I inherited a fantastic collection of old children's literature from my mother, which I loved myself as a child. The collection includes British and American novels for kids from the turn of the century through 1960 or so. As an adult looking over the books now, though, I cringe over the casual racism I find. For example, the Adventure series by Enid Blyton was a favorite of mine as a kid - but when I look it over now, I see that whenever African-American characters are introduced, they are depicted in a horribly racist way. It wasn't the main object of the books, obviously - I guess it was just so a part of the culture at the time to depict minorities like that. As a child, I didn't pick up on it at all. So, my dilemma is: do I let my daughter read these books but talk to her about the racist aspects, read the books but ignore the racism, or weed out the offensive books and not let her read them at all? (She's only 6 - I'm just anticipating that she could read them someday).
2007-05-03
09:15:59
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13 answers
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asked by
LawMom
3
in
Parenting