"Woke"ness Comes To Kid-Lit
Meghan Cox Gurdon writes in The WSJ that "Members of the general public may be unaware of the degree to which identity politics are pervading the world of children's literature":
Books are increasingly assessed as much for the racial and ethnic backgrounds of those creating the art as for the excellence of the art itself. A social-media commentator caught the zeitgeist this week with unintentional comic brilliance. During the American Library Association's initial announcements of its biggest accolades on Monday, this plaintive tweet went out: "Love the ALA awards and seeing so many worthy books recognized. But if I were a female/non-binary illustrator, I imagine I'd feel a little discouraged right now."The ALA awards already include encomia for specific types of people. There are awards for books by Latino and African-American writers and illustrators. There's an award newly brought under the ALA mantle that celebrates "the very best writing and illustrations by and about American Indians." There are awards for books that portray and affirm the "Jewish experience," the "disability experience" and the "gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender experience." So the idea of categorizing books and their creators is not new. And at its best, this approach represents an earnest and welcome effort to raise the profile of writers and artists whose work might otherwise escape broad attention and to expand the variety of stories and characters that children encounter in literature.
But what's happening now goes much further. The industry that produces the baby books, picture books, chapter books and novels read by America's children and teenagers is undergoing ideological capture by the intersectional left.
...Authors and illustrators are being flamed online and having their reputations traduced and their careers threatened for transgressing the capricious new standards of ideological purity. One of these is a preoccupation known as #OwnVoices, in which authors of a specific race, heritage or disability are held to be the only valid portrayers of characters of that particular race, heritage or disability. Anyone of a differing race, heritage or disability--say, a woman of Puerto Rican descent who writes about Mexicans, or a Native American Pueblo writer who draws on Navajo culture--may be slammed, or worse, for appropriation.
Racism and discrimination is still racism and discrimination when it comes in brown and has good intentions (or comes in white and is busy advocating for anybody who isn't white over anybody who is).
MLK, anyone?
Well, these are people who grew up with "rainbow coalition" and "zootopia" literature. They are now raging tribalists who spend their days cataloging racial and ethnic differences in service to political activism, so maybe it's time for child lit celebrating the kids who band together and beat up the strangers from the next village.
newoctonian at February 2, 2020 6:26 AM
Preoccupation with ethnicity, class, disability, gender, and so forth does relieve the reader or reviewer of one particular responsibility: Evaluating whether the book is any damn good or not.
Of course, avoiding evaluation based on merit is the goal of any kind of bigotry, so nobody should be too surprised.
Old RPM Daddy (OldRPMDaddy at GMail dot com) at February 2, 2020 7:37 AM
It isn't only kids books getting this treatment. Most of the book awards are essentially tribal and not merit based. Which is why most people don't pay attention to them.
The bigger issue is the internet opening up literature distribution for the masses. Especially in the SciFi/Fantasy corners it is getting harder and harder to make a living. There are millions of people who just want to share their story. And they do so for free. There are millions of yahoos who post their story online only looking for feedback and adulation. Most of those stories are terrible. But if only 0.1% of them are good that is still thousands of stories a year as good or better than for sale media.
Ben at February 2, 2020 7:45 AM
Upon arriving there in 1987, I presumed Jax was a cosmopolitan coastal city… But Iran-Contra was winding down, and the truth was soon apparent.
Nonetheless a magnificent city in so many ways.
Crid at February 2, 2020 10:01 AM
Wrong thread: Wasted pixels.
Crid at February 2, 2020 10:27 AM
This isn't quite the same subject, but it's very much worth reading - it's the award-winning essay, "Why We Read: Canon to the Right of Me":
http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/the_best_american_poetry/2014/01/why-we-read-canon-to-the-right-of-me-by-katha-pollitt.html
I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by at least some points that get made.
lenona at February 2, 2020 1:05 PM
I don't like the continued use of "affirmative action" to give some groups undeserved awards or other special treatment, but at least this article isn't about "woke" authors brainwashing preschool kids to become SJWs, as is already happening in grade school.
jdgalt at February 2, 2020 2:42 PM
jdgalt: Actually, it is. The awards are part of the industry's push to crowd non-woke children's literature out of schools, libraries and bookstores. Ben mentioned the sci-fi/fantasy industry, which has also been under attack, in part because the Left knows that this type of literature is attractive to a lot of teenagers.
One thing I've picked up on is that there is almost no fiction being written for pre-teen / early teen boys anymore, and what little there is, is mostly scolding them for being boys. I've been trying to write some sci-fi stories for boys along the lines of Heinlein's "juveniles". I'm not sure what to do with them, though.
Cousin Dave at February 3, 2020 6:11 AM
When Dunkirk came out, it was panned by Leftists for not having black characters. It was an historical drama and the british army in 1939 was 100% white. Later in the war it drew in lots of Indians (from India) but not in 1939.
The own voices nonsense means that a male author can't have any female characters or write a story that has multiple races in it. Segregation anyone?
Children's literature has always had problems from my point of view. In many of the stories, there is some problem, like the girl is being excluded. Finally she says "let's be friends" and the problem is solved--the story makes no sense. The best to my mind were the Barenstain Bears and maybe Arthur.
cc at February 3, 2020 8:47 AM
Correction Cousin Dave, there is little being actively sold for pre-teen/early teen boys. There is a lot being written and published for free.
Have you looked at RoyalRoad.com? There are lots of other aggregators out there. I just don't want to hit Amy's spam limit. If you want to publish for free there are a lot of options.
Ben at February 3, 2020 5:56 PM
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