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Boy, this one is like a red flag to a bull, if you ask me.

Fakelore, Multiculturalism, and the Ethics of Children's Literature

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

jonquil.livejournal.com

I wish the author didn't harsh on Paul Bunyan; it's one of the fakes that became real. First version was a creation; the tenth is a folktale, with community accretions. The same thing happened to certain broadsheets: they were good enough to be passed on through the folk process.

The body of the article is devastating.

From:

ewein2412

I wish I had the energy to take this apart point by point.

His la-di-da tone bugs me the most, I think. "It's all white bread." "They ain't folk." But of course, as a folklorist (I have an MA and a PhD in Folklore and Folklife from the University of Pennsylvania, for what it's worth) AND a writer of children's books, the idea that my "orientation is to the commercially viable here and now" just annoys the daylights out of me. As a folklorist I bust my butt trying to achieve historical and cultural accuracy; as a fiction writer I am trying to tell a good story. And I am not exactly making money hand over fist doing it.

Then there's the obvious fact that for every flawed book he cites, there are others that make their presentations honestly and faithfully. HOWEVER. Irritating though such rants may be, from sad experience I know that this article will probably go unnoticed by anyone outside the tiny imploding circle that is academic folklore.

grumble

From:

katranides.livejournal.com

Read the abstract and knew I couldn't go on. Rant, rant. Who cares!?! If they tell the kiddies that Puerto Ricans eat tacos, then I'd get uppity, but like you said, Lizzie, isn't the story that counts? I mean, if they are publishing a kids book for Western kids, isn't it okay if it's more inspired by than an exact copy of the original? Maybe I wouldn't have written such simplistic analysis if I'd read the whole article, but there's a derivative novel I want to go read.

From:

ewein2412

thank you.

Now I have to admit that I only read about a third of the article before I gave up in frustration and annoyance. As I said... I wish I had the energy. But there's a derivative novel I want to go write.

From: (Anonymous)

Aha! I found your blog!

I skimmed this and yeah, it's annoying and preachy (also, for someone so strong on authenticity, he gets at least a few details of his own wrong-- for one thing, the Coretta Scott King Award is not for "nonviolence," it's for a book by an African-American author).

On the one hand, its' the Right Thing to Do to be sensitive to stories' cultures of origin, and one generation's charming folktale adaptation is another's racist throwback (cf Little Black Sambo, Tikki-Tikki Tembo, 5 Chinese Brothers) (and I like some of those! but lots of people have objected to them). And native Americans in particular have had so much of their culture "adapted" out of all recognition, especially in children's books...oh, I could go on and on but I know you've heard/read it before. It's something I struggle with all the time when choosing books for my library and deciding what to read to kids.

But nothing's pure. Eric Kimmel changes Jewish folktales when he adapts them, and he's Jewish! And yeah, authentic Native American stories have a different style, one that maybe non-Native kids could be exposed to more. But it's not what they're used to, and it won't grab them the way what this author calls "schoolbook" writing style will. So authors--including natives of the culture whose folktales they're adapting or retelling-- make an authorial choice, to make these folktales more accessible to their audience. It can be a slippery slope into cultural misappropriation. But this guy's stance borders on the absurd.

Oh, bleah, please excuse the length of this and its relative incoherence. I'm sneaking on from work and don't have time to make it shorter or better...