My Friend Jacob

Clifton, Lucille. My Friend Jacob. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1980.

My Friend Jacob is a story about an African American boy, whose best friend is cognitively impaired. The two boys are very best friends, where they do everything together including grocery shopping. The boy, the narrator, helps Jacob remember things such as cars and finally helps him learn how to knock on the door before entering.

Clifton includes two cultures, which are African American and people with disabilities, in her picture book. Although the reader would be unaware of the young boy’s race without illustrations, the story shows acceptance of all kinds. Since the book was written in 1980, I was surprised at how well Clifton addresses the issue of someone being cognitively impaired as well as a biracial friendship. I preferred how Clifton chose race not to be a major factor, but an enhancement to the story. The summary states Jacob is “mentally slower”. However, his disability is never identified in the story, only that Jacob has trouble learning. Although the boy’s mother is skeptical of Jacob, the boy shows acceptance of all types of people.

Smell of Roses

Johnson, Angela. Sweet Smell of Roses. New York: Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing, 2004.

Sweet Smell of Roses is a story about an African American girl and her sister, who sneak out of their house to attend a civil rights march on Charlotte Street. As they approach a crowd is gathering listening to Martin Luther King Jr. speaking about equality. While the children join the march, they experience the segregation between blacks and whites as adults scream, “You are not right. Equality can’t be yours”.

Johnson narrative includes a vast amount of history, while expressing the time period through a child’s perceptive. John demonstrates adults as well as children were fighting for equality and experiencing segregation. I believe Taylor addresses the negative impact segregation caused both on children and adults. The book not only demonstrates equality between blacks and whites, but between adults and children. The picture book depicts a struggling time for America; however, it demonstrates how blacks including children were standing up for their rights as human beings.

Friendship

Mildred, Taylor. Friendship. New York: Penguin Books, 1998.

Friendship by Mildred Taylor is a story about a group of African American children living in Mississippi during the 1930’s. During the 1930’s segregation between blacks and whites was prominent and Cassie, the narrator, is no exception. In the novel Cassie’s mother does not allow her and her brothers to attend John Wallace’s store because of his attitude towards black people. Once encountering Mr. Tom Bee, an older black man, the children discover Tom and John have been friends for many years due to him saving John's life. Ultimately, John betrays his friendship with Tom shooting him in the leg.

Taylor chooses to depict topics such as racism and segregation through a child’s perspective. By Taylor choosing to portray these topics by a child, I believe it makes these issues more understanding for children. Racism and segregation are important and difficult concepts to grasp, but Cassie’s experiences and emotions allow children to further understand the time period. The novel not only includes history of the south, but principals about friendship as well. I think many children will be able to relate to the novel because of the concept of friendship being tested by peer pressure and betrayal.

Identity

“Here's the thing: being gay is not an issue, it is an identity. It is not something that you can agree or disagree with. It is a fact, and must be defended and represented as a fact”. -David Levithan
Interestingly my teacher chose to end class with this quote, as well, as I chose to end my questioning the text paper with it. I agree with David Levithan’s statement. I believe a person’s sexual orientation is always going to be a person’s identity. Subsequently, since sexual orientation is always part of a person’s identity it is not an issue rather than a fact. In the article Levithan compared being gay is similar to being Jewish because they both can be a part of one’s identity. I believe sexual orientation is going to always be a part of someone’s identity, however, a religion and/or culture may not be. Although I agree with Levithan, I believe why homosexuality is treated as an issue is based on one’s belief. While I believe when a person is born they are instilled with their sexual orientation. However, why I believe homosexuality is treated as an issue is because others believe a person can choose to be gay after birth.

Hudson Library

Since I was going home for the weekend, I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to discover the types of diverse children literature existing in my hometown library. Hudson Library is a fairly new library since being redone a couple of years ago. When walking to the children’s section, the selection of books was massive. I approached the librarian explaining how I was in a children’s literature course concentrating on diversity. I said I was looking for books containing Arabic culture or GLBT for my final project.

As learned in class, both of these groups are highly misrepresented and scarce in children’s literature. As she was looking through the database with the titles of books I had found, she was unable to find any book on GLBT and one book on Arabic culture. I was extremely surprised by the lack of diverse children’s literature in my hometown library, especially in Arabic culture. A large Muslim population including one of my best friends from high school lives only twenty minutes away from Hudson in Kent. As a suburban largely consisting of Caucasians, I questioned how children would get exposed to other diverse cultures when their library doesn’t even have the means to support it.

Al Capone Does My Shirts

As a special education major I am very passionate about how people with disabilities are represented in novels. After reading Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Goldenko, I was upset about how Natalie’s behavior was not explained as being autistic. Since Goldenko was trying to be authentic to the time period of 1935, where autism had yet to be diagnosed, she chose not to explain her disability. Even in the author note, she explained Natalie has someone who displayed autistic tendencies not actually being autistic.

As someone who understands the negative impact of labeling, I am concerned because of the negative stereotypes that could arise from this novel about children who are “different”. I fear children may look at someone as “different” rather than recognizing their disability after reading this novel. I believe this novel could have been a perfect opportunity to explain autism rather than just describing autistic tendencies. Since Natalie’s disability is never explained in the novel, the people in the novel looked at her as “different”. As someone who advocates for children with disabilities to be mainstreamed in to society, I worry because Goldenko chose a time period where people were not accepting of children with disabilities. While writing my paper, I struggled questioning the text because I already had developed my opinion on the topic. Since I believe questioning the author’s chose of the time period of the novel, I persevered. However, subsequently I struggled to show both perspectives of the topic.

Personal Philosophy

As a Special Education/English major, I believe multicultural literature is important for not only me, but for my future students. I strongly believe in relating to the students that I may teach. In order to be prepared to relate to my future students, I need to learn and literature from a variety of diverse backgrounds. Ultimately, being the main reason that I am taking this course. Not only do I need to encompass literature from a variety of diverse backgrounds, but also be prepared to teach students about other cultures and/or societies. By having multicultural literature in my future classroom it will allow my students to challenge and question what they already know and/or experience.

I believe using literature is an excellent way to integrate new information of a culture and/or society. When presenting new information of a culture to students, I believe it is important to present a nonbiased opinion as well as sure to evaluate the text for any stereotypes of the given culture it may portray. I also believe it is important to teach students how to question the literature we read in class by challenging their previous beliefs and thinking critically about the given text.