When Worlds Collide: Recent Developments in Children's Literature

American Association of School Librarians. Available from: American Library Association. 50 East Huron Street, Chicago, IL 60611. Tel: 1-800-545-2433; Web site: http://knowledgequest.aasl.org/

Y

6

Childrens Literature; Minority Groups; Racial Factors; Cultural Differences; Social Media; Books; Adolescent Literature; Librarians; Periodicals; Book Reviews; Social Change

1094-9046

Debbie Reese, a former elementary school teacher and assistant professor in American Indian Studies, publishes the blog American Indians in Children's Literature. Tribally enrolled at Nambe Pueblo, her book chapters and articles are taught in university classrooms in English, education, and library science across the U.S. and Canada. She is frequently invited to deliver keynote lectures and workshops at major universities and for tribal associations and organizations. In this article she presents a discussion of an unprecedented happening in children's and young adult literature, which she describes as worlds colliding. Within the space of a year, three different publishers recalled books that were criticized on social media. Within that same period, second printings of several other books were revised, and two children's literature review journals took action to address the way they write reviews. Additionally, writers and editors for several journals, as well as bloggers at those journals' online sites, wrote about issues specific to diversity. Native people and people of color are using social media and content-area blogs to review books that misrepresent them. Reese describes this as not only a collision of media, but also a collision of the point of view and critical lens that Native people and people of color bring to analyses of children's and young adult literature. Reese argues that as the racial and cultural demographics of the United States change, the content of books will change too, and Native children and children of color deserve the mirrors that white children have had for literally hundreds of years. This article provides a glimpse of significant developments that demonstrates how social media is being used to create new understandings among writers, editors, reviewers, teachers, professors, librarians, and parents.

ERIC

2017

EJ1125370