Inspiring Young Readers
posted on 07 Sep 2018
Diversity in children’s books in Britain? A personal, experiential examination
As a young child I loved my parents reading to me, and to just look at the beautiful pictures. I am told by relatives that I engaged with books at home very well from a young age. When I started school something confusing happened, I thought I didn’t like books any more, yet I still liked the books at home. I struggled to read at school, but I didn’t struggle to read at home. I was put in reading remedial class on a few occasions at school, my parents were baffled, I read books fine at home.
Upon reflection I believe I struggled to engage with books at school as they did not reflect my cultural lived reality. The books at home reflected the nuances of multi-cultural family and community life.
My grandma came from Italy as a regular immigrant and my other grandparents from Belarus and Latvia came as asylum seekers. My parents brought my siblings and I up in a secular household though we enjoyed getting Christmas presents from my Italian grandma and Hanukah presents from the Gurevitch / Cohen side of the family, (in 1945 my father was pretty much an orphan so was raised by the Cohen’s). My babysitters were gay artists who smiled a lot. My dad made potato latkes and played banjo, guitar and balalaika (not all at the same time, although you wouldn’t put it past him to try), my gran made tasty risottos, my mum could usually be found with her head under a car bonnet listening to the engine hum to work out what was wrong with it.
My father ordered from a small publisher in Moscow as they would print English texts of Russian stories. I do not recall the names of the books but I recall they tended to reflect people just like my family in a wonderful sort of Edward Lear lovable way. The names of the characters were just like the names of my family, there were strong women farmers and women car mechanics. I recall one of the books was about some Russian gypsies who ran a circus (not unusual for the 1970’s/80’s), there was an angry male character, Ivan, who one day, one of the women from the circus was poorly and could not perform but the show must go on and the only one who could stand in was Ivan who took a lot of persuading. Ivan had to wear the woman’s glamorous dress and lipstick, blusher, mascara etc. Ivan did a very good job, the show was successful and Ivan enjoyed it so much that he refused to take the dress off. Quick summary, Ivan became Irena and from then on wore glamorous dresses and was, as commented by the other characters in the story book, so much happier and nicer as a woman, everyone was happy. I was aware that there were Trans people in my neighbourhood and my parents instilled in my siblings and I the attitude that they were as valued members of the community as anyone else, the Ivan/Irena story may also have helped create cultural appreciation of diversity. The other thing I recall about the books was that the characters were a variety of shades of browns, pinks, peaches, and yellows. Russia borders with countries like Mongolia and Kazakhstan and has vast tribes like the Nenets and that sort of diversity was reflected in the pictures in the books. If you put both sides of my family together for a photograph you will have a mixture of people with pale skin, blue eyes, blond hair through to dark skin, dark eyes and almost black hair.
The books at school, in my experience, did not reflect diversity. In order to be sent to remedial class a student fails to demonstrate satisfactory comprehension. Yet in order to comprehend a task does it help if it bears some relation or relevance to the child’s lived reality? If children from diverse families are always asked to read books about dominant cultures so vastly different to their own, could that compromise their efficacy at that task? Clearly not for all children as many diverse heritage children went through the education system at the same time as me and didn’t experience the same problems, but I suspect a significant number did, I know some of my relatives have commented similar. I have also met others from multi-cultural families and discover shared experiences of education in relation to our mixed cultural heritage. I had a friend at one school who also struggled to read the books at school but he had a phenomenal memory for reciting stories that his parents had passed on to him from their tradition of Irish gypsies. Perhaps diversity in literature is not just about books but also about the cultural practices around the how of literature too. If good books are great for reading skills perhaps story reciting is great for memory skills.
The CLPE (centre for literacy in primary education) recently undertook a research into the representation of ethnic minorities in children’s literature. Their research found that in 2017, of the nearly ten thousand children’s books published that year only 4% featured BAME characters and only 1% had a BAME main character. (CLPE 2017)
As I write this I read that a 9 year old boy (Jamel Myles) in America recently committed suicide due to homophobic bullying at school. How do LGBT children, or children from LGBT families, fare in schools with no books representing them or their families? When I was at school I would challenge homophobic language but it could be tiring being the only person doing so and by secondary school I was accused of being gay simply for challenging homophobic language. In 2009 I attended a training on tackling homophobic bullying in schools and the data at that time showed that schools with little diversity in the curriculum and no policy on tackling homophobic bullying had significant drop-out rates among LGBT pupils.
Personal experiences, observational experiences of others’ experiences and continual learning about diversity led me to start writing literature that presents positive representations of diversity. Not all Russian’s are baddies or spies, women can be great car mechanics, LGBT people can make great babysitters, relatives, or parents, who instil a great sense of wellbeing in children.
Thankfully I am not alone in this and far from the first to address the need for greater positive representations of diversity in children’s literature. Several campaigns promote diversity in books. Increasingly more publishers are opening their doors to both diversity in literature as well as authors from diverse communities. The Book Trust and The Scottish Book Trust, among others, have and continue to add to their database and websites a wide range of information about diversity and inclusive practices in literature.
I wonder if Anton Chekhov were alive today would he be pleased that his old quote…
“Sooner the farmer open his granary to vermin than society patronise the artist.”
… is becoming increasingly defunct? As it seems that nowadays diverse literature by diverse artists and authors are more needed and more welcomed than ever before.
Anna Gurevitch
September 2018
(Click on an image beolow to view it in a slide show format)
