NOT RECOMMENDED: On the Other Side of the Forest

CONTENT WARNING: This review contains descriptions of anti-Black stereotypes and links to the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia at Ferris State University.

—

On the Other Side of the Forest by Nadine Robert and Gérard DuBois is a Canadian French translation. Arthur and his dad–two brown-furred rabbits–live among fellow anthropomorphic rabbits (and their dog Danton) in a clearing surrounded by a forest. Rumors of scary creatures in the woods abound (“No one ever goes in there!”) but nobody from the village has ever discovered what lies beyond.

Arthur’s dad, a curious wheat farmer, has the idea to build a tower so that they can peer over the trees and see the other side of the forest. The rabbits harvest the grain, grind it into flour, and bake bread to barter for stones. They spend their off-hours constructing the rock tower: “It’s very tiring. But a magnificent idea takes a lot of work.” When a storm wrecks their progress, the villagers, now full of bread and interested in the exhausted pair’s endeavor, help finish the job. Suspense builds as Arthur and his dad ascend the finished tower and a new truth about their surroundings is revealed. 

The first person narration and short, rhythmic sentences pace the story. Illustrations resemble oversized block prints on distressed, vintage-looking paper, and function as oversized rectangular panels with a crisp white border. Bright reds, blues, and yellows pop atop an otherwise muted color palette. Characters’ outfits and activities (hoop trundling, for example) evoke an old-timey atmosphere. Much of the book reads like a story of discovery, with themes of community, ingenuity, and exploration. BUT––this is not true of the complete work. There is one spread of this book that includes racist imagery that distorts and overpowers everything else.

In the spread, Arthur’s dad has fallen asleep and Arthur works in the kitchen to help him make bread. The text, told from Arthur’s point of view, reads “To help him, I finish making the dough and I clean the oven.” The art depicts Arthur looking straight ahead, with white teeth, exaggerated white round eyes, and a coal black-colored face, ears, and chest.

When I first came upon this page, I thought of a racist image that I had learned about from the Jim Crow Museum’s online database of racist cartoons. Arthur’s appearance after oven-cleaning is positioned as a humorous moment in the story too–this is disturbing! What about having black fur (or skin) is humorous? That the color is temporary–something that is later washed off–also brings up connections to blackface minstrelsy. 

Once I encountered this page, I could no longer in good conscience enjoy or recommend this book. The charms that I had found in other elements of the book–like the reds, blues, and yellows popping atop the muted color palette–became harder to discern. It isn’t because those colors aren’t vivid, but because craft and context are always intertwined. It takes a great degree of privilege to compartmentalize–to celebrate some elements of a racist work while ignoring the racism. Whiteness often positions this particular type of compartmentalization as “objectivity.” This has the consequence of allowing white people like me to ignore anti-racist critique and believe (even if subconsciously) that our position is neutral, noble, and/or superior. It could not be farther from it!

Seeing this title reminded me of conversations around another book: The Bad Mood and the Stick by Daniel Handler and Matthew Forsythe. After the original book cover was released several years ago, Edi Campbell’s writings and the work of other online activists moved the publisher to change the art. I hope that happens here.

Some readers might ask, “don’t you care that On the Other Side of the Forest was on the 2021 New York Times/New York Public Library Best Illustrated Children’s Books list?” I do care, but not because I think an award makes a book infallible. I care that a group of people examined this book and either didn’t see the issue at hand or didn’t care enough about it to add a different book to the list instead. I care about the anti-Blackness that this book normalizes, because it is wrong. I care about the readers who have to deal with the consequences of a racist book receiving accolades and showing up in classrooms and libraries.

The creators might not have intended for this art to communicate these messages and connections, but intent is irrelevant. The reality is that this image has a racist impact. And whether or not we are conscious of it, we are all taking in messages from our reading and surroundings every day, and these messages direct our thoughts and our behaviors. Kids are receiving these messages too, in ways that are influential to their development and critical to their self-esteem and perception of others.  What messages are sent when the white-dominated children’s literature ecosystem continues to uncritically praise books with racist imagery? 

--Review by Elisa Gall

An Open Letter to Scales on Censorship and School Library Journal

Reproduced, with permission from School Library
Journal © Copyright Library Journals, LLC
a wholly owned subsidiary of MSI Information Services

Each issue of School Library Journal contains a full-page segment entitled Scales on Censorship, where Pat Scales, former chair of the American Library Association’s Intellectual Freedom Committee, answers questions on censorship. Today Sam Bloom responds to one question from the March 2019 piece, which is pictured here but can also be found here or on page 28 of the print copy.

Hello! I have read Scales on Censorship for quite a while, and like many others, I have trusted Pat Scales over the years to give well-reasoned responses to challenging questions.

However, I was taken aback by one of the responses in the March issue (see photo). In it, Pat Scales answers a question on how to handle “books containing any amount of cultural misrepresentation”; namely, “Where do we librarians draw the line between sensitivity and censorship?”

I agree that this is a tough question, one I grapple with on a daily basis. I also agree with Scales’s statement that it’s “our duty to purchase books that accurately portray the ethnicity of the main characters”; to that I’d add any number of intersecting identities (gender, sexuality, etc.). But I take issue with Scales’s qualifier that “to remove or refuse to purchase a book because someone sees a small inaccuracy is censorship.”

First of all, let’s talk about the choices book buyers make when deciding how to use their budgets. In terms of deciding not to purchase a book based on cultural inaccuracies, well, I feel like we’ve had this talk before… many, many times before. Librarians make purchasing choices based on a book’s quality every day. Is it censorship to not purchase a book because it gets poor reviews? I’d say no–that’s simply an informed purchasing choice. And how could cultural inaccuracies *not* affect a book’s quality? (Also, if I may go back to Scales’s “small inaccuracy” comment? That inaccuracy may not seem so “small” to someone else. I also encourage Scales to examine the White privilege that allows her to minimize that which could cause pain to someone from a marginalized group by dubbing it “small”. Not to mention that Scales’s phrasing–“someone sees” an issue–subtly deemphasizes that problematic content in books really does exist, it’s not just people “seeing things.”)

Now on to the issue of librarians who “remove” books with problematic content. I see this referenced a lot in articles from mainstream press, and as an argument it lacks nuance. I certainly cannot say for sure that no single librarian has pulled a book from the shelves because they found it problematic, but in my experience this isn’t a recurring issue sweeping through libraries nationwide. In my large library system, we have hundreds of copies of Little House on the Prairie and its sequels; we also still have 20 live copies of a book that a publisher actually pulled from publication three years ago! And if you walk into a children’s room anywhere in the country, I wager you will find at least one copy of Ghosts in the collection.

Referring librarians to the WNDB resources page is a great call. I want to point out, however, that several of the sites listed by WNDB are curated by the very same “bloggers and library professionals” whose “strong opinions” regarding cultural representation in books leads them to “sometimes use their online space to aggressively influence book-purchasing decisions.” So I guess Scales recommends people read these bloggers *unless* they are critiquing a book, and as long as they conform to her idea of what meets the criteria for “non-aggressive”?  I don't think it's fair or constructive to those of us serving youth to reject the work of these individuals when they are critiquing representation while holding up their work when they are recommending books; both aspects of these bloggers’ work are critical to all of us serving children and teens. Scales’s whole framing of the power dynamics–bloggers are people who “aggressively influence” decision-makers by making problematic books their “target”–stems from a place of White privilege and fragility and fails to acknowledge that some books, and some content within books, in fact constitute acts of aggression against young readers.

Furthermore, I am also concerned with the way Scales framed A Fine Dessert within her response. Yes, it received some “excellent reviews,” but as Lee & Low’s Diversity Baseline Survey has shown, the overwhelmingly White/female/cishet world of reviews shouldn’t always be taken at face value. Not to mention that in March 2015, before any internet activity had gained steam in relation to A Fine Dessert, John Lithgow wrote this in his New York Times review: “In a bold and somewhat unsettling choice, they portray a smiling slave woman and her daughter….” Critique of this book was not limited to social media; and the fact that some critique does originate online does not lessen its validity. It is far past time for us to acknowledge and embrace the fact that some of the critical perspectives on books are coming not from review journals but from professionals in our field writing on blogs and elsewhere on social media. Again, let’s recognize our privilege as White people in the profession when we start picking and choosing when and if we are willing to listen to critical voices on social media. I believe we can fold these critical perspectives into our consideration and understanding of specific titles.

Here’s what Scales wrote next: “Instead of removing the title because bloggers thought a few pages were problematic, librarians should engage young readers in conversation about the controversy.” This remark feels flippant and dismissive of some scholarly and expert opinions, but I would also caution adults (especially White adults) that this is a conversation that would take a great deal of preparation and education for the adults in question. A poorly handled conversation with young children about slavery could very well reinforce stereotypes.

Finally, regarding Vamos a Cuba, Scales wrote that “other Cuban Americans” disagreed with the Cuban American school board member who first recommended the book be pulled from the shelves. Scales then asked, “Whom do you believe?” A shared heritage for any of us does not mean identical experiences or perspectives and so the fact that there was and is disagreement is not and should never be surprising. But this makes it all the more critical to be as informed as possible when making selection decisions when it comes to accuracy and authenticity, and today we are fortunate to have informed critical perspectives from professional sources outside those we have traditionally relied on. “Whom do you believe” is a starting point, not the end point, and there isn't necessarily a “right” or “wrong” answer for any book, but there are “informed” and “uninformed” choices, and it is our responsibility to be as informed as possible in selecting materials according to our local policies and procedures.

I don’t believe the two things in Scales’s last sentence should cancel each other out. I am working and listening and opening myself to ways of learning how to be culturally sensitive, *and* I am using my skills from library school (though not every librarian has been to library school, nor do I believe one has to go to library school to be an effective librarian) to understand the importance of reading reviews from journals such as School Library Journal *and* from blogs on our Kindred Spirits list. Which brings me to Scales’s closing thought, about the need to parse “which reviews and online tools to trust.” Questions about cultural authenticity and censorship do not exist in a vacuum, nor are they free of power imbalances and racist, oppressive legacies. I do not accept the binary thinking that says criticism = attack = censorship, and I encourage all White members of the children’s literature community–including myself, my fellow members of Reading While White, and Scales–to examine and question the White privilege we necessarily bring to these discussions. Until that happens, I no longer trust Pat Scales to give advice where censorship intersects with cultural representation.

Sincerely,

Sam Bloom

Fighting For Justice: Biddy Mason Speaks Up

Today we welcome Guest Blogger Sarah Jo Zaharako in our second of three posts spotlighting the “Fighting for Justice” series from Heyday Books. The first post was a review of Fred Korematsu Speaks Up.  

Fighting for Justice: Biddy Mason Speak Up

By Arisa White and Laura Atkins
Illustrated by Laura Freeman
ISBN: 9781597144032
Click here to purchase.

In 1866, Biddy Mason bought a parcel of land on the outskirts of Los Angeles. The purchase provided a legacy for her family and helped Mason become one of the wealthiest people in Los Angeles. She was 48 years old, a midwife and herbalist; a single mother; a formerly enslaved person and a survivor of rape. Mason helped shape the Black community in Los Angeles through philanthropy and community organization. Her story, like so many millions of untold stories, fills a gaping hole in how the American historical narrative is transmitted to young people.

Through a smorgasbord of documentation, White and Atkins demonstrate the depth of evidence needed to fully understand the impact of slavery and racism both in a historical context and in modern day society. Painful and violent concepts like enslavement, profiteering, and rape are respectfully approached with age-appropriate clarity, which will prompt meaningful discussion. 

Chapter three provides an honest look at slavery and genealogy, a topic integral to Mason’s story. The inset explains that slavery was matrilineal, meaning that if a mother was enslaved, her child was enslaved. “Enslaved women could sometimes partner and have children with enslaved men. Masters could also rape enslaved women. Enslaved people did not have a choice about how their bodies were used, since they were seen as property” (p. 21). A supplemental text box defines rape as “When one person forces a sexual act on another person who does not want it or who is unable to give consent” (p. 21). Direct explanations like these encourage questions and link the atrocities of the past with current campaigns for equality and justice. The Fighting for Justice books explain to children why things aren’t fair. They also uplift and empower, proving through their protagonists that ordinary people can speak up.

Among many defining attributes, the Fighting for Justice series (Fred Korematsu Speaks Up, 2017) forges a connection between history and present day society. Biddy Mason Speaks Up invites readers to confront White supremacy, and to explore equality and injustice together in a meaningful way. A supplemental section titled “Healing Your Community: From Biddy’s Day to Ours” explores modern day activists and organizations including Black Lives Matter. Here, an inset introduces the work of modern-day abolitionist Regina Evans and describes the prevalent but not widely recognized practice of human trafficking. This reference demolishes the idea that slavery is neatly contained in a single ugly chapter of American history.

Throughout the book, readers are encouraged to apply the concepts in each chapter to their own experience through thoughtful prompts like, “What are the barriers that keep you from speaking up?” Such questions promote reflection, a critical practice for mindful readers and thinkers.  When learning is personal, so is it memorable.

The focus on Biddy Mason as the protagonist further sets the book apart from the myriad historical texts for middle-grade readers. Publishers have traditionally delegated the portrayal of slavery in America to a relatively small cast of historical figures like Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass. In doing so, slavery’s repercussions are given limited scope in the literary world. Mason’s story suggests that she is but one of millions whose experience has been omitted, if not erased, from the American narrative. I found myself asking the question, “Why have I not heard this story?” and contemplating how many more stories I have been denied by a traditional American education.

Biddy Mason Speaks Up invites young readers to join a conversation, to reflect, and to make connections. It is powerful in its intimacy and memorable for its honesty. Most of all, the book empowers. The Fighting for Justice series lays a foundation of knowledge and provides the questions that will fuel the change makers of tomorrow. Biddy Mason is intriguing, direct, and impossible to put down.

Guest Reviewer Sarah Jo Zaharako works with children in public and school libraries in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is a musician and mother and will soon complete her MLIS at San Jose State University.

Fighting for Justice: Fred Korematsu Speaks Up

Review by Elisa Gall

This is the first of three posts spotlighting the “Fighting for Justice” series from Heyday Books. Click here to learn more about the publisher and its upcoming releases.

Fighting for Justice: Fred Korematsu Speaks Up

By Laura Atkins and Stan Yogi

Illustrated by Yutaka Houlette

ISBN: 9781597143684
Click here to purchase.

“Have you ever spoken up when you saw something that wasn’t right?” This is the first sentence readers encounter in Fighting for Justice: Fred Korematsu Speaks Up. The pages that follow illustrate Korematsu’s life and legacy in a unique and engaging blend of narrative nonfiction and informational, textbook-like pages.

Cover of Fred Korematsu Speaks Up.

Fred Korematsu was born in 1919 and raised in Oakland, CA. He endured racism and discrimination as a Japanese American and at the same time felt less connected to Japan and Japanese culture than his Issei (first generation) parents. He fell in love with a White woman, and planned for a future with her; but, all hopes and plans were derailed in 1942 when U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Japanese Americans and Japanese immigrants were forced into concentration camps. Korematsu knew that internment was not right and defied the order.

He used a fake identity to avoid relocation, but was caught and arrested in May of 1942. At that time, the White woman he loved deserted him. A lawyer with the ACLU approached Korematsu and together they challenged the case and the unconstitutional imprisonment of Japanese Americans. After making bail, Korematsu was taken to Tanforan, and later Topaz, where many of his fellow imprisoned Japanese and Japanese Americans did not support him (some feared the legal fight was causing the community even more trouble). As Korematsu faced hardship, heartbreak, and isolation, his case moved from “one court to the next” until 1944, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the government, saying that internment was legal due to “military necessity.” Korematsu lost.

Over time, the war ended and Korematsu moved to Michigan, fell in love, and started a family. It wasn’t until 1982, almost 40 years after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling, that the case was reopened after a group of lawyers found proof that the U.S. government lied about the threat posed by Japanese Americans during World War II. This time, Korematsu won the case. Several years later, the U.S. government apologized and committed to paying reparations to survivors of internment, and in 1998, Korematsu was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. For the the rest of his life, Korematsu traveled and spoke about his experiences, encouraging people to speak up and fight injustice wherever and whenever they see it.

In the book, visceral details about Korematsu’s life are shared through poems, which are separated into chapters and offer readers the opportunity to consider the events from his perspective. Co-authors Atkins and Yogi employ a direct, intentional voice. For example, the text in one poem reads:

What the government calls

“Assembly Centers.”

Really Prisons.

This makes clear the gap between what the U.S. government messaging was and the reality of what was happening.

Illustrations, rendered digitally by Yutaka Houlette, start each chapter off by showcasing important moments in Korematsu’s life on each spread’s verso page.

In between the chapters are nonfiction pages. A series of definitions, timelines, photographs, poems, artworks, and other primary documents give these pages a museum exhibit-like feel, and interactive questions push readers to recognize and consider what they are thinking and feeling as they read and reflect.

Hefty back matter includes a note from Karen Korematsu about her father and information about the Korematsu Institute, including a link to where readers can order a free teaching kit. Materials for young activists are also included: resources for further information, ideas about working together, and tools to take action towards equity.  There are many names (educators, librarians, writers, and more) listed in the acknowledgements, showing that this project was a collaborative one.

This book shines in its accessibility and how it bridges the gap between then and now, inviting reflection on the past and motivating change in the present day. It is honest and unique in its balancing of straight-up facts and personal, emotive story (as reflected through the narrative poetry).

Today is January 30. It is Fred Korematsu’s birthday and it is also Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution. This book celebrates Korematsu and inspires readers to reflect on what they know and what they can do--and will do--to fight unfairness and to create positive change. Fighting for Justice: Fred Korematsu Speaks Up is highly recommended.

-Elisa Gall

Not recommended: It’s Springtime, Mr. Squirrel

This is a post in Reading While White’s end-of-year retrospective series.

2018 has been a historic year for Native women in U.S. politics. Last month, Sharice Davids, a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation, and Deb Haaland, an enrolled member of the Pueblo of Laguna, became the first-ever Native women elected to U.S. Congress. At the same time, Peggy Flanagan, a member of the White Earth Nation of Ojibwe, was elected Lt. Governor of Minnesota.

In the #kidlit world, 2018 has been a stellar year for Native book releases, with several #OwnVoices books by Native creators being published and celebrated, including Traci Sorell winning the Orbis Pictus Honor Award last month for We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga. In January, another group of AILA Youth Literature Awards was announced and Dr. Debbie Reese was selected to give the 2019 May Hill Arbuthnot Lecture. In June, members of the ALSC Board of Directors addressed longstanding criticism and “inconsistency between Wilder’s legacy and [ALSC’s] core values” when voting to change the name of the Wilder Medal to the Children’s Literature Legacy Award. Dr. Debbie Reese recently posted a Twitter thread highlighting some momentous events from the year.

Screenshot of Facebook conversation regarding
"Native American headdress" flannelboards.

Despite these successes and more, anti-Native bigotry and actions persisted in 2018. Ignorance of Native nations was reflected in Senator Elizabeth Warren’s refusal to apologize for claiming Native identity. (That she pointed to a DNA test as “proof” of her Cherokee identity shows her lack of knowledge. Read this post by Jacqueline Keeler and Kelly Hayes and this piece by Rebecca Nagle to learn more about how both Warren and Trump have exploited and erased Cherokee people and the Cherokee Nation in this fight.) While the professional baseball team of Cleveland, Ohio committed to removing racist imagery from team jerseys this year, there are no plans to change the team name and the team will continue to profit from the racist image, which suggests that the move is more about what looks best from a PR perspective than about doing what’s right. Some educators have shared efforts to teach inclusively in 2018 (learn about how teacher Jessica Lifshitz is confronting Native stereotypes with her students here), but many continue to teach false history rooted in White supremacist, colonialist culture (as seen in the screenshot of a recent Facebook group conversation about flannelboards, the inappropriate use of the words “tribe” and “spirit animal,” and this Twitter conversation about fake tipis being used as classroom decorations). Native survivors of targeted harassment courageously raised their voices  against their abusers in 2018, yet Native women continue to face violence and assault at staggering rates. Companies like Target and Crate and Barrel continue to profit off of appropriative Native merchandise that encourages children to “play Indian.” Native book creators continue to be represented minimally at conferences like #NCTE18. Native stories are mislabeled as “folk and fairy tales.” And racist children’s books are still getting published and promoted. One of these books, published this year in the U.S.A., is It’s Springtime, Mr. Squirrel!.

Cover of It's Springtime, Mr. Squirrel!
Image from Amazon.com.

It’s Springtime, Mr Squirrel! is an international picture book (translated from German) by Sebastian Meschenmoser, author of the popular Mr. Squirrel and the Moon. This is one of those “where do you even begin” kind of books to review - there are A LOT of issues.

In the beginning of the book, spring has sprung and the setting is abuzz. Graceful gray pencil marks are lightened by splashes of color. Creatures scuttle about, and Mr. Squirrel’s friend Hedgehog shares that he’s not hungry because he has seen “...a lovely lady hedgehog.” At this point, pink and blue background fills are used for male and female characters, reinforcing a very stereoptypical gender binary. When “the lovely lady” Hedgehog is shown, it is from behind (this “lady” only exists as an object for the male character to gaze). Because Hedgehog is too shy to approach the lady character, Mr. Squirrel shares thoughts about how to win her heart: “The best way is to gain fame and glory by showing everyone how brave and strong you are.” The omniscient narrator then says, “In order to gain fame and glory, of course you had to win lots of dangerous fights.” Regardless of author intent, the not-so-subtle message is to get what I want out of this, I have to assert male dominance (toxic masculinity 101).

The text then reads: “...if you want to win lots of dangerous fights, you have to look dangerous yourself.” What exactly does it mean to “look dangerous” in this book? First Hedgehog is shown with a butterfly and flowers atop his head, and later with a mushroom-style skirt and a snail on his head (both sexist jabs against anything other than masculine, cisnormative gender presentations). It is only when Hedgehog wears leaves and carries a sharp stick in what appears to be a stereotypical, generic Native outfit that the characters feel ready to win “any dangerous fight.” (To learn about how “playing Indian” is connected to the colonialist history of the U.S.A. and the impacts of stereotypes on Native children’s self-esteem today, read this study, this post, and this book.)

Illustration of Hedgehog with grass skirt and spear. Imagine from
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Its-Springtime-Mr-Squirrel/Sebastian-Meschenmoser/9780735843103.

In the pages that follow, the characters (both dressed up now) attack unsuspecting mice, birds, and bunnies. When the bear character, who is named as the most dangerous creature in the forest, isn’t scared of them (he doesn’t see them), Mr. Squirrel and Hedgehog feel victorious. They take flowers to the “lady hedgehog,” only to discover that she isn’t a hedgehog at all, but a hairbrush. As they sit with their disappointment, a duck approaches and says, “That can happen to anybody.” To some readers, this ending and its be careful who you are attracted to messaging might also call to mind stories of people who are transgender being violently outed, which often results in trauma and assault.

Scanned illustration of characters chasing mice. 

No doubt there will be readers who want to defend this book by pointing out the creator’s impeccable draftsmanship or use of irony. Meschenmoser is a talented visual artist in some ways, but the thing about books for children is that they are about how every image and piece of text work together to create each page, and how every image and page fits together with the next to tell a story. Each book goes out into the world, the actual world where Native sovereignty is not understood by those with power (and many without), and where Native kids are facing compounding intersecting oppressions. These books are read by real kids, many whose very identities are under constant threat.

If you work with young people, I invite you sit and think with me about the messages this particular book sends to readers, and how it connects to today...to this month...to 2018. How will Native readers and others with minoritized group identities respond to this book? How might readers with privilege and power react? What might they internalize? If you still want to defend this book, I invite you to consider the purpose supporting an artist’s style above all else serves. Who does it protect? What legacies does it continue?

If you choose to read a different book, I’d suggest any of the Hall of Fame recommendations on Indigo’s Bookshelf, the new blog (also started this year) by the group of Florida Seminole and Miccosukee teens who Tweet collaboratively using @OfGlades. If you don’t already follow them, you should. These young people have things to say—and as reflecting on 2018 shows for those us who are not Native, we have much to learn.

-Elisa Gall