I'm begging all of you:
Dec. 19th, 2022 07:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
conulyIf you have children, or teach children, or otherwise are in any way going to be called upon to recommend/supply books to children read some children's books that were published in this century.
And then, when you're stocking your home or classroom library, or suggesting a long list of books for a friend's child, look at what you've picked out and ask yourself: is this a long list of wall-to-wall white people*? are they all straight, NT, nondisabled, middle class, nominally Christian? is it just chock-full of the 'isms? is this really a complete list?
I swear, sometimes I feel like I'm banging my head against a freaking wall. If the only books you're suggesting are the ones your beloved auntie put in your hands when you were small, the same ones she inherited from her favorite teacher, please. For the love of everything. Read something new.
Also - if you feel you need to warn that a rec has "some sexual content" or "some violence", but don't feel the need to warn that it's brimful of bigotry, maybe ask yourself why that is. (Or, flip it - if you're asking people to warn you for two of those things but not the third, again, why is that? When did you decide it was okay for your kid to read Ma Ingalls saying, without an ounce of narrative criticism, that the only good Indian is a dead Indian, but it's not okay to read about the ghost of somebody's lynched father showing up to wake her and alert her to the need to flee?)
And then, when you're stocking your home or classroom library, or suggesting a long list of books for a friend's child, look at what you've picked out and ask yourself: is this a long list of wall-to-wall white people*? are they all straight, NT, nondisabled, middle class, nominally Christian? is it just chock-full of the 'isms? is this really a complete list?
I swear, sometimes I feel like I'm banging my head against a freaking wall. If the only books you're suggesting are the ones your beloved auntie put in your hands when you were small, the same ones she inherited from her favorite teacher, please. For the love of everything. Read something new.
Also - if you feel you need to warn that a rec has "some sexual content" or "some violence", but don't feel the need to warn that it's brimful of bigotry, maybe ask yourself why that is. (Or, flip it - if you're asking people to warn you for two of those things but not the third, again, why is that? When did you decide it was okay for your kid to read Ma Ingalls saying, without an ounce of narrative criticism, that the only good Indian is a dead Indian, but it's not okay to read about the ghost of somebody's lynched father showing up to wake her and alert her to the need to flee?)
