Training Guides for the Head Start Learning Community:
Emerging Literacy: Linking Social Competence to Learning
Appendix F
| Contents
| Preface
| Introduction
| Module 1
| Module 2
| Module 3
| Module 4 | |
Choosing Books with Diverse Characters and Themes for Young Children*
Books Build Self-Images
The words and pictures in books send powerful messages to young children. Books can help children build positive self-images about their own cultures, families, gender, and abilities and teach them to value the diverse characteristics that make each person a unique individual. Unfortunately, poorly written and illustrated books can send negative messages to children: Only girls (or boys) can do certain jobs. Your family is not as good as someone else's. People with disabilities can't do things on their own. People with different skin color are lazy, sneaky, or scary. All of the people from a certain race look and think alike.
When choosing books for young children, it is important to be an alert consumer. Use the following guidelines to help you select an inventory of appropriate books for the children in your class or group.
Get to Know the Characters
The inventory of books available for children should include a range of people found within a race, culture, or other group. The characters should have a variety of occupations, homes, experiences, and abilities.
The names of characters from a specific culture should reflect the group's cultural traditions.
The beliefs and values of characters should reflect the diversity found within the group at large.
Books should introduce a variety of family compositions--for example, a single mother or father with one or more children, grandparents who play key roles in nurturing children, extended families who share a home and each other's lives.
Characters should not be relegated to the roles and behaviors that are stereotypical of their group. For example, children with disabilities should be shown as individuals who do not need the help of others to be active and creative participants.
Examine the Illustrations
Illustrations should not use stereotypical caricatures of a group's physical features. For example, it is inappropriate for an artist to draw all people from one race with identical facial features such as slanted eyes or broad noses.
Illustrations should depict people from different races in different ways. For example, it is not appropriate to indicate that a character is African-American, Asian, or Hispanic by merely darkening his or her skin color.
Check the Story Line
Characters should be depicted as achieving success through actions that are accepted and valued by their group. For example, a character should not have to give up a behavior held dear by his family or culture so he can make it in the world.
Minority characters should not have to be the best at something to be valued and accepted by the majority group. For example, a minority character should not have to be an extremely talented athlete to win a game, a girl should not have to outdo the boys to be noticed, and a minority child need not be unnaturally forgiving when friends are unkind to her.
Minority characters should be shown as independent thinkers who can face challenges and solve problems. For example, they should use their own abilities to achieve success rather than relying on the actions of others who save them or make things better.
Female characters should be shown as intelligent and capable individuals who represent a wide range of roles. Women and girls should be more than pretty caretakers of children and men.
Look for books with culturally based themes and books about realistic, everyday events and activities that include characters from diverse groups.
* Based on Louise Derman-Sparks and the A.B.C. Task Force, Anti-Bias Curriculum: Tools for Empowering Young Children (Washington, D.C.: National Association for the Education of Young Children, 1989), 143-144; and Violet Harris, "From the Margin to the Center of Curriculum: Multicultural Children's Literature," in Bernard Spodek and Olivia N. Saracho, editors, Language and Literacy in Early Education (New York: Teacher's College Press, 1993), 128-129.
Copyright © 1999 Head Start Publications Management Center. All rights reserved.
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