smiling and singing along (er, at least humming). When it was over DH was horrified. “You watched that when you were little? It was horrible! As a feminist I would never let my daughter watch that!”
Despite being a highly critical and thoughtful person normally, I had watched the movie the same way I had at 8. I somehow missed the domestic violence which is, um, a major theme, and is only resolved in a sad, sad way.
Another note…I met the author of an excellent book called “Deconstructing the Little House” and since I loved those books so much it was fun to revisit them from a feminist perspective.
Another book I haven’t reread but I wonder about is “A Little Princess.”
I tended towards books where children escaped the world of being lorded over by adults…”Island of the Blue Dolphins” and “A Wrinkle in Time” and “Hideaway Summer” as a pre teen, and when I was younger there was some fantastic picture book about children running away from home into the woods near their houses and each building a tree house that suited their individual personality.
Hmmm … I’m sure that many of the books I read as a little one were mean or ignorant in some way. Nonetheless, I loved the All of a Kind Family books about a Jewish family of five girls and a little boy growing up in New York. I also adored the Great Brain series about a family of mischeivous boys growing up in Utah. The boys were among the few catholics in a primarily Mormon town, and I recall the boys being champions for an immigrant Greek boy?
A book I loved and love still that isn’t part of a series is The Girl Who Owned a City. It’s basically a libertarian treatise, but I still enjoy it, for some reason.
We read the tale of John Henry a few months ago and found ourselves in a foundation discussion about slavery and wage slaves with our four-year-old.
I’m adding some that I loved as a 9-10 year old: The Girl With the Silver Eyes about a group of kids who were genetically altered by medicines their mother’s were given (worked with?) while pregnant. All were born in September.
Also, the Amy and Laura books, about two little girls growing up in the Bronx and the Claudia books. Not to mention Harriet the Spy. Also, don’t stop with A Wrinkle in Time. Wind in the Door and Swiftly Tilting Planet are good, too. Also, you have to read L’Engle’s other series about the Austin family. A Ring of Endless Light is beautiful.
I think mine is Daddy Long Legs. Has anyone else read that? Might be more of a British book, not sure.
If I remember correctly, the protagonist is an orphan who somehow gets a mysterious benefactor who gives her money and education and stuff. She only ever sees his long distorted shadow so calls him daddy long legs.
And then I think in the end they get married or something.
I read that as an adult and was absolutely totally disgustingly grossed out. Yuck and yuck and yuck.
Ah I just love this topic. My extensive library of books was given away due to an overseas move in my teens. So as an adult, still pining for those beloved books, I started hunting down my old favourites, some of which are listed in the comments above. To read those books again with children of my own is a real eye-opener on how the world has changed. My children are teenagers, they are amazed to think their mum lived in a world where it was acceptable to speak and think the way the people in those stories did, that a young me read those stories without blinking in surprise or bewilderment.
Charlotte’s Web! That’s one with a bit I found dodgy in retrospect - namely, what happened to Fern’s character during the course of the book. At the beginning she’s a strong-minded, compassionate young girl who saves Wilbur by sticking up for what she believes to be right and who’s open-minded enough to hear the animals talking when other people can’t. Then, at some point, she turns into some ditz who doesn’t care about her old friend because she’s too interested in going on the Ferris Wheel with a boy. Ick. Anybody else felt that way about that one?
I’m interested that people objected to the age difference between Judy and Jervis in Daddy-Long-Legs, though. Why is that a problem? Judy was an adult when she fell in love with him, and a very strong-minded one at that. Isn’t it just a prejudice of society’s to object to a relationship purely because there’s a big age difference (as opposed to seeing *potential* problems with an age difference that may or may not be an issue depending on the individual relationship)?
(Though, BTW, Daddy-Long-Legs’ much less known sequel, Dear Enemy, *does* fall into the ‘dubious bits in retrospect’ category, because it has some very disturbing pro-eugenics stuff. Brilliant book apart from that, though, and much my favourite of the two.)
I listened to the Anne Tyler book, Digging to America. I haven’t read any of her other books. This story at first really turned me off (adoptive parent), but as the relationships developed among the people in the two families, the characters became more understanding of each other’s culture. The “Gotcha Day” parties were a little over the top, but it was less about the “gotcha” and more about the connections made that day between two completely different families and their backgrounds. I thought Tyler treated all the characters with respect. There are some stereotypical ideas on the part of the white adoptive mother, and there isn’t much consideration of the first families’ feelings, but I don’t get the feeling that Tyler was trying to paint adoption in the “savior” light. It was almost a device to get the two families together and then the relationships that evolved.
Robert Munsch is a wonderful author, and kids just love to read and re-read and re-read his books. He studied to be a Jesuit priest, worked in daycare for years, wrote Love You Forever for two stillborn babies he and his wife had. I believe he has adopted transracially, but I’m not sure.
As for The Lonely Doll, this was a treasured book of my childhood. In fact, we had three different Lonely Doll stories, but the “pink” one remains my favorite. Probably because as little girls, my sister and I walked into a neighbor’s house (unlocked door, no one home) and tried out the perfume, lipstick, and spilled nail polish on the bedspread. I had no inkling of any of the subtext that is being written about it now.
Isabell Monk has some wonderful stories: Hope, Family, and Blackberry Stew. Hope is a little girl with a white father and African-American mother. The stories are all about family, heritage, being strong in yourself, and the sometimes subtle prejudice that can exist, even in your own family.
Ezra Jack Keats has Black children as the characters in his books–The Snowy Day, A Letter to Amy, Goggles–just as a matter of course.
Then there’s Donald Crews, whose books BigMama and Shortcut recall spending summers with grandma and cousins. I especially like BigMama because there’s a picture in the book that is nearly identical to one I took at a family reunion a few years ago–a pile of assorted shoes, of varying sizes, piled by the front door. Everyone kicked off their shoes as soon as they got to the farm, and we all kicked off our shoes as soon as we got in the door at my sister’s.
Jaclyn Woodson has wonderful books, too.
I’d better quit–if you can’t tell, I love books!
I forgot Crowning Glory by Joyce Carol Thomas–a celebration of the beauty of African-American hair. Gorgeous book!
I haven’t been horrified yet, but I’ll keep my eyes peeled. I bring my daughter a book every time I visit and I’ve tried to give her a bunch of my favorite childhood books. I always read them first- mostly to make sure there are no offensive adoption or family themes. One of my favorites that is now one of her favorites is Caps for Sale. The pictures are so old-fashioned and unengaging, but my daughter has loved it since she was two, probably because of the monkeys.
I LOVE Caps for Sale!! We used to read this to the preschool class and they loved to imitate the monkeys. This is one of my favorite read-aloud books.
The Babar books have some pretty ghastly illustrations of “natives.” And they choose Babar as king purely in awe of his sartorial sense. Still, Celesteville is the archetypical socialist workers’ paradise, so it’s hard to know where to come down…
I read the All of a Kind Family books as a kid (I think) but haven’t been able to remember the title. Thanks, Erica.
I think they were on my mind recently because I remembered a chapter in which one of the little girls pretends to be poor so she can get a Christmas present (a doll) from a church.
Remembered a very interesting book since making my last comment in this thread - ‘Take Up Your Bed And Walk’, by Lois Keith, which is about the ways in which disability is portrayed in traditional children’s books. Most of the ones she discusses were ones I’d read as a child - ‘What Katy Did’, ‘The Secret Garden’, ‘Little Women/Good Wives’ (not disability, but chronic illness/invalidity), ‘Pollyanna’ (with the sequel, which I haven’t read. Her discussion of how disability is portrayed in these books is fascinating, informative, highly readable, and quite uncomfortable at times! Very much recommended for a new insight into old favourites.
Thank you, Sarah V — I really want to check that out!
I love this topic! Here from Peter’s Cross Station.
Here are some that jump out for me in the still-beloved-but-problematic category, as a former book-loving child and now parent and kids’ librarian:
The Saturdays (Chapter about woman who was kidnapped by extremely stereotypical Gypsies as a child)
Half-Magic (episode in which the kids run into a greasy, tricky Arab)
Babar. for the reasons listed above
Little House books, ditto
A Little Princess does have that romanticized view of East Indians, but the main character is actually quite respectful of the culture (in which she grew up until the age of 7) and for its time it’s not bad.
On the other hand, I just the other day read a review (in a fascinating and troubling book about Native American literature for kids called A Broken Flute) which really slams many books I hadn’t thought much about, including Walk Two Moons, by Sharon Creech. I still love that book, but it’s only about fifteen years old and there’s much less excuse for insensitive writing in something that recent.