Library Home: Children's Literature Resources: Why that book? Why not?

Ethical dilemmas or issues in children's literature

a. censorship

b. sensitivity in representation

c. age-appropriateness

d. gender stereotyping

e. racial and ethnic diversity

f. any other issues

See results of Search on Ebsco Discovery for issues leading to book banning
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Food For Thought: What does tolerance mean to you?

PHILOSOPHY The Intolerance of Tolerance
How to get out of the tolerance trap where tolerating everything means tolerating intolerance:
“Be egalitarian regarding persons. Be elitist regarding ideas.” according to Peter Kreeft.
" “True tolerance applies to how we treat people, not how we treat ideas.”"
Tolerance, then, involves three elements: (1) permitting or allowing (2) a conduct or point of view one disagrees with or doesn’t like (3) while respecting the person in the process....Tolerance of persons requires that each view gets a courteous hearing, not that all views have equal worth, merit, or truth. The view that no person’s ideas are any better or truer than another’s is absurd. Reason and intellectual integrity require we treat some ideas as better than others. Any other approach is foolish, even dangerous because ideas have consequences."
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“Egalitarian... Treat others as having equal standing in value or worth. This first principle, loosely equated with the word “respect,” is at the heart of the classical view of tolerance. Treat people with equal respect and deference...When you are elitist regarding ideas, you acknowledge that some ideas are better than others. And they are. Some are good; some are bad. Some are true; some are false. Some are brilliant, others are foolish, and many are dangerous.”
Paradox of tolerance - Wikipedia
The paradox of tolerance states that if a society's practice of tolerance is inclusive of the intolerant, intolerance will ultimately dominate, eliminating the tolerant and the practice of tolerance with them.
Karl Popper describes the paradox as arising from the seemingly self-contradictory idea that, in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must retain the right to be intolerant of intolerance
In other words: "tolerate all forms of expression except for those that espouse intolerance toward others."

STEREOTYPES: Do you Reinforce them or Challenge them?

* The Importance of Representation in Children’s Books
"That’s the thing with stories. They can be a force for good, or they can do a lot of damage. They can bring people together, or they can push people apart, especially when it comes to how they represent marginalized groups, like people of colour—Black, Indigenous, Asian and so on.
Confronting Stereotypes: Children's Literature with Negative Portrayals and Stereotypes for Curriculum
Don’t Cancel Racist Childhood Classics, Learn From Them
"It is incredibly misguided to think that racist imagery in young children’s content doesn’t have any negative effect because their audience is “too young” to think about racism or view minorities negatively."
"Instead of canceling childhood classics like Dr. Seuss for their racist portrayals, we should use these texts to frame critical conversations around race from a young age."
Exposure to stereotype-relevant stories shapes children's implicit gender stereotypes
"exposure to stories that perpetuated math = male stereotypes significantly increased math-gender stereotypes over and above baseline, underscoring that implicit gender biases that are readily formed during this period in childhood and even brief exposure to stereotypical content can strengthen them."
RACISM, REPRESENTATION, AND RESISTANCE in Children’s Literature 1800 – 2015
Tales and Tropes: Gender Roles from Word Embeddings in a Century of Children's Books
Technology in children's picture books as an agent for reinforcing or challenging traditional gender stereotypes.
When it comes to Children's Books, Representation Matters in a Big Way

Stories are not just fun, but are also social tools to create, justify, or challenge social norms.

Look at these statements and consider whether or not you agree with them. Why or why not?

Stories are an important tool for explaining (education), training (indoctrinating), and challenging (re-evaluating) community beliefs and expectations.

Civil behavior and compassion are easier - when we imagine what it would be like to be another person.

Stories help you become less self-centered - because stories help you imagine an experience from another person's perspective.

Being able to imagine another person's point of view - improves your interpersonal skills - because you can better imagine and predict another person's reactions to your words or behaviors.

Good interpersonal skills - are essential to having good relationships - and being an accepted part of a community.

Finding a character that reflects your experience, in a book or movie, makes you feel good.

People want to feel seen, heard, accepted, respected, and valued - the opposite of being rejected or shunned.

Rejection and shunning are powerful tools to enforce community standards. "Our way or the highway".

What do those community standards protect?
What happens when the community standards are questioned?
What is the result of changing/ evolving/ modernizing the standards?

What happens when a story that talks about people that have different ideas, points of view, or experiences is banned (shunned)?

Does the population that identifies with the shunned ideas or viewpoints also feel shunned?

Theory of mind, civil behavior, and social norms.

One standard of intelligence is an understanding that other minds have different experiences and thoughts than one's own mind (sympathy). This understanding can allow us to understand why other people have different ideas, behaviors, and traditions. Civil behavior demands a certain amount of tolerance for differences. What helps us to tolerate (accept and respect) other points of view? Stories!

Empathy, Sympathy, and Compassion – What’s the Difference?
Empathy means that you feel what a person is feeling.
Sympathy means you can understand what the person is feeling.
Compassion is the willingness to relieve the suffering of another.
Theory of mind in animals: Current and future directions [pdf-downloads]
"Theory of mind ...is the ability to ascribe mental states, such as desires and beliefs, to others, and it is central to the unique forms of communication, cooperation, and culture that define our species."

Food for Thought

Reading can help you develop empathy. Reading lets you experience an event through the view of the bully and the victim.

Reading lets you experience a variety of situations and learn how to behave (or not behave) by getting a view of potential consequences.

Reading lets you discover new ideas and learn what makes sense to you, in a safe place (your imagination).

"If you’re afraid that books might change someone’s thinking, you’re not afraid of books, you’re afraid of thinking." - Andrea Junker