Dead moms, pleather spanx, and dry kindling thirst traps.
Saviorism
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Mup
Raea Gragg
Graphic Novel, Not recommended
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For critical discussion with kids
Q (age 9) enjoyed the time travel, adventure, message against climate-devastating oil consumption and Mup’s character growth about self-identity as she approaches puberty. I did too!
HOWEVER. Controversy! There were many things we found problematic with this book. I went on a little rant about it that went far too long, so I’m just gonna sum it up into a few points and let you do your own digging.
It’s fine for kids to enjoy the goofy adventures created by white people unimpeded by racialized trauma. But for white readers in particular – this comes with the responsibility of recognizing bias, naming it, and committing to not replicating this harm.
You might also like: Kyriarchy-Smashing Books for 9-Year-Olds
Problematic: Brownface
This book was published in 2020. How on earth does a white lady not pause before writing a character based on her very white sister (that rich white girl slouch! That level-10 Patagonia-fleece whiteness!) and then paint her brown for no apparent reason other than a grab at the ‘diversity’ market?
Problematic: Tampering brownface with proximity of whiteness.
BIPOC have light eyes all the time, it’s normal!
The thing is they’re not any more or less acceptable or beautiful than those with darker coloring. Just in case Mup having flufflier hair and darker skin than white readers would be comfortable with, Graegg drew Mup with light skin and green eyes. How exotic! All the diversity points of brownface, with the subtle ‘but she’s pretty’ message that remind BIPOC that in white supremacy culture, fairer BIPOC are easier on the eyes, and easier to empathize with.
Problematic: Zero effort to embrace Mup’s appropriated Blackness beyond looks
In appropriating a Black-presenting character and implying she’s multiracial, the very least Graegg could have done was run this book past a Black reader to get notes on what she’s missing. Three girls with kinks and curls just plop bareheaded into sleeping bags and jump up in the morning like the world won’t take them seriously until they take that frizz. Imagine that life!
You might also like: No White Saviors: Kids Books About Black Women in US History
Problematic: ‘Gotcha’ language
Mup’s dad uses ‘then I got you’ to refer to the phenomena of obtaining Mup. Like she’s a freakin’ Pokemon. Or a token Black family member to prove he’s open-minded. Regardless of race and adoption status – it’s just weird and gross to talk to our kids like we collected them like pogs.
BIPOC who have been collected by a white person who preens over you as a prized element of their social collection, you know exactly what I’m talking about. This language wouldn’t be more than an awkward blip on the radar if it wasn’t a white dad talking to his multiracial / transracially adopted daughter. The implied backstory of adoption, breeding mixed babies to fix your racism, or even just that Warrior Parent nonsense of objectifying kids as catalysts for a parent’s heroic journey – Ick. Ew. Gross. No thank you.
You might also like: The Reality of Being Adopted: Validating Stories for Adopted Kids
Problematic: Basic Boring Saviorism
The saviorism! A nameless, pan-African tribe has been invaded, colonized, and exploited by a white dude sporting a crown. It’s destroyed their way of life! They are helpless to stop it! Until two Americans show up and save the day within 48 hours.
You might also like: Creating An Anti-Racist Family Manifesto
OH COME THE FUCK ON, ALREADY: Complete lack of self-awareness
Alone, the nebulous, inky, infesting Black Dread (a creeping infestation that pollutes all life that is good and pure on Earth) would be a subtle sign that the author is not at all concerned with our culture’s value on lightness, whiteness, purity culture, and how it forms early bias and racial supremacy on young readers. But capitalizing on a shortcut based in anti-darkness while wearing the face of a Black-presenting character? On top of all the other goof in this book? Yikes.
Like the increased popularity of zombie movies during a refugee crisis and immigration boom, the symbolism of darkness as invading death takes on a deeper tone in the context of a white woman cherry-picking the symbolism of darkness to suit her whims.
Goodness gracious. What. WHAT. I mean we all make mistakes and goof up, cause harm, spread nonsense – but this is a hot messy lasagna of unapologetic privilege and zero self-awareness.
You might also like: Captivating Kids Stories To Recognize Privilege
Parenting is Praxis:
These conversations have to go somewhere. We can’t just read a book for ‘awareness’ and consider our work done. Here are a few ways we transform our family discussions from Freedom, We Sing into action:
- Talk about your family’s racial identities and recognize your role in working toward Black futures.
- Join & amplify the work of Revolutionary Humans, supporting social justice in parenting, non-profits, and community action.
- Find your local black-led organizations, check out the resources they suggest, and follow their lead in action.
You might also like: All My Sons Deserve Respect! Complex Black Boys In Kidlit
If you don’t have patience for this nonsense,
Grab some good graphic novels for elementary-aged kids
Additional Reading For Grownups:
- When They Call You A Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir
- Mindful of Race
- All My Sons Deserve Respect: Search for Complex Black Boys in Kidlit
You might also like: Children’s Books By Brilliant Black Women: #OwnVoices Authors & Illustrators
Is this #OwnVoices?
AHhahahah NO.
Learn more about #OwnVoices, coined by autistic author Corinne Duyvis
How we calculate the overall awesomeness score of books.
Stay Curious, Stand Brave, and Smash The Kyriarchy
Support the Abolitionist Youth Organizing Institute. My kids have two parents to support them – but through the AYOI, we can support and connect with youth to end targeted policing and incarceration.
“Project NIA [the AYOI lead organizer]’s mission is to dramatically reduce the reliance on arrest, detention, and incarceration for addressing youth crime and to instead promote the use of restorative and transformative practices, a concept that relies on community-based alternatives.
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[Image description: Illustration from ‘Rain!’ by Linda Ashman and Christian Robinson. In the illustration, a young child with brown skin tries on an older white dude’s hat. The man is shocked to see the child mocking him, wearing a frown and shouting “You!”]
This season, we’re exploring bias against older adults and teaching our kids to identify harmful assumptions about age
This article & book list is a part of the anti-elder ageism series. Start from the beginning: Why Young Activists Depend on the Fight for Elder Rights.
Only You Can Prevent The Arrogance of Mediocrity
My five year old enjoys explaining things to me. His brain has spontaneously combusted with imaginary facts, taking that “anything is possible” nonsense, transposing it to mean if he can imagine it, it’s a fact.
Which sounds very….post-truth. Everything about social media, climate change deniers, anti-vaxxers, and our government makes more sense now. No one told these bloviated windbags that no matter how many times you repeat bullshit, that doesn’t make it true.
Somewhere along the line, this five-year-old decided he had the authority to give me instructions.
He tells me how to gently turn the pages of a book. He tells me how life started on earth. (Aliens. He’s firm on this.)
It started out cute. I’d nod and smile and be like “Oh wow. Really? Aliens, you say?”
Now it’s just annoying. He tells me how to cut his apples, how to sweep the floor, and how I should wear my mittens. Sometimes he insists I stop and re-do it his way.
He’s starting to notice that he’s the littlest in the family, the littlest in his school. He can’t reach the sink, he can’t tie his shoes, he can’t pronounce his own name, but everyone around him can.
The whole world bosses him around and tells him what to do. Letting him bullshit me about aliens makes him feel confident. Speaking with authority on things he knows little about makes him feel smart and capable and in control of something.
This new discovery of the world + quest for confidence + me humoring it = makes these kids a little arrogant
His older brother is seven, and the seven-year-old has recently hit peak mansplaining.
(At least I hope it’s a peak. Good gracious it’s awful.)
We parents don’t do anything right. His teachers are in his way. His classmates play all wrong. No one knows how to do anything, except for him!
That angst! Thick with condescending sighs, frustrated whining, and eye-rolls – normal for seven. But the paternalism – that’s concerning. While he could maybe grow out of it on his own, I’m not gonna leave that to chance.
I see my part in this. I played along pretending he’s the smartest person in the room when he was little. In kindergarten, it was fun and adorable. Now that he’s huge, and it just comes off as arrogant and rude. Time for us to cut that nonsense out. My bad.
As the folks raising this next generation of kind and brilliant humans, it’s our job how to prevent the arrogant, mainsplaining nonsense of mediocre white dudes. Of all folks with privilege who blow smoke about why they deserve power, but are not responsible for sharing it.
It’s time to teach our kids about intellectual humility.
Unpacking saviorism & arrogance with kidlit
In this book collection, we’re teaching our kids to identify, name, and analyze microaggressions that target and denigrate people with lived experience. Kids getting all paternalistic toward people with decades of expertise. NICE AND OBVIOUS. Let’s explore youth saviors!
Practice #1: Watch your language.
First – let’s look at the ageist language we toss around on TV, kid’s media, and casual conversation.
When I type words like batty, poor, doddering, foolish, and frumpy into Google, ‘old‘ is the first word that auto-fills the search.
- Poor old dear – she’s just confused.
- Don’t mind Grandma, she’s stuck in the past.
- She’s such a Sunday driver.
- What a sweet little old lady!
- Must be having a senior moment!
Feeble. Frail. Brittle. Forgetful. Cranky old coot. Greedy old biddies. Senior moment. OK Boomer.
As the years pass, we internalize some nasty bias against our future selves. No wonder we see getting older as a problem. No wonder we try to avoid it.
No wonder we sub-divide ourselves as we age to avoid identifying as ‘old.’ If getting ‘old’ means our voice gets turned down, tone-policed, and overlooked – who would want that?
Practice #2: Stop excusing bigotry
We excuse denigrating language against older adults because we believe in fallacies of equality and model minority myths. This is a tool of oppression that keeps us complicit. We believe we’re punching up against people who hold power over us, when we’re really punching down.
- If we maintain the idea that older adults are wealthy and powerful, we don’t have to examine how we’re complicit in their oppression.
- If we view older adults as burdens on society who suck up resources that could go to better use (re: younger people), it’s easier to deny them support.
- If we attribute bigotry and unreasonableness to a person’s age, it’s easier for us to write off valid demands for equality from anyone based on their age.
- If we perpetuate myths that older adults are confused, helpless, fragile, and incompetent, it’s easier for us to ignore their directions on how to help – and decide we know what’s best for them. Saviorism!
As we discussed in the last article on listening to #OwnVoices Olders, stigmatizing older adults because of stereotypes about wealth and power further disempowers multiply marginalized older adults.
As Alice Fisher counters in Old White Men, those old white men decimating support for older people with disabilities aren’t regressive because they’re getting older, they’re bigots despite getting older.
Practice #3: Presume competence
Oppression requests that we see those with less power as incompetent.
Ableism requires that we treat people who need support as lesser because they need help. As if being interdependent is a moral failure, rather than an integral part of building strong communities. Ableism and ageism – those two are buddies. So watch out for that.
As if we didn’t get help getting here. (Who changed your diapers, buddy?)
We treat older people – particularly older women as if they’re ignorant and incapable. Calling them sweet and adorable is just bigotry with a smile. This trope de-fangs powerful women whose strength lifted us to this place. Tearing down older women with that nonsense takes us all out at the foundation. Sexism! Ageism and sexism! They need each other.
It takes time to learn patience, to hold space for multiple voices, to reflect on what we’ve gone through and use it to inform our actions. These are strengths. But bias against older people – and anyone with experience navigating complicated situations, tells us that these strengths are a weakness.
Showing up for rallies is not / contributing your hard-earned pay is not / painting visions as a goal to strive for is not / collecting coffee and eggs for struggling parents is not / raising courageous leaders is not / the same thing, but they all reach for the same progress.
Poor activism looks different than wealthy activism. The activism of a single parent raising two kids looks different than the activism of a child-free, young college student. Young activism looks different from activism cured with age.
We cheer for the explosions because that’s all we see, but we need slow burns. Older adults have valuable stuff to bring to the table. We need all kinds of work. We need all kinds of leaders. So it seens uniquely ironic that we remove older adults from leadership, force them to retire, and nudge them into silence because they have too much experience.
Finding better ways
Back to those Little Earthquakes of mine. The ones who are getting a smidge too arrogant for my tastes.
We have ways to build up our kids’ confidence that don’t involve pretending they’re smarter than we are. We have ways to empower them, help them feel capable and strong, without pretending we’re incompetent.
As parents and educators, we must be careful to value their contributions and affirm their awesomeness. Just not falling into the lazyness of letting them use someone else (even us) as pedestals. If you need to start that, read books with them about leadership, about celebrating how unique they are.
And if you’re feeling up to a challenge – read them the books below as cautionary tales of how our society insists we build kids up at the expense of older adults.
Saviorism is, Abuse is, Oppression.
Ageism is the root and fruit of ableism, sexism, poverty, and all that crappy stuff. If you wanna smash these things, you can’t leverage ageism to lift everyone up.
Oppression is systemic abuse. Abuse is about maintaining control over a target. Oppressors have the power to spin the strengths of targets, making that strength look like a weakness. The oppressor creates the rules and values about what is ideal, and what is flawed.
Once bystanders see a target as incompetent, it’s easy for abusers to say “We know what’s best for you,” to take control, to escalate.
Creating the illusion that targets are incompetent allows abusers to disguise our abuse as support.
We’re gonna take a hard look at our language – yes? We’re going to examine the inside of our guts, ask ourselves why we use ‘old‘ as a qualifier for when what we really want is to use the word ‘shitty.’
We’re gonna do the hard work of examining why young people are entitled to relief from pain, social support, opportunities for employment, education, and housing, and why we believe older adults are not entitled to those same things.
We’re going to presume competence. Older adults can take care of themselves. But we’re no longer going to treat power and equality as if it’s scarce, as if it’s something we need to take from someone older.
And we’re going to discuss what we’ve learned with our kids.
To make this easy, let’s start with adorable picture books with good intentions.
Which I am about to ruin for you.
Unpacking Youth Saviorism: Discussion Questions
As we go through this next series of books where older adults are depicted as incompetent buffoons, discuss with your kids:
- Who is centered? Who has agency and control?
- Who has problems? Who solves the problems?
- Who is depicted as stubborn and cranky?
- Who is depicted as smart and vibrant?
- Does the story give external reasons for these dispositions, or are we to assume this is the character’s natural state?
- Why does the older person need a young person to help them? Why couldn’t they have solved the problem on their own?
- What does it teach us about older people that they couldn’t come up with this basic solution on their own?
- Who is a burden, and who is a hero?
- Why did the author make this book? Who did they make it for?
- Who is hurt by this book?
- Does this book make you look forward to getting older, or does it make getting older seem scary and sad?
There are books out there that celebrate interage relationships and interdependence with respect and mutual support – which we can talk about in a future article. The books below are not those.
Silly Tilly’s Thanksgiving Dinner
Tilly is completely incompetent.
The maker chose to depict her as a mole with huge glasses and a puffy white hat. Both of my kids confirmed – she codes as old and blind. Bigots like to use animal coding as a way to benefit from stereotypes because it’s not about an older disabled person. But it is. These stereotypes hurts older people and people with disabilities. You know it, I know it. The kids know it.
Tilly can’t hold a thoguht long enough to do any small task. Instead of accomodating her disabilities and offering support, everyone goes along with it, and things happen to work out serendipitously. I’m sure there’s a shortcut word for this trope already, but I don’t know it. So let’s just call it the Mr. Magoo trope.
This trope shows us that people with disabilities & older people are too stubborn and ignorant to seek help or work around their disabilities, and this makes them a liability for the rest of us. While things work out in the end – because this is kidlit and comedy – it’s just pure luck, but stresses the heck out of all the ‘regular’ people around them.
Story: Old and disabled people are a burden. At best, they can get lucky, and we can have a few laughs watching them bumble. But really, we should be managing them because they can’t manage themselves.
Oh right. Since this is a Thanksgiving book, there’s also the whitewashing.
The Last Place You Look
There are so many great things about this book, undermined by this one shitty trope that just wasn’t necessary. So this one is complicated.
There’s an okay attempt at an inclusive holiday get-together. Our two lesbian grandmothers, Bubbie Ida Flora (depicted as feminine, with white skin), and Bubbie Rose (depicted as leaning toward masculine, also white) host a Seder dinner. There’s a bald white woman (her role is unclear), a person accompanied by a guide dog who codes as Blind, a child wearing a dress, long curly hair, and a headband who uses he/him pronouns, another child who uses they/them, some token people of color and a few multiracial families.
The illustrations are a little wobbly and unfinished (everyone looks like they are wearing flesh mittens). But you got some folks with darker brown and lighter brown skin. Some beige. I appreciate the effort, as books about Jewish holidays often leave out people of color. However it’s important to note that the book depicts the hosting grandparents as white, with only white or multiracial children of white people wearing kippas. The guests of color look like they married in or were…invited. It’s not quite Get Out-level obvious, but I kept searching for hints that the darker skin tones had some agency and didn’t find any. This is a problem, what with the great whitewashing of Judaism in kidlit.
But yay for normalizing lesbian grandmas! And a Blind character with agency who helps search for the afikomen! And a couple gender-non-conforming kids! And vaguely including/tokenizing people with alopecia and/or going through cancer treatments! (Unclear!)
Per tradition, Bubbie Ida Flora breaks the afikoman (Passover matzah) and hides it. All the young people spend an inordinate amount of time and effort searching for it. Because it turns out, Bubbie forgot where she hid it.
Actually, she didn’t even hide it, because she completely forgot to even do that, despite standing up and walking away from the table to do just that. Because she’s old! And old people forget things that happened just a couple minutes ago. So flighty, these old ladies. (/sarcasm).
It wouldn’t be an issue – if this wasn’t an intensely common trope that pops up over and over. Grandma is always the source of the humor in these stereotypes about ‘senior moments,’ and older adults are always butt of the jokes.
It seems light-hearted. Not a big deal. Until you realize how many older women are discriminated against employment, fired, forced into institutions, and refused medical care and life-saving support because they’re dismissed as batty and forgetful.
This shit is killing women. Stop.
My Grandma’s A Ninja
If you are wondering, based on the title, if this book is culturally appropriating Japanese culture for some laughs, then yes you are right, they did a racism. Oh also everyone is white because of course they are.
Beyond the orientalism, which goes exactly where you think it will go (“Grandma made dinner instead. It was raw fish. It was horrible.”), Grandma tries to be a ninja. Pearls on her neck, chopsticks in her hair, carrying a handbag through the whole thing.
Hijinks ensue, because older women? Being active?! HA! What a ridiculously silly idea! (This is also sarcasm.)
Playing off the stereotype that older adults are by default weak, unable to learn new things, and grandmas are boring, this kid’s grandma learns karate and is good at it. We’re supposed to be surprised and amused by this.
But don’t let it get too far – Grandma is also not particularly bright, and she’s disruptive and kind of a burden to have around. Like, the makers couldn’t just have a laugh while denigrating older women and Japanese culture, they also had to add in another layer to remind us that even the best and most active older women are still kind of shitty at everything.
Old Befana
From Tomie dePaola, the maker of Strega Nona, one of the better depictions of older women, comes this shallow and unpleasant tragedy of an older woman navigating a disability without support, doomed to spend eternity searching for baby Jesus.
Silly old lady, she can’t tell that it’s been thousands of years and she’s looking for baby Jesus in vain!
This story just wouldn’t have the same charm (re: marketability) if a young person made this mistake. It’d be kind of sad, really.
I get that it’s based on an Italian legend. But we don’t talk about Santa Claus as if his generosity is a mistake. We talk about him like he’s a hale and healthy hero! Because he’s a man who ages well (we’ll get to that chestnut in a later article.)
The original tales of Befana are sometimes tragic, sometimes a moral lesson – but all of them include some complexity and depth to the woman. She’s not just batty and tragic for no good reason.
In this depiction, she’s wrestling with a compulsive disorder which makes her a harmless, but useless, person in the community and a bit of a village fool.
Sanism and ableism, always good for a laugh to make readers feel better about themselves. Unless we’ve got these conditions, in which case, the JOKE IS ON US. But it’s okay, because we’re not valuable humans due to our silly compulsions. Right? Why fight for equality, for folks to stop abusing and killing us, and for accommodations when we could just have a sense of humor about it. (/Bitter.)
Mr. Tempkin Climbs a Tree
The young protagonist in this story is obsessed with his friend’s age.
It feels like one of those white people who talk about me being Chinese all the time. Yes. We get it. I am your token friend/co-worker/family. Talking to me while adeptly avoiding the use of most slurs makes you a better person. A Not-Racist Person. Ugh. (It doesn’t.)
This kid kicks off every conversation with “How old are you?” or some comment about his age. He relates every single thing this dude does to his advanced age.
The moral of the story is – hanging out with older adults is a gift that young people must bestow as a good deed. Young people are tasked with saving older people from a miserable life of peace and quiet and not having young people constantly othering them.
The kid asks weird comments about how being old must be hard. Not because of like, the medical model of aging, hostile bigotry in public and business environments, or medical negligence. Just being old. The natural state of tragic oldness.
The author goes on to perpetuate stereotypes about the bland, inactive, and navel-gazing life of older adult. He spends his days smelling roses, walking, listening to birds, and hanging out with this child. These are “the things that keep me going,” which I guess he needs due to the tragedy of not being young.
There’s no deeper story about mindfulness or having had decades to learn what really matters. The reader is left to read bird-listening and flower-gazing as boring stuff left for older people who are boring.
Despite being active, optimistic, handsome, outgoing and vital gentleman who might want to talk about stuff other than his age, we’re supposed to see Mr. Tempkin as man past his prime, just puttering around, getting himself into things he can’t extract himself from, waiting to die.
The climax begins with the kid telling this grown-ass man that he is ‘too old‘ to climb a tree, as if Mr. Tempkin is too ignorant to know his limitations. This is all a set-up to prove the kid right. This foolish, benevolent old man! He falls out of the tree. Of course he does.
We had an opportunity here. When Mr. Tempkin decides to adjust a bird feeder, and the kid is like “aren’t you too old to climb a tree?” and Mr. Tempkin is like “nonsense.” This could be a turning point where this kid, being so obsessed with this guy’s age, gets a TWIST. We could have learned how older people know their own bodies, strengths, and limitations.
But NOPE. The steaming hot and stinky moral of this story is that older adults need supervision, rescue, and “Climbing trees is not for old men, and I guess I’m just a foolish old man.”
The book goes downhill from here – he can’t push his own wheelchair and the kid offers to help, making the kid ‘a mensch’ as opposed to ‘a decent freaking human who does the very basics of assisting a friend who asks for help.‘
(I go into more detail on the problems of setting the bar for ‘goodness’ so low as letting an older woman get on the bus first over here.)
“Dad says that spending time with Mr. Templin is a mitzvah” I wonder why the makers tell us whether spending quality time with a good friend your own age could also be a mitzvah. (I don’t really wonder. We all know it’s because this author thinks hanging with older people is an act of heroism, not a mutually beneficial friendship of equals.)
Also see: Say Hello, Lily, which contains more of that ‘being around old people is favor’ plus a nice heap of gerontophobia and the message that all older people belong in nursing homes. Eventually Lily realizes that older people are people too! It’s a icky combo of terribly boring and terribly condescending, toward readers of all ages.
Children coming up with blatantly obvious solutions for older adults
This next pile of books exposes the myth that older adults need young people to come in and rescue them.
Mr. Posey’s New Glasses
Older Adult’s Problem: Depression.
Youth Savior Solution: A clean glasses wipe.
The Moral: A few levels to this, and they’re all disgusting:
The first is that an older man spent decades on this earth wearing glasses and never once thought to clean them off when they get scummy – he needs a young kid to realize they are dirty and need to be cleaned. Because we’re supposed to see older adults as…not very smart.
Which is supposed to be a metaphor for how we need fresh, young eyes and energy because older adults are too stuck in their ways to be creative or innovative. Great set up for employment discrimination and ignoring calls for equality from multiply marginalized older adults!
There’s also some stuff in there about Mr. Posey not enjoying new experiences, but the young kid is more open to them. That old trope about old dog, new tricks. Which is bullshit.
Also older adults get depressed, not due to say, social discrimination, but internal forces. And that depression is somehow easily overcome with an injection of Fun Kid Energy (TM) because older adults are too forgetful to remember how to cheer themselves up and depression is so easy to overcome if you just tried harder. Sanism!
Mrs. Greenberg’s Messy Hanukkah
Older Adult’s Problem: Obnoxious neighborhood kid wrecking up the place, a la Dennis The Menace.
Youth Savior Solution: Good intentions.
The Moral: In a relationship where the younger person is Dennis-The-Menacing all over the freaking place and breaking your shit and destroying your house, it’s okay. Because older adults are just so desperate for companionship they will settle for friends who take emotional labor, time, and destroy their home.
Also, intention matters more than impact. (NO! BAD! BAD LESSON! STOP TEACHING THIS TO WHITE GIRLS!)
The idea behind this story was decent (making mistakes, forgiveness) but it’s just so sloppy, and way, way better done in the book The Borrowed Hanukkah Latkes. In Glaser’s story, the older women is not positioned as pathetic and lonely, and waiting for a youth savior to spice things up.
Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge
Older Adult’s Problem: Dementia.
Youth Savior Solution: Souvenirs.
The Moral: Dementia can be solved, but only by young people with Fun Kid Energy (TM). Probably only because the people experiencing it, the younger adults caring for them, and modern medicine is too incompetent to figure out how to overcome dementia without a youth savior.
Also if your grandparent is experiencing memory loss, confusion, or any of those scary things that come with dementia, expect great and immediate results. Perhaps, if it doesn’t work, youth saviors aren’t trying hard enough. Or perhaps great-grandma just doesn’t love you enough. Who knows!
As the author so pitifully writes ‘Poor thing.‘ Like suffering is acceptable and empathy isn’t an option. Just pity older adults. And wait for them to die.
Seriously, what the actual F was this author thinking? Way to set everyone up for despair.
Adding this to the loooooong list of books that teach kids dementia is common and inevitable for all older adults (it’s NOT.) There are some great books about how kids can understand illness and support a loved one with dementia – which we will talk about in a later article.
Meanwhile, us this to see how very unlike regular people older adults are, and how surprising it is that they might have memories of doing things (but only when they were young). Such othering! Much stereotypes! So pathetic!
The House of Lost And Found
Older Adult’s Problem: Empty, sad life caused by a death of wife and empty nest.
Youth Savior Solution: Plant-sitting.
The Moral: This is your standard Up!-style story (I love that movie too, but you see the problems in it now, right?)
The underlying moral is a good one – we all need something to care about, and if possible, someone to care for. Life gets a little empty if all we have to care about is ourselves. This is a great message!
But let’s not do it in a way that paints older adults as too oblivious to solve their own problems. This guy could have stopped by the garden store on his own, if he was so inclined. If the death of his wife and the empty nest left by his children was that bad and he truly wanted to solve it, a reasonably reasonable adult would go get a hobby or find something else to do. They don’t need a kid to come up with obvious solutions like ‘grow a plant.’
The Visitor
Older Adult’s Problem: Anxiety disorder. Or maybe agoraphobia? (or something like that, I dunno, I’m not a psychologist)
Youth Savior Solution: Several doses of Fun Kid Energy (TM)
The Moral: By now you see where this is going. Very real disabilities and mental health conditions that could use some community support, medical care, and assistance are diminished as if they can be blown away with a few doses of children’s pitter-patters or whatever.
As always, the root cause of this woman’s condition aren’t attributed to environment (like say, the terrifying things that are done to you in the course of being a woman in public), but are just assumed to be an internal, personal problem, naturally developing along with this woman’s personality, and presumably, her gender and her age.
City Green
Older Adult’s Problem: Grief over the death of a life partner and being targeted by gentrification and housing discrimination
Youth Savior Solution: More plants.
The Moral: Anything can be overcome with plants! Plants and kids, man. Solutions.
First – housing discrimination is a very serious problem when it comes to stigma and bias against older people. This book doesn’t address that. All we know is that this guy had a build a home he loved with his life partner, she died, and for reasons beyond his control, his home ended up demolished. Dude has reasons to be grouchy. At least the book let’s him have this complexity.
But – all that complexity is left as a subtle reveal at the end. You have to give kids (particularly younger kids) lots of time and nudges to even notice what’s left unsaid. Skilled storytelling, but leaves an unacceptable opportunity for kids to internalized the message that old men are by nature grouchy and insufferable, to be calmly tolerated and not listened to. Compounded by the fact that it’s just kind of a boring story that few kids will want to read twice and, well… impact matters more than intent.
This is a great story about community action and organizing, really one of the best books about building a community garden. Probably because it goes into details on stuff like getting permits. (Which is exactly as exciting as it sounds.)
But I am not cool with the way they leverage the grouchy old man trope as a pedestal for a young person to lift up higher. She’s a smart, hard-working character. She would have been smart and hardworking even if the author hadn’t added the grouchy old man back story in an attempt to give the story a bit of pizzazz. It’s an extra bummer then, that even after throwing older adults under the bus, the story still remains so freaking boring.
Permits! Humans are innovative creatures who can make anything interesting. There has to be a better way to make zoning laws and obtaining city permits exciting that doesn’t perpetuate stereotypes against marginalized folks.
Three Cheers For Catherine The Great! and Stolen Words
Older Adult’s Problem: All of the baggage that comes with cultural assimilation – wanting to, wishing it wasn’t forced on us, etc. Also learning a new language.
Youth Savior Solution: Finding a dictionary.
The Moral: This should be a sub-genre of books. An older adult missed out on learning a language, and only their grandchildren are smart enough to go grab a book from a library so they can learn. (NO.)
I have to admit this smarts, because speaking a different language than your grandparent and not being able to tell them how much you love them hurts. From personal experience, it’s not so easy as sitting down with a vocabulary worksheet and pointing to a picture of a chicken and BAM, grandma knows English and you can tell her how much she means to you before she dies. No. You just say goodbye with hand gestures and gifts of clementines and hope she gets it, because unless you’re a wealthy kid with support from other adults, kids can’t just learn to communicate with the people they love just because they want to – no matter how much we wished we could. It’s hard to hold on to your language in a sea of whiteness, never mind learn a new one.
In Three Cheers for Catherine The Great, a grand-child shows her Russian-Speaking grandmother that learning English is possible. Which I have to assume her grandmother already knew? I mean…she’s raised two generations of humans and taught them Russian. So. Okay. This youth savior gives her grandmother the gift of starting to learn English. Okay.
In Stolen Words, a grandfather deals with the trauma of successfully being targeted and abused by colonists forcefully assimilating him, forcing him to lose the language of his nation and his family. His granddaughter takes a quick jaunt to the school library and happens to find a book in Cree. This is a gift for him, so he can learn. I liked this book initially – because it pulled at my heartstrings, at the pain of losing the Cantonese I spoke as a baby. It felt valid. If it was just a story about assimilation and cultural loss, it’d be so great.
But the ageism – that’s where the problem comes in.
Which, come on, do you know how hard it is to find a book in Cree? Do you know how hard our government has fought (and I mean fought, violently) to eliminate Indigenous languages? Thanks to the hard work of lots of dedicated Indigenous authors, it’s getting easier, but Cree dictionaries aren’t just like, hanging out in most school libraries. And if they were – Grampa would have picked one up a long time ago, he’s not a fool. Dr. Debbie Reese goes into this better than I can over in American Indians In Children’s Literature. But from a whitewashing perspective, this book has problems.
Beyond that – there are many, many more books like this, where a grandparent has an issue with language, a hole in their heart about having a piece of their culture taken away, or denied to them, and a youth savior pops in with a dictionary and solves everything. Which kind of belittles what a big deal this is, how hard it is to overcome, and how older adults don’t fail to achieve their dreams because they are old and incompetent, but because there were systemic barriers in the way that grow even larger as we age.
Older Adult’s Problem: It was a while ago, so I don’t even remember this book. Does grandma even have a problem to start out with?
Youth Savior Solution: Romance & Bigotry
The Moral: You two are both ____? You two should daaaaaate!
If you’ve ever been one of two ‘others’ in a room and had folks try to hook you up with the other weirdo just because you’re both of the same race, both have disabilities, whatever, you know what’s going to happen in this book.
This whats-her-face, this little girl decides to set up her great-grandmother and her great-grandmother’s neighbor. Based on nothing other than the fact that her grandmother has vision disabilities and this random neighbor dude is deaf.
Ewww! Not eww because of the romance – I mean great-grandma deserves to get some if she wants some (ageism & sexuality, a book list coming later on!) but eww to the idea of matchmaking people because they’re both ‘different.’ Both older, both with disabilities. How’d she like it if Great-grams hooked her up with some rando 11-year-old just because they’re both ableist and wearing braces?
Once you have an identity, that means your entire personality is defined by it, and you are now part of a big sexy orgy monolith. I guess. (Eww.)
Rain!
Also see: Floaty, for another inexplicably grouchy older man rescued by a dog.
Older Adult’s Problem: Bad attitude & general curmudgeonlyness.
Youth Savior Solution: Mockery.
The Moral: Be a dick to older people. That will cheer them up.
This list is going to get harder as we go on, because we’re getting into the books I actually like. I adore Christian Robinson, and Linda Ashman’s books are often inoffensively solid in validating childhood challenges.
We actually read this book frequently to the kids, it’s particularly wonderful for the 4-6 age range when kids start to see every inconvenience as a grave insult and injustice. I like that it normalizes a kind and gentle boy of color. It helps us unpack the concept of perspective – how we have agency in seeing the things that happen to us, choosing our response to it, and how that informs what happens next.
But okay, here we go. This older man. He’s so grouchy. Why is he so grouchy? We don’t see how maybe, his dog died. Or his wife died of cancer. Or how he just got laid off from his job ‘to make room’ for younger (re: lower paid) employees.
He’s just grouchy. And that’s a problem – because the Grouchy Curmudgeon is a trope in kidlit that needs to die. It’s a stereotype that we grab when we’re too pressed for time (or lazy) to come up with scaffolding or back-stories on what causes an upset person to be upset.
For those of us who have been dismissed because we’re ‘getting too upset’ – due to our gender, our race, our disabilities, whatever, we recognize the way our identities are used to silence us when we have very valid reasons to speak up. People aren’t just naturally grouchy.
I mean sure, my default disposition is slightly to the left of irritable, compared to say, Santa Claus. But also Santa is a rich white man who grew up beloved and believed in despite multiple facts to the contrary…wait I’m just proving my case, never mind.
I mean to say – we can’t teach our kids that some folks are just grumpy and need to get over themselves. The solution isn’t to be super-duper cheery at them, nor is it to mock them until they get a sense of humor and catch up to the youths. We need to listen and then work for radical change that gets to the root of that curmudgeonlyness (this is a word now, I’m making this a word and you can’t stop me.) Or at the very least, hand the man his hat and just leave the dude alone.
If you know it’s rude to tell a strange woman to smile, ’cause she looks prettier that way, then you can see how expecting this guy to cheer up to make everyone around him happy is kind of problematic.
My Two Grannies & Chicken Soup, Chicken Soup
Older Adult’s Problem: Cultural conflict and the inability to reconcile the validity and wholeness of a biracial identity.
Youth Savior Solution: Symbolizing a biracial person and their identity as something objectifying. Say, a casserole, perhaps.
The Moral: Older people are too fixed in their ways and against racial, cultural, or ingredient mixing. Only young people can come up with some super obvious solution like fusion cuisine.
Okay I said this was gonna get harder. Remember how, in this collection, I recommend Chicken Soup, Chicken Soup because we can food stories to teach kids that not all Asians are a monolithic and you can own all of your identity even if both sides don’t want you? (Spork is even better for this.) BUT also there are problems with it. We’ll address this below.
What we’ve got here is a helpful, and lazy, device, where authors use stereotypes against older women – perpetuating the idea that they’re bossy, stubborn, and ignorant. And they need the help of granddaughters to show them how to do…really basic things like accepting that two ingredients can mix.
Which, honey, grandma knows. Either grandma is on board with having a mixed grandchild and is in the picture and loves the crap out of you, or she’s like “Ew. No.” No cooking class can fix prejudice.
Oddly, the male version of My Two Grannies (My Two Grandads, branding!) includes two grand-dads who collaborate and respect each other. The men in that multiracial family are less bickery and snipey, and less arrogant and rigid. Sexism and ageism! Partners in crap!
Other moral, aside from ageism: Biracial people like two whole things, cut in half or with pieces scooped out, then mush together whatever is left over. Like a centaur. Or a snake with the head of a human baby. ::shivers::
Like, for instance, this pervasive problem where monoracial people keep writing books and speaking like they know stuff about navigating life with a multiracial identity. Which perpetuates problems and makes things worse.
(Spork was written by a multiracial person, btw. JUST SAYING. Read Spork. It’s so good.)
A Plan For Pops
Older Adult’s Problem: Psychological impact of suddenly living with a permanent physical disability
Youth Savior Solution: A ramp.
The Moral: Older adults who develop physical disabilities are doomed to a life of despair without outsider help.
I’m getting picky on this one – only because I love this book soooo muuuch. Gay grampas! Multi/transracial family constellations! Nonbinary character who uses they/them pronouns! So lovely! And it’s all marred by a couple issues.
The first part of the book is gold – both Grampas are depicted as vibrant, interesting, and fun. They’ love their grandchild, Lou, but they don’t need Lou to entertain them. They have independent lives and taste. So sweet, and so nice.
But the dig is when one of the Grampas has a fall, and gains a permanen physically disability. Grampa is shook, which I get it – that’s a big life change to deal with. But the book wobbles a little toward disability as a life-ending flaw, which is pretty ableist.
From there, the gramps can obviously build a ramp themselves. But Lou does it for them, and that magically cheers up their depressed grampa. Which minimizes 1. What a big life change it is to go from abled to living with a disability, and how valid it is to need time to process that, and 2. The fact that grampas can come up with obvious logistical solutions on their own.
The ramp is a metaphor – I get it. A symbol of love and accommodations, and support. But because this book could swing either way, depending on the reader, it feels a little lazy. I will spell it out to my kids that grampa’s despair is about a life change, not because having a disability is a bad thing. I’ll also point out that obviously someone was going to build a ramp, and it’s the show of love and innovation that cheered grampa up, not the physical ramp.
But will casual readers?
So read this, enjoy it, and please be cautious to unpack the ableism and ageism kids will pick up if left to come to their own conclusions.
The Dragon Thief
Older Adult’s Problem: Physical disability linked with age
Youth Savior Solution: Needing help
The Moral: We’re more effective when we’re abled & youthful
Aaah! I don’t want to write about this one, because Zetta Elliott is the best, I and other than this one nagging thing, I utterly love everything about this book. For accountability reasons though, I have to, because Elliott is one of my lovely and wonderful community supporters.
Here is the problem: That Magic Cure.
The Magic Cure is a deux ex machina (when we can’t come up with a clever solution for how a character gets out of a bind). Folks with disabilities suddenly lose their disabilities. This is supposed to be a good thing – as if being abled is better than being disabled. The Magic Cure is often metered out as a reward for a kind and brave young child. Little Timmy doesn’t need his walker any more, the Blind kid earns his sight, you know the drill.
Imagine, for a moment, if a kickass little girl of color was magically gifted with whiteness. As if her natural identity is some sort of cosmic punishment. Yeah. To those of us with disabilities – it feels a lot like that.
In the case of this book – we have an older woman (‘Auntie’) who uses a walker – and resents the heck out of it. She’s pretty miserable and grouchy and falls into the sad lump waiting to die trope. When Auntie meets a baby dragon, just meeting it suddently gives her a burst of energy “I feel like a girl again.”
It’s not clear whether it’s the dragon’s magic or she just suddenly overcomes her disability and age when presented with a will to live. Either way is problematic.
This is a setup so Auntie can sneak past the non-cool adults and get into some cahoots with kids and dragons. Shedding her identity as older and disabled – presenting as young, and abled, makes Auntie a more powerful character, with increased capabilities to assist our young protagonist. The bias in our cuture tells us that to be effective, you must be young, and you must have strong legs. Which is silly.
Her magic cure just wasn’t necessary. I’m confident in Elliott’s writing ability that the story would have been more interesting if Auntie had come up with an escape plan that involved slowly inching her way out the door with a walker. That’s the thing about fiction – you can do what you want.
This was a missed opportunity to depict a truly kickass older woman with a disability as powerful, smart, and effective not despite her abilities, but because of them.
But seriously though you should still read the book, the rest of it is flawless.
Coming up next
Next in this series about ageism – we’ll examine stories about older mentors and how these stories give kids a grasp on humility, patience, and the importance of learning from lived experience. Without swinging the pendulum all the way into childism.
- Why Young Activists Depend on the Fight For Elder Rights
- Believing #OwnVoices Elders
- Problematic Stories of Youth Saviorism Stigmatizing Older Adults
- Older Lives Are Worth Living: Fighting Ageism & Deathmisia In Children’s Books
- Anti-ageism kids books featuring intergenerational friendships
Leave a comment with advice, ideas, and your own stories of nonsense youth saviorism
Why Each Generation Repeats Past Atrocities – Talking With Kids About Japanese Internment
Sharing this post on social media? Use this description to make it accessible: [Image description: Illustration from ‘Gaijin, American Prisoner of War,’ by Matt Faulkner. A white police officer fills most of the image pointing an accusatory finger at a Japanese American man and teen, “…says I gotta let you two go. But I’m gonna keep my eye on you, so you keep your noses clean. Got it?” The older Japanese American man, diminutive and passive in the background, looking worried, responds “Yes, sir.” The teen is still, quiet, with a wounded look on his face.]
What is the impact when our schools focus on one singular event of anti-Asian racism to unpack stereotypes about yellow peril and the foreign menace within the US? How do we talk about the way we imprisonment our own citizens for the crime of Asian heritage? What impact has that had in refusing to learn from the past?
And what are we teaching our next generation – when every story we reach about Asians in the US portray us as victims and side-kicks, never heroes or the drivers of our liberation?
The way we talk about our atrocities determines how we empower our next generation of Asian American leaders
January 30th is Fred Korematsu Day! Which seems to be the one day each year when a small fraction of the US acknowledges that anti-Asian racism might still be a thing. Or that racism against Asians ever existed at all.
We’re still far from acknowledging that anti-Asian racism is persistent, contemporary problem. We like to pretend that racism, violence, and discrimination against Asians in the US over, because we have so many ‘good’ stereotypes about Asians as model minorities. With the rare exception of Lee & Low publishers (an Asian-founded org), publishers won’t touch anti-Asian racism unless we’re reading about something concrete, clear-cut, and (to hear non-Asians talk about it), over.
Unless, of course, we’re talking about food.
We want to believe that the bamboo ceiling is a myth – conveniently cherry-picking stats about East Asian men making more money than White men. We forget how many (particularly 1st generation immigrants, Black & brown, Muslim, colonized, women & multiply-targeted) Asians are discriminated against for employment and housing, booted off planes, harassed on the street, beaten, imprisoned, and killed on perceptions of being an outsider, the perpetual foreigner.
We’re uncomfortable speaking up about how us Asians are often complicit in white supremacy, many of us fomenting and profiting off racial divides and oppression against Black, Indigenous, and Latinx folks. We forget that that many of our narratives and power amplify the voices of East Asians, distributed through a filter of colorism against our own – Western, Southern, and rural Asians – not to mention doubling-down dismissing and excluding multiracial Blasians from our history and our affinity spaces. Silent about the impact of the severe human trafficking, abuse, and exploitation – a problem that disproportionately affects South Asian women and drives the adoption industrial complex.
I’ve seen too many of us step on others shouting about ‘bootstraps’ instead of fighting for equality together. No one wins in all this infighting and exceptionalism.
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How we perpetuate harmful messages about victim-blaming, compliance, and whitewashing in kidlit
Ideally, we’d focus on stories about, and written by non-East Asians. For now, let’s take advanage of this ONE of increased google searches, when folks actually pay attention to anti-Asian racism within the US.
This Fred Korematsu day, let’s take a gander at the experience of Japanese Americans imprisoned in their own country, and how we perpetuate stereotypes and racism against Asians through the lessons we teach our kids today. And then – how we use imperfect tools to talk with children about anti-Asian racism as A Thing That Still Needs Fighting
Transparency: As a non-Japanese Asian American, I’m sure I’ll miss some stuff, so Japanese friends – feel free to add the stuff I’m missing in the comments.
We don’t have many books about anti-Chinese racism in the US (even though, as we’ve learned through the 2020 pandemic, it’s still alive and well!) From a sample size of Paper Son and a few bland books written by white folks in the 90’s, there just aren’t enough books to discuss within in my lane as a Chinese American to unpack anti-Asian racism. We don’t have a Mabel Ping-Hua Lee or Grace Lee Boggs day (yet!) to inspire school curriculum or drive publishers to fill that gap.
So I’m gonna swerve out of my lane to unpack how we use books on Asian American history in our homes and schools. We’re gonna amplify #OwnVoices Japanese American authors in these stories – and compare how differently these stories are told when appropriated by white & non-Japanese authors.
How bad can it really get if we let white folks control the narrative on 80-year-old history?
Pretty bad, actually. Whitewashing isn’t just an issue of being offensive. The practice of folks with lived experience appropriating these stories is actively dangerous – shaping the narrative not just on history – but on the decisions we make moving forward.
We have made some really, really horrible mistakes recently – and that’s due in part to how we failed to learn from the atrocity of imprisoning Japanese Americans on their home soil. Let’s examine how the way we talked about this violence succeeded – and the many ways we failed.
#OwnVoices Books about Japanese Internment
We read The Bracelet, Fish For Jimmy, and A Place Where Sunflowers Grow to introduce the history of US internment of Japanese Americans. All of them engage kids through the lens of a child protagonist, and don’t choke kids with facts, dates, and name-dropping. Just experiences and emotions.
The Bracelet is a firm #OwnVoices story – based on the experiences of the author’s childhood. The recommended age is for 4-8, but honestly? The themes and quiet message in the book goes way over your average preschooler’s head, and I’d save it for the 6-9 crowd. In this story, we see the way Uchida’s white friend loves and cares for her, but ultimately can’t do much to protect her from systemic injustice. Due to ancesry, and that alone, Uchida will go on to have a much more challenging life than her white peers.
Fish For Jimmy is a follow-up generation #OwnVoices story, based on the author’s family history as retold by her elders. It’s great for 6-9, although we were able to paraphrase and rely on the images for the 4.5-year-old, and he caught the gist. Maybe it’s because the Earthquakes are so invested in their relationship as brothers – but this one hit home in the way a Uchida’s subtle story about a friendship bracelet didn’t.
A Place Where Sunflowers Grow is also a follow-up generation #OwnVoices, based on the authors family story. As a grownup, I found this story to be the most engaging, the illustrations gorgeous. Unfortunately, the muted colors didn’t pull the Earthquakes in and it took some wrestling to get them to sit down and read it with me.
I also made the mistake of trying to read the preface aloud. Don’t do what I did!
Between the dusty illustrations and a dry preface, my kids got antsy. So just jump into the story, which did engage the 6-year-old. In terms of gorgeous, timeless literature, this is one of those books that belongs on every family & classroom bookshelf. But it also requires time and attention to really wrestle with the story of frustration, endurance, institutional racism, militarism, and endurance. This isn’t a quick library read. Bonus points, it’s also bilingual, written in both Japanese and English.
So what happened to Americans after they left the camps?
Here’s where we start to notice some sneaky gaps in representation.
For kids who want to delve deeper into the long-term impact of Americans imprisoned in the internment camps, either they’ll have to wait until they’re much older, or they’re gonna have to rely on re-tellings by non-Japanese authors.
I mean, I’m sure there are plenty of Japanese American authors who could tell these stories. But until recently, it was only white folks who get publishing deals and promotions (more on that below.)
If younger kids want a glimpse into the longer-term impact, the best book we’ve found so far is Ruth Asawa: A Sculpting Life. Which is a great book ! But here’s a bit of clear and ridiculous example of racial gatekeeping – both this and A Life Made By Hand* are stories about a Japanese American artist written, and illustrated by non-Japanese makers. Like I get that white folks get a spark of inspiration and want to write about women of color. But like, can’t a publisher be bothered to poke around a bit to find one of the thousands upon thousands of talented Japanese American illustrators looking for work?!
Anyhoo – both the 5 & 7 year-olds enjoyed it for 1-2 reads, but no more. The story was engaging, and touches on the long-term impact of trying to find employment as a Japanese American artist in America…
…but the illustrations were dry and dreary. I do wonder if an illustrator with #OwnVoices Japanese American influence would have enticed them to come back for more.
*A Life Made By Hand (Not pictured) is an even more whitewashed, less interesting Asawa bio. The author doesn’t even mention the formative event of being imprisoned as a child and how it might have impacted her life work of making art that looks like cages. At least – not until the end notes for adults. Because we know this book was written for white kids, and nothing is more important than protecting a white child’s obliviousness (/sarcasm.)
Let’s move on to the glorious Gyo Fujikawa, our literary firebrand who broke through the white barrier of children’s literature.
Gyo destroyed bamboo ceilings back in the 50’s, and it’s not until 2019 (that’s like 70 years, COME ON!) that she’s recognized in the medium of her fame – with a biography written by my crush, Kyo Maclear
Began With A Page: How Gyo Fujikawa Drew The Way is an #OwnVoices story written by Maclear, a Japanese Canadian author – who you already know I have deep feelings for thanks to her book on growing up multiracial, Spork.
But a white illustrator – WHY. WHY?!
Wait, first – let’s clear up a common misunderstanding for books published by big kidlit. It’s usually the publishers who choose the illustrators, not the authors. I do hold white authors responsible for advocating for and potentially missing out on opportunities in order to be accomplices and advocate for illustrators of color – refuse to publish! Use your the shield of your whiteness!
But it’s hard enough to get published as a woman of color in kidlit. It’s an even harder sell to get a publisher to boost an Asian woman’s biography. (Remember, it took 70-freaking-years to highlight the most significant Asian kidlit illustrator of all time!) So I’m not gonna fault Kyo for this, as the publisher would have shut her down if she had pushed for this. The choice to hire a white illustrator to draw the life of an Asian illustrator who had to fight tooth and nail to break into the industry is a solid ‘WHAT THE FUCK?’ that belongs squarely the publisher’s shoulders.
What kind of publisher is like “You know what we need to really pack a punch about this JAPANESE WOMAN WHO BROKE RACIAL BARRIERS IN KIDLIT?! We need the most sanitized whiteness of hipster kidlit possible. Instead of taking this opportunity to boost a woman of color, let’s just hand it to Morstad. She seems like a safe bet.”
I. Am. BAFFLED.
Okay, next – I’m not gonna let Kyo completely off the hook. The writing in It Began With A Page is recommended for ages 4-8, but it’s all date-time-location-fact-fact-fact, so you’re gonna have to fight to get anyone under 8 to sit through the text. It’s not gonna inspire kids to pull this down from the bookshelf or ask for a second read.
But more importantly, the illustrations – just sanitized, dead-eyed sad shadows of Fujikawa’s genius, sucked of joy and whimsy. How did we MISS THE POINT!?
Okay, I’ve got that off of my shoulders. Now on to the point of the book. Fujikawa took what she experienced being imprisoned for her ethnicity as a child, facing agonizingly frustrating bamboo ceilings and barriers due to her race and gender, and broke open kidlit representation in support of the civil rights movement so kids of all races could see themselves reflected as important and worthy.
I love Gyo, and I love Kyo. I wanted so hard to love Began With A Page, and I just wanted it to succeed so hard. The climax shows how Gyo was impacted by Japanese internment, but my kids won’t let me get that far, they grumble and wander away. But this book lives on my bookshelf anyway – because between this and The Queen of Physics, this is really all we have for our young Asian daughters to show them it might be worth trying… anything.
Here’s where I get antsy for my kids to grow up so we can read Takei’s genius together
They Called Us Enemy is a solid #Ownvoices graphic novel, written my honorary internet grampa, George Takei.
First off, you should know that growing up Asian American, you’re required by law to love George, because like Fujikawa, he offered a reflection for Asian Americans in popular media that were rare and precious. But I’m gonna set aside my love for him for a moment to tell you that this is just genuinely a great book. You can trust me, cause I just endangered any possible future love affair with Maclear by bashing her book just now. (I STILL LOVE YOU, KYO. CALL ME SO WE CAN GROW OLD MAKING UNECESSARY LISZTS TOGETHER.)
So when I tell you this is the kind of book you must read before you die, I mean it.
Second, let me say that there is a solid correlation between celebrities who write children’s books and how shitty these books turn out, but Takei rocked this so hard. This story is one of the few books that includes white accomplices for Asians in a way that doesn’t center whiteness and saviorism. Does he ever do anything poorly? Damn! Can’t match this.
They Called Us Enemy is graphic novel excellence on xenophobia, racism, and the impacts of childhood trauma. Unfortunately it’s made for teens and adults, so it technically doesn’t belong here. No amount of paraphrasing and begging got my 7-year-old to sit still for it. At 8, he really wanted to read it, but the name dropping and politics was just way too much for him.
BOOGERS! Patience is not my virtue, but alas, we’re gonna have to wait.
Japanese Activists
So we’ve covered the stories of kids while imprisoned, and the impact of that trauma on the lives of path-makers after – but there aren’t many stories about Japanese Americans and Canadians who took action to hold governments accountable or prevent this from happening to people of color in the US ever again.
Fred Korematsu Speaks Up, written by Stan Yogi (whose parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles were all imprisoned) and Laura Atkins (whom I perceive as white) and illustrated by Yataka Houlette (no bios on the internet, but he’s obvs Asian and has a Japanese name) is an #OwnVoices story celebrating Asian rights activist Fred Korematsu, one of the few Asian Americans who actually has a US day designated in his honor.
Honestly – are there others? I can’t even think of any. He might be the only one. We don’t even get the Lunar New Year off from school, so let’s not act surprised.
And because it’s only one of like…four(?)* children’s books about Korematsu, and the only one that’s engaging enough to read – Fred Korematsu Speaks Up is another graphic novel that I kinda squeezed in before the recommended age. We were able to summarize the text and use the illustrations with the 5-year-old, and it held up! But it would still be a much easier read for an 8-year-old.
*4 is not a lot of biographies in the churn & burn kidlit industry. To give you some context: there are dozens (hundreds? I lost count) of biographies on anti-disability-rights, totes-cool-with-systemic-racism, Tom Brady. And he didn’t have to wait SEVENTY YEARS for his industry to acknowledge him.
Each chapter has a simple story, followed by facts, figures & photos from history about the theme of the chapter. The first chapter was about racial discrimination in a barber shop, followed by details on discrimination against Black, Chinese, and Irish Americans. Which might have hooked my Chinese-Irish kids in a bit deeper than most, as we can connect Fred’s activism to our own family history.
About halfway through the hook, they start talking about court rulings and lawyers, which is basically kidlit death (I’m old! Even I don’t have the patience to read legislation!) but the first half of the book gave us plenty to work with and talk about.
Note to kidlit authors – STOP NAME-DROPPING PEOPLE, PLACES, DATES, AND BORING SHIT. All dates between the extinction of the dinosaurs and the year they were born are roughtly the same day. Fact-dropping to prove you researched accurately is not impressive, nor convincing for young readers. Kids don’t care about your bibliography diligence, they resent it!
If you’re gonna write books for kids, write cognitively-engaging books for kids – they are not just short adults!
Wait, what about Canada?
If those of us in the USA are the aggressively racist uncle who lies about immigrants stealing packages off our porch, Canada is our outdoorsy, polite and soft-spoken ‘I’m not racist, but…’ colonial sibling who does just as much racism, but feels a little bad about it.
Since 2016, I’ve heard enough “Fuck it, I’m moving to Canada where racism doesn’t exist and also where I can afford an epipen.” for a lifetime. I mean the epipen argument is legit, but nothing says “I have no knowledge of history or systemic racism” like pretending Canada is a post-racial sanctuary.
Anyhoo – down here in the states, we don’t have a ton of access to Canadian literature, but Naomi’s Tree is a nice head-cracker to sum up Canada’s part in Japanese internment, along with a truth and reconciliation process that is just so on-brand for our northern neighbors. Still racist – but at least they apologize!(?) Canada’s government is a bit less fragile and belly-aching about admitting when they pulled some nasty shit. There’s an element of humility and lots of talking, followed up with the typical colonist ‘Glad we had that talk, let’s resume life as normal.’
Naomi’s Tree is an #OwnVoices story of Kogawa’s kidnapping, internment, and returning home to a changed land. It’s a bit too poetic for younger readers, but I think you can manage it for the 7+ crowd.
What happens when white folks control the narrative on anti-Asian racism?
Onto the bestsellers, award-winners, and the books you’re most likely to find on (white) parenting blogs and in a school libraries! Books about Asians, written by white folks.
Why can’t we just be honest about this – racism still exists cause it’s a profitable economy. First, you steal a bunch of folks’ land and livelihoods. Then you exploit them for cheap labor and mine their cultural cache while banning them from celebrating their heritage.
Then you publish books about the injustice of it all, and sell them to other white folks who have feelings about their complicity – who need to release that tension and shame – but don’t want to do stuff to create societal change. Ka-ching! It’s horrific, financial genius. Yay for our economy that measures the healthy of society using the singular variable of profit to measure success, I guess.
Let’s start with my guilty pleasure – Gaijin, Prisoner of War, which was inspired, but not BASED on the white author’s family history through (and this is really weak link) his Irish great-aunt who accompanied her Japanese kids to an internment camp. The author had never met this aunt, but going by the end-notes, he did at least make contact with Anita, one of his great-aunt’s great-granddaughters for some insight.
It’s interesting to note that Anita is not listed as a co-author or sensitivity reader for this story. I wonder if she’s getting a cut on a story inspired by her family trauma.
Okay, so let’s set that aside for a moment to say that stories are complicated! The 8-year-old and I loved reading this book! It was helpful to to unpack the issues my kid faces as a multiracial Asian American who may not be accepted by white folks or Asian folks in a society that only values distinct divisions. But it was also exhausting, because we had to stop every few moments to be like “Oh – but this here? That’s more of a white person thing.”
And that ending?
Where they all just kind of…got over the trauma of having their livelihood and homes ripped away, and being imprisoned?
The white author conveniently ignores the fallout of what happens after the camps were finally closed and families scrambled to find solid footing lost and broken homes, business, jobs, or communities?
Yeah. Don’t say you didn’t know how this was gonna end when you saw the cover.
You’ll notice this theme of no-long-term-damage in books written by white folks.
If what you’re looking for is a coming-of-age book for adolescent white boys wrestling with parent separation and peer-pressure from ne’er-do-well youths*, with a few nods to common multiracial microaggressions, and some gorgeous art – well here you are! This is an exciting hike about a tired over-used plot, laid against the decoration of historical fiction.
*The ne’er-do-well youths are illustrated with Japanese faces and are imprisoned in an internment camp – but code as flat, dimensionless white teens who show no signs of growing up with Japanese cultural values (not even as 2nd or 3rd generation immigrants). They have seemingly been abandoned by their Japanese parents, as they lack any adult oversight or family responsibilities. Unlike the kid with a gentle, pure, and hardworking white mom willing to sacrifice her freedom for her child! These yellow-faced white boys go through a that teenagery rebellion stage common to white kid teen movies. The message we’re expected to buy is that only the gaijin can resist the yellow peril of ruffneck peer pressure!
Reading this book is like waltzing barefoot in a room of legos. Those sharp jabs of whitewashing are a reminder – Oh, right! this white dude is profiting off real people’s trauma! While relying on the tired chestnut: ‘I’m an ally, ’cause my 4th cousin three-times-removed is Japanese.‘
We have the internet now. All those memes and microaggression bingo charts. White folks must know by now that’s no excuse!
Romanticizing a horrifying moment in our shared cultural history, and using it as a backdrop for a white boy’s story
Gaijin is an ironically perfec title. Koji, the Japanese American main character is culturally white. Slapping epicanthic fold on a white character doesn’t make him Asian. We’re decorating this white boy’s experience against the American exotic – without addressing the traumatic impact on those imprisoned (or their descendants) through the present day.
This reads like what it is – historical fiction about the multiracial Asian identity, as imagined by a monoracial white dude, for the gaze of white readers. I don’t know why I keep expecting better, and then still have to settle for…this. But I do! Because honestly, there just isn’t a lot out there to reflect the multiracial Asian identity. So we read these whitewashed stories to our kids to fill the vacuum, and do our best to discuss how clumsily it’s done.
Now let’s talk about white-passing privilege! (Which this book does not.)
You might notice from the cover – the biracial character, Koji has lots of white passing privilege. Far more than your average biracial Asian/European. Faulkner couldn’t even bring himself to draw Koji with dark hair, eyes, or even skin a shade darker than Northern Irish. I can almost hear his inner monologue on the character design – “If he looks like the actual multiracial cousins I’ve based him on – how will [white] people tell the difference? All Asians look the same!”
The only way this white illustrator could see Koji as a sympathetic multiracial character was to give him a classic white boy look, but squinch up the eyes a bit.
As Koji presents in the book, I find it hard to believe rando white strangers on the street would identify him as Japanese enough to make snap judgements and discriminate against him. Nothing in the story suggests he benefits from his white-passing privilege. What are the odds that this white author even knows that’s a thing?
Sure – there are blonde, light-eyed biracial white/Japanese kids who deserve representation. But this is not it. Koji was based on the story of Faulkner’s real actual cousins, who, like many kids handed dominant genes for darker coloring, had to deal with the colorism of darker hair, eyes, or skin, being perceived as an outsider first.
While lazy cartoonists have relied on eye shape to denote Asian phenotypes, that’s just not an actual thing that identifies or separate Asian & European ancestry! There are lots of white people who have epicanthic folds and lots of Asian people with double eyelids, but we rely on these ignorant assumptions about racial markers because it stereotyping saves us thinking power that we could save for choosing between which Tom Brady bio to donate to the school library.
This speaks to a common issue that kidlit illustrators fall back on – ‘what is a good way to help white people tell the difference between individual Asian people? How can we make push the boundaries on the Asian exotic for drama?…oooh! How about we draw them with attributes of whiteness, like light hair, freckles, and blue eyes?’
How DOES one draw the confusing, rare freakshow that is a biracial Asian person? I mean – we could hire actual multiracial models to create a realistic lens for under-represented people! But Nah. LET’S GIVE ‘EM SLANTY BLUE EYES!
Lazy.
If the moral of this story (which is more about toxic masculinity and peer pressure during those heady days of teenage angst) was set against a regular white kid life, it just would just be a tired, over-told story. It’s the wrapping – the borrowing of the multiracial Japanese identity that makes this book engaging. And as much as I did enjoy reading it – that is a systemic racial problem we really need to reckon with.
So here’s the biggest problem – Gaijin is accessible and engaging for younger readers, it validates and reflects the challenges of wealthy white boys – and it’s easier to reach for than books like Fred Korematsu Speaks Up and They Called Us Enemy. Because it’s lighter, and doesn’t touch on all that pesky trauma and complexity of what it means to be actually Japanese in a hostile home country – it’s easier to read this book, it’s easier buy this book, it’s easier to sell this book.
Why? Because Faulkner, a white man who didn’t have the weight of representing his entire race, was provided the freedom to add unrealistic drama and had the trust of the publishing industry behind him. Yogi & Takei have a lot riding on being as accurate and sensitive as possible, without wrapping up the books in a neat, white-innocence-protecting bow.
If a white guy messes this up, the worst he’ll get is a ranty review on an obscure website about kidlit. Easy to dismiss an Asian mom – they’re just getting hysterical and over-sensitive about kids books, right?
But if Japanese authors mess this up – they have to worry about all Japanese people being discounted, ignored, sidelined. Or worse – the targeting and criminalization of their families, an ever-present threat that could happen again.
Keeping the focus of Asian American history… on white women.
For a few years, I kept seeing Write To Me pop up in my search for books about Asian American history. Which is weird – ’cause it’s about… a white lady?
As is the case with all books celebrating a white person in a story that primarily affected people of color – the author is white. The illustrator, Amiko Hirao, was born in Japan and grew up moving back and forth between Japan and the US as a kid, I haven’t seen any mention of whether Hirao’s family was Japanese American during internment.
Non-Asian folks like to lump people of the Asian diaspora (including third-culture kids & immigrant families – folks who grew up fluent in two or more cultures) with all people of Asian descent – but that’s a dramatically different experience. Very different cultures, family history, and personal impact! Including a Japanese illustrator in this project does not automatically render it an #OwnVoices story. (Hirao might actually have family who experienced internment in the US, I just haven’t found evidence of it, and you’d think she’d mention it if so?)
For example – As an Irish American whose family came to the US during the Great Hunger (1840s), being Irish doesn’t mean I have any family connection or have to deal with the generational trauma of The Troubles in Ireland (1960’s-90’s). Our family missed that horror, completely unscathed and unaffected. So if someone invited me to come work on a project about the Troubles as the Token Irish – well, that’s a terrible pick for your token diversity hire.
Back to the author – in one interview, Grady goes into detail on her research, describing how she was “devastated” because another white woman had already celebrated this white savior.
(How is this still a thing? Most authors just don’t do basic internet searches for ‘Does the book I want to write already exist?’)
It can be a gut punch to realize you can’t get all the attention and kudos for a project that you’re excited about. But like – it’s also another reflection on the ego of whiteness – making the targeting of people of color so far removed from actual people of color that the story becomes about the white folks in the room. This was 2005 – and a decent book about Korematsu, or really any Japanese activist who didn’t rely on a white savior – still had to wait another 12 years to hit a bookshelf. Instead of swerving to highlight a Japanese activist, Grady doubled down and was like, NO! We need TWO books about white ladies to crowd up the library bookshelves on AsAm history!
Whatever, it’s fine. She’s a white lady, writing about white ladies – and that’s in her lane, no toes stepped on. It’s cool that Grady sought out primary documents for her story.* In her end notes, she placed weight on documents and museum historians by name (some of them Japanese), but not a single credit for an #OwnVoices survivor of the camps.
Maybe she did talk to a bunch of people who were impacted first-hand by internment (why not credit them as primary sources tho?) But it’s just kind of weird…no, actually, it’s very typical…to credential her work through worship of the written word and academic ‘experts’ (oh hai, education and class barriers to being believed about systemic discrimination!)
I’m just saying it’s a little weird that for a story on Japanese Internment, with so many articles by, on, and about the author’s process, we don’t hear any references to talking with actually interred Japanese people? It’s also telling that if you search for books on Asian American history, it’s usually white parents who are relying on a white savior’s story to introduce kids to the concept of anti-Asian racism.
*At least it’s not a Kathleen Krull ouroboros – regurgitating history using only other children’s books as sources. Quantity over quality, another great way to profit white folks using the stories of targeted people!
I don’t have to tell you this, because I’m sure you’ve already figured it out – the story itself really harps on the power of a white woman to heal the trauma of Japanese children targeted and imprisoned in unsanitary conditions. The story briefly alludes to the inhumanity (illness, insufficient food and bathroom facilities), just enough to make it seem like the experience was unpleasant, but not that bad. Just what we need – more ease for white kids to swallow while maintaining their white innocence/oblivion.
Maybe save it for your discussions on white accomplices – but this is not the story to rely on in schools (as it currently is) for teaching Japanese American history.
Celebrating performative allyship
A Scarf for Keiko is even cuter and more engaging than Write To Me, except the author manages to almost entirely remove Japanese people from the story of Japanese internment. Skills!
Malaspina, whom you all know I already have beef with thanks to books like Yasmin’s Hammer, has built her writing career on the noble victim trope and our celebration of performative allyship and saviorism. Kindred spirits, illustrator Liddiard, has a similar habit of centering the discomfort and feelings of abled folks who make a spectacle out of kids with limb disabilities.
Hold on, lemme take a few seconds to shake out my brain. These books just really frustrate me. And they’re like 90% of published mainstream books. The arrogance. The relentless flood of audacity.
I’m really not against books about accomplices! They are great for kids wrestling with privilege and show us how to get over ourselves in fighting for equality! It’s just… you know. The flood. Why do we have more books about white, abled, powerful accomplices, than we have #OwnVoices stories by people with lived experience? (Gatekeeping!)
::Deep breath::
This whole damn thing is about a white boy who has big feelings about convenient inaction, as he does nothing while the world crushes his friend Keiko’s soul. And when he does finally decide to stop being a cowardly little shit, he doesn’t ask her what support she needs. He just does what’s convient, pathetically late – and it’s really about appeasing his guilt more than actually helping her feel safe.
If you want to talk about how passive white silence still makes us an active participant in racism, then this is the book for that. Although – it’s gonna take a lot of work to connect this story in with how not okay the character’s behavior is. Cause the author either doesn’t even realize that white silence is a thing, or, maybe she just couldn’t be bothered to spell that out. Either way. Ugh.
Unless, of course, we’re assuming that a scarf from a former friend who betrayed us is gonna make Keiko feel any better.
We’ve all gotten those texts from white friends!
“Sorry I didn’t say anything when you were getting piled on! Now that it’s just the two of us and I face no risk of making other white folks dislike me, I’m totally here for you with platitudes!”
ABOLISH TOXIC FAUXSHIPS!
I’m not saying tokens of solidarity are worthless – The Bracelet already did this story, and did it much better, twenty-three-fucking-years earlier.
But, AUTHORS SERIOUSLY. Google is free! And it’s not even a bad idea to write another book abotu the same idea. But make sure it’s not a terrible version of the original.
Imprisoning Families could be wrong, could be right – there were Very Fine People On Both Sides …(?!!)
That’s sarcasm about the very fine people – in case you somehow missed that debacle. But I want you to read this book alongside the transcript of the American president throwing blame and compliments around willy-nilly between anti-racist protestors and nazis.
Pay attention to these echos. While settler American values have changed on the surface, the actual way our government runs – on fear and scapegoating – has not changed. Not since 1942. Not since 2009. Not since 2016.
So Far From The Sea, written by Eve Bunting, an author who habitually victim-blames Black people uprising against racial injustice, Indigenous children targeted by residential schools, and language barriers and ignorance for migrant poverty (and so on, I haven’t even read all of her books yet).
Just so many books about targeted people told through the blurry lens of the oppressor, under the guise of representation and awareness. (I do like some of her books – when she stays firmly in her lane and forgets to do a saviorism.)
This a solidly NOT #OwnVoices story. If you have zero insight on East Asian culture or history, and truly believe say, Korea and Japan are basically the same place and people (oh my gosh no), you’d think an Asian illustrator would balance it out. But no! According to his bio, Soenpiet is a Korean American (Korean born, trans-nationally adopted to American parents at 8) seems like a great token Asian illustrator to lend credibility to this book.
EXCEPT IT IS NOT! Oh my gosh, what was this publisher thinking?! While Soenpiet probably doesn’t hold any resentment toward folks with Japanese heritage (Japan being a country that colonized, targeted, and led to the death, displacement, and oppression of Koreans for decades, including a boom in transnational adoption) it’s just… it’s just such a terribly sloppy and weird choice for a Korean American to draw Japanese American characters so a white woman could spout shit like:
“Dad shrugs. ‘It wasn’t fair that Japan attached this country either. That was mean, too. There was a lot of anger then. A lot of fear. But it was more than thirty years ago, Laurie. We have to put it behind us and move on.’”
This story explaine how racism against American citizens is not just something the survivors should get over, but that this violence was justified because people from another fucking country also did a mean thing!
Bunting neglects to realize that in attacking Pearl Harbor as an attack on America – the Japanese government was also attacking Japanese Americans – because they, too, are American. With that one transparent line, we’re sold the same bullshit the American government sold us in the 40’s – that your ethnicity links you to the atrocities of a foreign government, not your citizenship, your community, or the culture you’ve grown up in.
Of course, that’s not all.
“‘It was wrong,’ I whisper. ‘Wrong. Wrong.’
‘Sometimes in the end there is no right or wrong,’ Dad says. “It is just a thing that happened long years ago. A thing that cannot be changed.”’
NO, YOU FUCKING ASS HAT. SOME THINGS ARE UNAMBIGIOUSLY FUCKING WRONG.
Imprisoning families! Yanking our own citizens from their homes and the businesses that took generations to build! Plopping them in unsanitary horse stables surrounded by barbed wire, toddlrs under constant watch of armed white dudes, stranding people in the fucking desert without enough food, clean water, or shelter! Stranding 127,000 American citizens in a constant state of ‘Is my own government about to kill my children?’
All of that is, unabashedly, completely WRONG, and for anyone who says it is – holy shit, check that fucker’s basement for folks they kidnapped for looking suspicious.
No, we can’t erase or undo history – but that doesn’t mean we excuse it. We don’t dismiss folks who, upon hearing the sanctioned atrocities of a democratic nation, say “Wow that was wrong.”
“Eh, you kinda deserved it!” is not the correct response to folks processing the facts of traumatic events.
In this story, a magically-recovered Japanese American family visits a monument where the parents were incarcerated. The monument is supposed to stand for a history that over. Bunting really rams it into the reader (through the yellow-face of her characters) that Japanese folks should just get over it.
Even just calling it wrong is too much – white folks gotta have the last word on everything.
Using the yellowface of these characters, in a children’s book where kids see the illustrations, not the author, Bunting implies there were no long-term ramifications, no elders generations still facing the trauma, no younger generations raised by parents struggling with trauma, no generations still working to overcome lost wealth, mobility, and dignity. No people of color worried that our government could get back to the same old shenanigans again.
As if all we need to live in a post-xenophobia post-racial society is for Asian folks to shrug it off and keep plowing ahead. Funny how the work of reconciling racial injustice must always fall on people of color, never on those in power to make amends.
We never learned our lesson. So what can we do moving forward?
In 2018 white folks were shook when 45’s administration separated families and left children in cages to die.
I mean seriously? How did you not see this coming?
Imprisoned children in cages, tortured families, a system built on enslavement and trafficking – our country has always been less concerned with caring about – and more interested in scapegoating and exploiting the tired, poor, and huddled masses – both within our citizenry and incoming. As we deport undocumented neighbors and community members – even through the 2020 pandemic, how are we surprised that this is still happening – when it never really stopped?
In November 2016, the weeks after the presidential elections, our family rushed to get passports. We were now under the rule of an openly white supremacist administration – one that was not only eager for a fight with China, but full of white men who would never bother to discern the difference between Chinese government officials and Americans of Chinese descent who had never stepped foot in the country.
My white partner thought I was being ridiculous. The US would never imprison families again. It was hard to justify the cost of four passports, when we can’t even swing a vacation within our own state, never-mind and international trip to Canada! Even if our government decided to imprison me as a Chinese American – weren’t our kids white enough to slip under the radar? Was I being too dramatic?
The atrocities of our past – and how accepting we are of them – shows us that racism will, eventually come for us – and these atrocities didn’t care how American we are. For four years, we kept those passports, and our go-bags, ready.
Tragically, I was not overracting at all. Despite the threats, and the looming apparition of war – our administration didn’t come for us. Instead, 45s administration targeted Latinx migrants – the people who run our farms and keep us fed. The people fleeing violence our country created in their home nations. We targeted them in uniquely cruel, horrifying ways. And nothing about that is shocking if you know how we still whitewash, excuse, and pretend we can’t be sure if ethnic discrimination and incarceration is wrong.
We don’t have to – we must refuse to accept this.
[Image: Panel from They Called Us Enemy, by George Takei, illustrated by Harmony Becker. A young child looks at us through a wire fence, fingers resting on the links, tears streaming from their eyes. Behind them, families and individuals sit hunched, some crying. Text overlay reads “June 2018 / …old outrages have begun to resurface…with brutal results.”]
Never again – You can do more than read a book
- Learn how to de-escalate anti-Asian harassment
- Register for free de-escalation & self-care trainings to survive when you find yourself the target of anti-Asian harassment.
- Or register for free online bystander intervention training for non-Asian allies & accomplices. Hosted by Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC & Hollaback!
- Contact your senator
- Call for support on legislation like S. 2113, the Stop Cruelty to Migrant Children Act. Very easy to do with free Resistbot texts.
- Help reunite migrant families separated at the border
You may also like
- Japanese Internment Books for Kids & My Family’s Story via Mia Wenjen, #OwnVoices Japanese American kidlit critic
- Don’t Yuck My Yum: Delicious Kids Books That Dismantle Anti-Asian Racism
- How We Reinforce The Model Myth with Polar Bear Island
- #OwnVoices American Asian & Pacific Islander Kidlit Authors & Illustrators
- More Children’s Books about Japanese American Internment
- Anti-Racism For Kids 101: Starting To Talk About Race
- Kids Books on Solidarity, Allyship & Accomplices
- Kids stories that reinforce the white savior narrative
- How We Maintain Oppression With Kids Stories About Victims & Saviors (for members of our community who help me keep all the stuff above free)
Stay Curious, Stand Brave & Center Asian Voices
Support these resources via Paypal | Venmo | Ko-fi | Buy a t-shirt | Buy a book
Created Jan 30, 2017, last expanded with additional books & how this topic connects with current events in Jan 2021
[Featured Image Description: Book cover for ‘King For A Day.’]
This is the third in a four-part series on disability in children’s books: In this post, you’ll find stories starring disabled characters who aren’t defined by disability, teach your kids to see disabled people as peers worthy of respect, and discover how to recognize ableism & erasure in the media.
Raising Anti-Ableist Kids
Raising Luminaries is free and accessible for readers who can’t afford a paywall. Posts may contain affiliate links, which allow me to earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Check out the full affiliate disclosure along with my statement of accountability.
Disability 103: Presuming Competence
Normalizing disabled characters and smashing tropes
In our previous post, we learned the life-or-death consequences of inaccurate representation of disabled people in teh media. Later, we’ll learn about kick-ass disabled heroes who fought for equality and inclusion.
But first – the most important books you need for your bookshelf – stories that normalize disabled characters and includes us in everyday narratives.
Stop using disability as a trope & humanize disabled characters
For more on normalizing targeted identities, check out the Uhura Test, featuring guidelines on normalizing girls of color in kidlit.
- Feature under-represented characters with agency.
- Are created by makers who have this lived experience, or consult those who have.
- Feature engaging plots with universal appeal, connecting any reader with empathy.
- Feature characters who are valuable and successful outside the gaze of a male/white/non-disabled kyriarchy.
- Bonus for disability: Non-disabled characters accommodate and acceptance the needs of disabled folks without any whining
- Contain token disabled characters – sidekicks, helpless victims, and villains. [Problematic example: The Snow Rabbit, Becky The Brave]
- Rely on tropes – sage blind grandmas, misogynistic autistic men, magic cures, etc. and uses disability as a Chekhov’s gun or plot twist. [Problematic example: Walking Through A World Of Aromas, Peter Nimble, French Toast, Lola And I]
- Use disabled identities as inspiration porn for non-disabled folks. [Problematic: In My World]
- Cheer non-disabled characters for basic human decency toward disabled friends and family, or contain excessive whining about how burdensome disabled people are for ‘real’ people to deal with. [Problematic example: My Brother Charlie, Just Because, Shelley The Hyperactive Turtle, My Brother Is Autistic.]
- Dismiss and minimize real obstacles and dangers caused by societies and environments hostile to disabled people, or completely forget they exist at all. [Problematic example: Dylan the Villain, ‘10 Little Fingers and 10 Little Toes‘]
March 2021: This page is no longer updated with new books. To keep up with new books normalizing disabled characters, check out our in-progress collection of Stories Normalizing Disabled Characters.
Captioned age ranges are for when my sons got ‘the gist’ of the story with discussion & alternative readings – most contain text for much older ages.
Accept Disabled Characters As Normal
‘King For A Day‘ is a gorgeous story of dedication and mastery of a craft, plus kindness and generosity with a bit of suspense thrown in. Also the main character uses a wheelchair. Actually – I’m downplaying this. This book is AMAZING. It’s absolutely everything I want in a book that both empowers and normalizes kids with disabilities. GO READ IT.
Clean It!‘ features a young family cleaning around the house. The main character wears a leg splint and his dad uses an inhaler. I adore every book in this series, but this is the only one with a disabled main character.
‘I Can, Can You?‘ is a regular toddler board-book featuring photos of tots with Down syndrome doing everyday kid things.
‘Dad And Me In The Morning‘ features a Deaf main character and a quiet morning sunrise with his dad.
‘Amelia Bedelia’s First Apple Pie‘ is one of the few Amelia Bedelia books where she isn’t shamed and ridiculed for her literal understanding of idioms. Her grandparents just accept her as she is and they are awesome. BTW: Amelia Bedelia is so obviously autistic. I grew up thinking she was the only reasonable character in a series of books about aggressively mean people who don’t know how to speak properly. The newer versions by the original creator’s nephew are the bees knees, and the adults in her life are kind and inclusive.
It means a lot to have someone like us so well-represented in kids books, even if the original books by Peggy Parish foisted her as a burden on her employers and friends and she was treated with kindness only when earning her humanity via her autistic area of interest – baking. (Which is actually pretty realistic.)
‘Real Friends‘ – In this graphic novel/semi-memoir, the protagonist has OCD, which is mentioned a couple times, but doesn’t define the character.
‘Hello, Goodbye Dog‘ – Features a wily, loving dog and her competent, loving owner (who happens to use a wheelchair).
‘Hands And Hearts’– Simple book featuring a mom and daughter’s day at the beach, and they communicate via ASL.
‘The Deaf Musicians‘ features an impromptu jazz session on the subway.
‘Susan Laughs‘ features an active, boisterous little girl going doing typical kid stuff, who happens to use a wheelchair.
Ages 2+
Include Disabled Peers & Equals
‘Beautiful‘ is similar to ‘Lovely,’ but with more action and less diversity. The text reads like a sexist etiquette primer, and the images spin common stereotypes on proper little ladies with mud-slinging, active, goofy, rough, and tumble girls – some of whom are physically disabled. I’m not reading it to my sons because of the text – they don’t yet know that ‘beautiful’ is a value our culture holds for women (no boys in this book) and I prefer not to introduce that concept yet.
‘Happy In Our Skin‘ runs along the same lines, but for even younger children, and includes several mixed-race, interfaith, and gay families in addition to characters with vitiligo, wheel-chair users, facial birth marks, and one little girl with a conspicuous brow-line, which could be a marker for an unspecified disability (or not). One caveat: one line equates skin color in terms of food (which is a demeaning device often used to describe POC in literature.) It’s something to be aware of.
‘Have Fun, Molly Lou Melon‘ centers on a non-disabled girl (depending on how familiar you are with the series, as she is explicitly celebrated as an empowered, kick-ass Little Person in ‘Stand Tall, Molly Lou Melon‘) and her best friend uses arm crutches for mobility. It’s never addressed in the story and I love that.
Brave includes a character with a leg brace and arm crutches periodically through the book. He stars in a feature spread, standing up to a bully.
Change The Environment To Suit Disabilities – Not The Person
‘Ernest, The Moose Who Doesn’t Fit‘ is about a Moose who doesn’t fit in the book. (Obviously.) The solution is an allegory for inclusion – change the book, not the moose.
Ada Twist, Scientist is about a science-minded, hyper-focused little girl whose parents reject her interest in science and worry about her lack of speech until an advanced age. Like Amelia Bedelia, she’s also a neurodivergent super-hero without explicitly stating the obvious. Eventually her parents come around and stop trying to force her into behaving neurotypical.
‘Charlotte And The Quiet Place‘ isn’t explicitly about sensory processing disorders, but helps all children begin to understand the need to escape from painful, overwhelming sensory input.
Update March 2021:
This page is no longer updated with new books. To keep up with new books normalizing disabled characters, check out our in-progress collection of Stories Normalizing Disabled Characters.
Up next in part 4: Real-life heroes
Check out part 4 of this series to learn why books about disabled heroes must be read with a critical eye. Click here to continue to the next post.
Stay Curious & Stand Brave
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[Image Description: Feature of an illustrated portrait of Alma Woodsey Thomas from an inner page of ‘Little Leaders: Bold Women In Black History,’ by Vashti Harrison]
In this post: Pictures books to inspire young history buffs – Stories of Black Women in American history. Bonus – learn to identify 3 common ways authors whitewash history.
I’m not Black. As a non-Black person of color, raised in the US, I’m bound to miss some things. I’ve done my best to boost the voices of Black femmes, but feel free to comment if/when I screw up. This a working list, imperfect (and incomplete).