Every week, Evangeline brings home a new "book in a bag" to read.

[conuly]

If you have small children you may be familiar with this concept.

This month has been all about non-fiction.

This week she didn't bring home a book. Normally I'd overlook that and give her another book to read instead, but I'm running out of non-fiction options that are remotely near her reading level. (I think it's safe to say she's not reading on a 5th grade level.)

So when I scribbled a note in her homework book that she'd never received her reading worksheet for yesterday, I mentioned that she also hadn't brought home a book. And today she brought home Betsy Ross and the Silver Thimble.

It's to be expected that a book from a series on the "Childhood of Famous Americans", written on a first grade level, might be bland and heavily preachy. But what a message this book sends!

I have the space, I'm just going to type it up.

Little Betsy looked around the dinner table. There were her mother and father, her six sisters, her brother, George. Her two baby sisters were in bed.

Gotta love how they set the scene by saying "People in the past had huuuuuuge families", but I guess she did have a huge family. None of the endless sisters is going to be named, by the way. They are the characters no longer appearing in this book. But that's incidental.

"We have no more room at this table," she said.

"Father is the best builder in town," said George. "He can build a new table. I will help."

"I will help, too," said Betsy.

"You can't make furniture," George said. "You're a girl."

That made Betsy mad!

You can imagine it did. The message of "girls do girl things, boy do boy things" will never be questioned in this book. I know it takes place in the Colonial era, but it was written in 2002.

"You love to sew, Betsy," said her mother. "Come sew with me."

But Betsy wanted to show George!

Yeah, listen to your mom, Betsy. SEW a new table for the family!

After dinner, Betsy went into her father's workshop. "I can make anything I want," she said. "Like a table for my doll."

Yes, but she won't.

She looked at her father's tools. She saw a big saw hanging on the wall. Betsy was glad George wasn't there. She wanted to build a table all by herself. When she tried to take the saw down, it hit her on the head. "Ow!" cried Betsy. But she wasn't going to let a little bump stop her.

You go, girl!

Betsy took some wood from the woodpile and tried to cut it. She tugged and pulled on the saw. She sawed for a long time. It was no fun at all.

Yes, sawing wood is tedious and repetitive. Thank goodness sewing is nothing like that! Every moment is a new adventure when you sew!

Then all of a sudden - zing! - the saw jumped from the board. It cut Betsy's finger!

Yes, but nobody ever pricks themselves sewing.

"Look, Mother!" Betsy cried as she ran into the house.

You could have been hurt very badly!" said her mother. "You do not know how to use Father's tools. A saw is not for a little girl."

Of course, nobody showed her how to use the tools... and they never will in this book! The fact that at one point she didn't know how to use scissors or a needle will never be brought up either.

"It's not fair!" Betsy cried. "Little girls can't do anything."

"Betsy, do you really want to make furniture?" her mother asked.

Betsy thought about that old saw. She did not like it one bit! She only wanted to use it because George said she couldn't.

Yes, here's the message. The message is that girls aren't a. allowed to do carpentry or b. allowed to be INTERESTED in doing carpentry. Also, on the subject of what little girls can do, please note that Betsy's brother George was, in real life, 11 years younger than she was. If he can handle a saw without people telling him it's too dangerous, his sister ought to be able to do so as well.

"I want to give you something," said her mother. "hold out your hands and close your eyes."

Betsy opened her eyes. There on her finger was a silver thimble.

"Oh, Mother," she cried. It's beautiful!"

"My mother gave it to me when I was six years old, just like you," her mother said.

1. If Betsy is six, her brother George hasn't been born yet. Her only older brother, William, is ten years old.

2. Saws are boring and you're going to get hurt. Thimbles are beautiful and sewing is exciting. That is, if you're a girl.

"now look at your hands," said her mother. "They are like two different people."

"What do you mean?" asked Betsy.

"Your left hand is you, when you do things just because someone else does them," her mother explained.

Betsy looked at her left hand. It had a bandage on one finger. Her finger hurt.

Her finger didn't hurt because she didn't like carpentry. She was never given a fair shot at liking carpentry. Her finger hurt because she made a mistake. I'm sure she pricked her fingers a few times learning how to sew, but nobody said she couldn't do *that*.

"Your right hand is you, when you are being yourself."

When Betsy wiggled her right hand, the thimble swing back and forth like a little silver bell. Her mother smiled.

Yes, and I'm sure Betsy never in her childhood thought she wanted to be like Mommy and sew. Why, that was just a coincidence.

"I am glad to be me," said Betsy. Betsy remembered this lesson her whole life. She was proud to be a girl who was true to herself.

So long as her interests fall into gendered expectations. The normal lesson in storybooks, when somebody gets a small injury trying something new, is "Get back on that horse and try again!", not "Give it up, because it's not like you to do this thing".

Betsy Ross sewed for the rest of her life and won many prizes. Sewing turned out to be very important - when Betsy Ross grew up, she designed our country's first flag.

A story that is spurious, at best. There's absolutely no evidence for this claim. It is a myth.

I'm not sure if my bigger beef is with the frankly backwards message that the book actually sends (whatever the author thought the message was supposed to be) or with the fact that this book is actually fiction.

Let's recap:

The story involves a six year old Betsy having a serious conversation with a brother eleven years younger than she is. It definitely didn't ever happen. Then we're given a footnote that repeats that story of Betsy Ross designing the first flag, even though there's significant evidence that the story has, at best, been greatly exaggerated. Why this book is getting passed around as "non-fiction" is completely beyond my imagination.

Now, Betsy DID do something important with her sewing in real life. She repaired uniforms and made tents and blankets for the Continental Army. But you're not likely to see that in this sort of story. Too informative, not trite enough.

Comments

[delphi]

*boggles* Given the lack of research, I'm going to take a wild guess and say the author had a fiction story that wouldn't sell and rebranded it as Betsy Ross "non-fiction" when the opportunity presented itself.

[conuly]

That would raise so many more questions, though.

[dragonwolf]

So, I have to ask - have you brought up the issues with the teacher (if only to say "um, aren't we supposed to be doing non-fiction?")? I'd kind of like to see her response.

[conuly]

I just had Eva read another book. If we get a snippy reply, I'll have Jenn write out a response.

[marveen.livejournal.com]

It may have been copyrighted in '02 but it reads like it was written in the '50s. You know, like Side Saddle For Dandy, a book I was handed down as a child and kept because it involved horses. The story would have been more modern-PC if it emphasized that in colonial times, Betsy had little option other than to be good at sewing (perhaps not professional-grade, but most women sewed well enough) and Things Are Different Now.

(The lesson in Side Saddle, though aimed at older kids, is that tomboys don't get no respect and you need to act feminine if you're a girl--skirts, sidesaddles, curls and hair ribbons, that kind of thing.)

For some facts on the matter: as someone who does a bit of handsewing myself (with a cheapass base-metal thimble), it's not as hard as carpentry (which I also do). This may be the part where I haven't practiced carpentry as much, though--I've mostly done carpentry on an as-needed basis, instead of the hobbyist handsewing. (As-needed sewing tends to be by machine, other than darning.)

[conuly]

It may have been copyrighted in '02 but it reads like it was written in the '50s

It's definitely not just me, then?

And for that matter, there are plenty of books written in the 50s and earlier that manage not to sound this bad, but then, they're not written to be didactic. A fun story will cover up a lot of flaws.

[marveen.livejournal.com]

Nope, not just you.

(I have a 1947 "Mother's Encyclopedia" that made me angry on that tack--it talked about "aptitude tests" and used examples of things are clearly learned skills, not aptitudes: Stiers Mechanical Assembly was one name, I think, and it was gendered so that boys had to assemble small gadgets, but girls had assembly involving "sewing and cutting". ARGH THOSE ARE LEARNED SKILLS NOT INBORN APTITUDES.)

Now, I can't remember a time when I didn't know how to read, sew, or follow a recipe, but that does not for one minute fool me into thinking I'm somehow magically endowed with Reading Aptitude/etc. It just means I learned it so long ago I can't remember the learning process.

[dandelion.livejournal.com]

I did a bit of digging, and it looks like it's a cursorily-updated version of a book that was originally published in 1954:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0020421206/ref=sib_dp_ptu#reader-link
have a look at the copyright details on the Look Inside, and how it presents the story about there not being enough space at the table.

[conuly]

Well, that answers several questions.

[ncp.livejournal.com]

I DEVOURED all the "Childhood of Famous Americans" books as a kid. They all read like that, and they're all mostly historical fiction.

TO be fair, in the 1700s, a girl who wanted to do "boy" things like woodworking WOULD be reprimanded and told to "act like a lady". I don't like it when modern values are depicted in stories that are clearly set in the past where such values did not exist.

[conuly]

No, and if I believed this story were true I'd be more okay with it*. However, I think this was made up out of whole cloth by the author... in which case she could've easily invented a different story altogether without that hidden message.

*Although it would even then be simple to toss in a line about how "back then" that's the way things were.

[sayga.livejournal.com]

That book would've made me upset too At least when YOU are reading it to your nieces, you can point these things out to them and give even a stronger message than the book's outdated and sexist one. Kids who do not have an Aunt Connie will suffer, though.