Children's Literature in Websites and Media

Children's Literature Websites

1. Vandergrift's Children's Literature Page

http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~kvander/ChildrenLit/index.html

Kay Vandergrift is a professor who teaches graduate classes in children's literature at Rutgers University. Perhaps indicative of her career as a teacher, her website is filled with provocative questions regarding children's literature. She splits her site up into several subjects, including sections about literature in the lives of today's children, sections on illustrated materials for young children, and sections about various genres of children's literature, such as modern realistic fiction, biographies, snow white stories, and poetry. Among her questions, I found many that dealt with critical literacy issues. Some of these include, “Are feminist and multicultural concerns represented in contemporary youth literature? If so, are they naturally integrated into the literary compositions?” “What are literary motifs and archetypes? Do such traditional elements perpetuate male paradigms and contribute to the silencing of females?” “Does modern realistic fiction for children and young people present alternative lifestyles and views of society?” “What factors have influenced the recent increase in censorship in the public schools and public libraries of this country? What kinds of materials are most frequently challenged?” “Do the majority of informational materials for children really reveal a respect for the child's ability to inquire and to know?”

2. Mother Goose: A Scholarly Exploration

http://eclipse.rutgers.edu/goose/

This website, also from Rutgers (apparently the place to be for children's literature studies!) looks at Mother Goose stories and also raises questions related to critical literacy. The website explains that Mother Goose stories are important in emergent literacy, as these stories are often told to young children before they can even read, and the rhymes are often used in early childhood classrooms. One interesting element on the site is an exploration of the popular images of Mother Goose, which notes that, in hundreds of images of a human Mother Goose, not one was a minority, and of the images of Mother Goose as an animal, the majority of the geese illustrated were white. Another interesting section of the site explains that Mother Goose rhymes have often been forms of social and/or political criticism. Some of the original rhymes mocked the British, and there have been modern interpretations of some rhymes designed to critique social and political issues of today. There is also a section on the censorship of Mother Goose rhymes. Did you know that, according to this site, the original version of “Ten Little Indians” (which, by using the word “Indian”, isn't even totally PC today) was actually “Ten Little [racial epithet for African Americans]”? Also, the original Mother Goose collection also included rhymes that used derogatory stereotypes of Jews.

3. American Indian's in Children's Literature

http://americanindiansinchidlrensliterature.blogspot.com/

The previous website made me curious about the representations of American Indians in children's literature. This long-running blog, written by a professor at the University of Illinois by the name of Debbie Reese, critically examines this exact topic. Among the interesting elements of this site are first person stories by parents and teachers, Native-American themed lessons, posts about Thanksgiving, and links to related articles. As this is a blog, there is also a lot of interesting commentary written by others at the end of each post. The blog moves past just children's literature and the classroom to also look at representations of American Indians in the media and popular culture. Reese examines classic texts such Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House on the Prairie (which she says dehumanizes American Indians) and presents alternatives with more truthful portrayals of Native Americans, such as Louise Erdrich's Birchbark House.

4. Celebrating Cultural Diversity Through Children's Literature

http://www.multiculturalchidlrenslit.com/

This website was compiled by Dr. Robert F. Smith, a Professor at Towson University. The site is divided by cultural groups, including African Americans, Japanese Americans, Chinese Americans, Jewish Americans, Korean Americans, Middle Eastern peoples, Latino/Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans. Each section has an annotated bibliography of children's books dealing with that particular culture, the annotations being summaries of each story and the grade level for which each book is appropriate. Each section also has related websites. I think this is a great resource for teachers looking to bring more multicultural literature into their classrooms. However, Dr. Smith does not post any kind of criticism or evaluation of the books, so make sure to read them before you choose one to use in class to make sure that it is what you are looking for.

5. Africa Access Review

http://www.africaaccessreview.org/

Africa Access is a nonprofit organization that helps schools, libraries, and parents find quality literary and educational resources of Africa. The Africa Access Review is their online database, which includes over 1000 annotations and reviews of children's books. The reviews are by experts in African Studies including teachers, librarians, and professors. The website also includes a section on research projects about Africa. Africa Access also works in conjunction with the African Studies Association to present the Children's Africana Book Awards (CABA) each year, and this page links to the CABA web page. One particularly useful element of this website is a set of “evaluation criteria”, or questions that teachers can ask when evaluating materials of Africa that they plan to use with children. For example, the questions ask, “does the text focus on the lives of majority groups and avoid exaggerating small atypical groups such as the San or Masai?” “Is the there a balance between information of African men and women? Are the problems African women face placed in historical and global contexts?” “Are offensive, inaccurate, or biased terms avoided?” [includes list of biased/inaccurate/offensive terms and names, such as primitive, Bushmen, etc.]. “Are visuals representative and nonstereotypical?” “Do materials represent African viewpoints and perspectives?” The questions do not have answers, such as “if it does this, then reject the book”, but are merely questions for thought when evaluating texts. Teachers can use this to make sure that their collections offer a balance. For example, if one text does focus on an atypical African group, they may balance it with another text that looks at a majority group.

Children's Literature in the Media

This is a good time to be looking for Children's Literature in the media because, this week, there is a lot of it. This is because Sunday was Dr. Seuss' birthday, and many schools and organizations are celebrating the life and work of this prolific author. I found many newspaper articles covering various tributes by schools across the country celebrating Dr. Seuss' birthday. (My own school is celebrating too, as I'm sure many of your schools may be as well). However, I chose to discuss an article I found on CNNMoney.com which reflects a greater representation of children's literature in the media. Here is the link: http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/marketwire/0368967.htm

This article is discussing a partnership between the IHOP restaurant chain and 20^th Century Fox to advertise the upcoming film version of Horton Hears a Who. In the weeks surrounding the film's theatrical release, IHOP will sell four Horton-related foods-- Beezlenut Splash, Who-Cakes, Mayor's Breakfast and Jo-jo's Kid's Breakfast. I am not sure whether this entire thing is good or bad. On the one hand, you could say that it's great that they are making Dr. Seuss books into films because they will reach so many children that way. However, I wonder, if children are seeing Seuss on screen, will they still want to read the books? What's wrong with just reading the book, why do we need a movie version? What would Seuss have thought of all this? I don't think that kids will get the literary value of the text through a film, such as the rhymes, simplicity of stories, and illustrations. Also, isn't it a little sickening that IHOP is further commercializing this classic text in order to sell products to children? As much as I love the classic story of Horton, I can't help but feel a little uneasy about his cinematic turn and resulting media coverage.