Up until recently, it has been common to see picture books featuring Caucasian children as the primary characters, completely ignoring the fact that children come in all colors, shapes and sizes. I have been delighted to observe the emergence of more and more books written for children of every culture and nationality, recognizing at last the diversity we so enjoy and the need that every child has to be validated by seeing someone that looks like them staring back from the pages of a book.
The first book I’d like to discuss is “Amazing Grace” by Mary Hoffman, a book that was featured on Reading Rainbow. Grace is a little girl with a tremendous imagination. Whatever story she reads, she can then act out with drama and panache. When time comes for her school play, she wants to try out to be Peter Pan, the lead role. She knows she can do it. But one school mate teases her, saying she can’t do it because she’s a girl. (I guess that child never heard of Mary Martin.) Then another child says she can’t try out because she’s black. Grace goes home feeling discouraged. She wants to try out, but can she really be Peter Pan as a black girl?
Her mother gets angry when she hears what the other children said, but her grandmother hatches a plan. She takes Grace to see the ballet, featuring a beautiful ballerina named Rosalie Wilkins, who just happened to be black. Grace was so taken with the beauty of the ballet that she marched right into school and gave the audition of a lifetime. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind who should play Peter Pan, and she silenced her little critics permanently.
The other book is called “My Best Friend,” and is by Pat Hutchins. The main girl in the story is so excited that her best friend is coming to sleep over. She goes through and lists all the things that her friend can do by herself. It’s very cool to have a friend who can do things you can’t. At the end of the story, after we’ve watched our main character get help from her mother to do the things that her friend can do without assistance, the room gets dark and the best friend is afraid, but our character turns into the heroine and calms her friend down. They realize that they are both blessed to have the friends they do and how the strengths of one can balance out the weaknesses of the other.
I enjoyed both these books quite a bit and will be keeping my eyes out for more books that feature children of other cultures. It’s so nice to see that the market is opening up and there is more available than ever before.
(“Amazing Grace” was published in 1991 by Dial Books and illustrated by Caroline Binch. “My Best Friend” was published in 1993 by Greenwillow Books and illustrated by the author.)
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