If you are a parent, there is a good chance your home has a ridiculous amount of children’s books and/or magazines. As kids get older and become more independent readers, it is easy for us to read less with them.
It Is A Market
I took the above photo in a store in the UK. Just like kids clothes, the children’s magazine section shows a clear divide: pink magazines about “fairies, unicorns and princesses” on one side, and darker magazines about “dinosaurs, Minecraft and adventures on the other side.
Boys and girls are different, I accept that.
But the topics and choices are repetitive, in literally everywhere you go. These choices are very limited, but because they sell, this is what gets commercially promoted.
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Trusting Strangers With Your Kids’ Minds
Most of the time, we choose the features or popular books in bookstores, the top books on amazon, or whatever your child likes at the store! You give the book a quick look at the cover and backmatter and you don’t really have time to read the whole book beforehand.
But, hey, there are lots of checks and balances books have to go through before reaching the shelves.
There are editors, agents and “sensitivity readers” who make sure books are appropriate.
That is great. But for your child, you need to know what they are reading. Most developed world have a come a long way since the days we had racist and sexist books. But, things are not perfect, and some of the prejudice and stereotypes still slip through the net or are more subtle, but definitely there.
Last year (2021, that is), Scholastic had to pull a racist book from the market and apologized for the anti-Asian racism in the book.
It Is Not Just Racism
To show you an extreme example, here is a book (this wasn’t in the west, it is in Arabic) that a relative bought as a gift for us. It is supposed to be a folklore animal story.
Photo by iStockPhoto.com
Yeah, I know. That’s not even the most graphic picture in the book. I’m glad I skimmed through it before I gave it to my kid.
Ok, I know this wouldn’t happen in a devleoped country but the point stands. There is now a lot of research about subtle racism, gender stereotyping and harmful ideas in children’s books.
This applies to children’s books in general so not just picture books. There has been discussions about the violence in books like The Hunger Games.
For example, one of these more subtle issues is when a picture book is focused more on the adults that a central child character. Or books that are just preaching. Kids hate these.
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Photo by Zahra Amiri on Unsplash
What Should I Do?
Do your homework.
I appreciate we are all busy but there are some simple steps you could take to make better choices for your children. Here are a few:
- Don’t go straight for the featured or most recent shelf. Have a look around.
- There are so many great less famous writers and independent publishers who deserve much more attention.
- See below for some advice.
- Buy online or plan your buys after reading reviews online.
- Use websites like the ones below to find suitable books about certain topics.
- Buy age appropriate books. If you are not sure about this one, here is a rough guide:
Board books: 0–2 years old
Picture books: 2–6 years
Early readers: 5–7
Chapter books: 7–10
Middle grade: 8–12
Young adults (YA): 12 and older.
As you can see, there is some overlap and the ages are not set in stone. YA books fall in a grey area as it can be read by a 13 year old or a 17 year old (and the difference can be significant!). I don’t think you will be able to read your kids’ books by this stage or even before, but at least you could start with your young kids, and advice the older ones.
Useful Resources
1- Common Sense Media:
For reviews by other parents or lists of books on certain topics, e.g. “best picture books with female lead characters” and you can filter by age, etc.
Find books with black and ethnic minority representations.
3- Talk to your librarian and teachers. Librarians know a lot about what kids like and which books are good, just let them know what you are looking for.
4- A list of the top independent book publishers.
5- Find books that won prizes and awards.
6- Check out this list of diverse and inclusive books.
6-Twitter! There is a huge community of teachers, children’s writers and illustrators as well as publishers on twitter. Search for “picture books” or follow some the big accounts to get reviews and recommndations. Useful hashtags are #PB or #kidlit.
If you have any recommendations (books, writers, publishers, etc) please feel free to share with others in the comments.
Thank you.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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You may also like these posts on The Good Men Project:
White Fragility: Talking to White People About Racism | Escape the “Act Like a Man” Box | The Lack of Gentle Platonic Touch in Men’s Lives is a Killer | What We Talk About When We Talk About Men |
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Photo credit: iStockPhoto.com