conuly | Nothing like coming near to the end of a book

and getting smacked in the face with a gratuitous racial/ethnic slur.

Kid's book, public domain, naturally.

This right here is the reason that I almost never recommend books older than myself to people for their kids, and seriously de-emphasized "classic children's literature" with the nieces when they were young. Contemporary kidlit might still be problematic, sometimes very much so, but the author and publisher have usually considered that some of their readers might be put off by being blatantly told that people in whatever group all have whatever bad trait, or seeing certain words bandied about.

Of course, very nearly everybody else who recommends books for kids - including too many teachers and librarians - has a bad tendency to reach into their own childhood memories, and they get really defensive if you say that their cherished favorites just aren't all that. Published booklists are slowly getting better on this front, but personal recommendations really aren't. You'd think children's librarians, at least, would be better about this, but too often I've seen that they really aren't.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

shy_magpie

I know the feeling. Also nothing quite like reading something you remember as being a wholesome part of your childhood and realizing how bigoted it was. People complain about the live action disney movies but I wouldn't show most of the animated ones to kids now days. I haven't had cause to look at the princess ones but all the animal stories other than possibly Lion King have at least one scene that makes you wonder why they included it except to remind people they are racist. The Siamese cats in Lady and the Tramp, a song in the Aristocats that suddenly burst into "ching-chong" stereotypes, the crows and the roustabouts in Dumbo...

From:

calimac

Care to name the book, so that we can, variously,

1) avoid the book?

2) judge the slur for ourselves?

From:

delight

I think The Rescuers is lacking in overtly racist scenes! Sure, there's lots of racial stereotypes in Mouse UN, but there aren't any HELLO THIS IS A SCENE THAT EXISTS PURELY DUE TO RACISM parts.

From:

silveradept

So many people edited out those bits from their own experience and didn't go back to check before recommending them to others. Including the librarians.

From:

shy_magpie

Suddenly hit by how much I loved the Rescue Rangers cartoon, I almost forgot. It was followed by Dark Wing Duck and I'm surprised I never went furry. Oh gads I got into Batman because my brother said it was a human version

From:

delight

I really liked Darkwing Duck too! My cousin was the Batman kid in the family. XD I am also pretty sure the furry Robin Hood is why I used to say I wanted to be a fox when I grew up so you are not alone.

From:

wpadmirer

UGH.

From:

author_by_night

I think they should be old enough to understand that you shouldn't use words like that. I remember reading books with offensive words in high school, but it was made very clear that you don't use those words anymore, and they were also books like To Kill a Mockingbird, invoking those words to show why they're wrong. (However... that's a whole other post.)

From:

maju

There is a series of Australian kids' books (the "Billabong" series) set around the turn of the 20th century which I read and enjoyed as a kid. Fairly recently I reread one or two of them and realised how extremely racist and sexist they are.

From:

conuly

The name already escapes me - it wasn't that good a book besides that - but in the context a respected and well-liked, by both students and narrator, authority catches some of her charges doing something that's borderline against the rules and and chastises them, reminding them not to act like insult insult slur. There's really no wiggle room.

From:

conuly

But when you point it out they go "Oh, different times, blah blah blah". Like - this is a book for kids, we're giving it to kids, that tacitly shows we approve of attitudes expressed herein, why not pick something that's written in today's time with attitudes we don't have to defend?

From:

conuly

The nieces? Sure, today I hardly ever do any book-steering at all except by request. I'm talking about when they were young - and "understanding that they don't use words like that" isn't the issue. The issue is I don't want to tacitly say I approve of attitudes like (pulling at random) "the only Indian is a good Indian" or "definitely it's okay to cheat Jews because we know they're all greedy, hahahah" or the like.

From:

conuly

Pervasive ism-ism is even worse.

From:

author_by_night

Oh, no, sorry. I was speaking generally about when kids should read those things.

m talking about when they were young - and "understanding that they don't use words like that" isn't the issue

Exactly! That was my point, that it should be when they're old enough to realize those things were a product of their time.

Sorry, I was agreeing with you but in a roundabout way. :)

Edited Date: 2019-02-07 07:04 pm (UTC)

From:

author_by_night

I re-read a Pippi Longstocking book years ago and was horrified by its portrayal of Pacific Islanders. I don't remember the specifics, just that this was in high school and quite startled that the books I loved as a kid had that racism.

From:

thewayne

Wow! I can't say that I have any favorite children's books, I don't remember any. But I'm completing a degree in library science (with no expectations of working in the field) and this is a good thing to keep in mind.

From:

conuly

No favorite children's books! I'm sorry to say that this is even more shocking.

From:

silveradept

Oh, when they defend it as "product of its time," feel free to take the gloves off and go to town, especially for a children's librarian, because the Children's Literature Legacy Award is a real thing and got renamed because a beloved book was full of racism.

From:

silveradept

Librarianship as a field is full of the subtle kind of - isms, Much as I would love to believe we're making steps forward.

From:

conuly

When there's trouble you call D. W. Darkwing Duck!

No joke, I find myself thinking "let's get dangerous" every time I roll up my sleeves to wash dishes or the like.

From:

conuly

I rarely hear actual librarians do that, but it's rife among the HS community. Drives me batty.

From:

thewayne

I have vague memories of a few: Curious George, something about a white dog with a black spot that got dirty, Steamshovel Mike or something, But that was an awful long time ago. My childhood kinda sucked because of my medical problems, and in the third grade I started adult fiction, so I don't have much of a memory for children's books.

From:

thewayne

Indeed.

From:

tielan

Mike Mulligan And His Steam Shovel?

From:

thewayne

That's the one! And I definitely liked that one.

From:

dogstar

Oh god, yes.

I was reading "Little House In The Big Woods" outloud to my friend's daughter and had to quickly scramble to rephrase a section....

From:

greghousesgf

even the ones that don't have any racist crap still have sexist crap in
them...

From:

author_by_night

So re-reading this, I think I partly missed the point. I wasn't actually agreeing with you - not on purpose, but my mind jumped to literature for older kids who can assess when something wouldn't be acceptable now. You were talking strictly books like Little House on the Prairie.

I was really trying to say "you're right - older books are one thing, for kids who can understand you shouldn't say that, but it's problematic with five year old readers who may not be able to deduce that." ETA: Kids in general, that is.

Edited Date: 2019-02-08 04:54 pm (UTC)

From:

kareina

I still love and re-read regularly the Anne of Green Gables books, but I understand that they are a pretty extreme example of a culture with some very serious -isms for gender, religion, and race, though at least they also show that it is possible for exceptional individuals to overcome some of the "handicaps" they face due to one or more of the above conditions.

From:

conuly

Also, it's not nearly as egregious or pointless as it was in this book... and the quality of the writing is worlds better, which DOES make a difference.

From:

kareina

The quality of writing does matter, as does the bit about some of the characters noticing, some of the time, the problems with their own world.

From:

nodrog

As a side issue, or maybe not, I could mention Andre Norton’s 1950s SF works, which were written for a target audience and played to it, viz. Starguard and The Sioux Spaceman, both of which had zero (0) female characters anywhere in them. Not even mentioned in the background. But they’re both ripping yarns, the latter drawing on her own anthropology background, and it wasn’t until later that I said, “Now, wait a minute…”

From:

nodrog

“Let’s get dangerous.” I like that.

From:

conuly

I'll give you the credit for noticing the discrepancy, even if it took you a while.

From:

nodrog

Well, it would do - I was of that target audience myself when I read them!

Her education in history and anthropology not only allowed her to write convincingly of Neolithic and Bronze-Age societies, but she was “woke” from the prejudices of the day. Many of her stories were set in the era following the “Burn-off,” a nuclear war that decimated the northern hemisphere… so it was the shall-we-say darker races which represented humanity among the stars, and white Europeans & Anglo-Saxons were so rare as to invite comment.

That was downright subversive in the 1950s! Yet she drew no particular attention to it, and kids reading the stories took it in as a matter of course.

From:

elenbarathi.livejournal.com

What book, then, and what did it say?

From:

conuly

A tedious, not very interesting or famous boarding school story, the title of which already escapes me, and it was a slur against Jews from a character established as a well-liked and respected (both by characters and author) authority figure.

From:

elenbarathi.livejournal.com

Ah, boarding-school stories from back in the day. My childhood favorites were Rilla of the Lighthouse (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18071267-rilla-of-the-lighthouse) and The Jolliest School of All (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8356546-the-jolliest-school-of-all). I haven't read either of them since grade school, and don't remember any racism per se, but I have no doubt it's there.

When I got to boarding school myself, I found out what sanitized, romanticized, wishful-thinking piffle such stories really are. Ohhh well!

From:

conuly

LOL, of course they are! If day school isn't much fun, boarding school isn't gonna be better. Sigh.

From:

elenbarathi.livejournal.com

Public school had been a living hell, so boarding school was significantly better, and it was fun in a lot of ways, but not necessarily in nice socially-acceptable ladylike ways. I didn't drink, smoke pot or do drugs, but a lot of my schoolmates did. We had sex, got in fights, cut class, sneaked out at night - it was quite a squalid lifestyle; not at all what those books had led me to expect.

From:

conuly

The kids in books do get into fights, at least.

From:

elenbarathi.livejournal.com

The girls in boarding-school books do not get into fist-fights - certainly not in pre-WWII books! There is plenty of social bitchery, but nobody ever gets punched in the tit.

Edited Date: 2019-02-11 01:17 pm (UTC)