I was reading the picture book, A Day’s Work,1 by Eve Bunting, which tells the story of an immigrant boy from Mexico and his grandfather who live in the USA. When the narrative begins, they are waiting by the side of the road to find some work. As the story unfolds, the child who can speak English helps his grandfather communicate with would be employers. They eventually manage to get work by lying about their skills. After initial difficulties with their employers, the two succeed in doing the work. The story illustrates the bond that grows between these two family members as they navigate difficult situations.
I was touched by this story and told myself I had learned something about a community I did not know much about. Later though, I discovered that reviewers had criticized this book for its stereotypical representation of the Mexican experience in the USA: poverty, deception, hard work, shame, and so on. I contrasted this book with another titled A Gift from Papa Diego2 by Benjamin Alire Saenz—a bilingual book in Spanish and English. This is also about a Mexican-American boy and his relationship with his grandfather. This narrative traces the boy’s wish to fly to Mexico in a Superman suit on his birthday to meet his grandfather. This boy’s family is better off and owns a home with a backyard and represents the community quite differently. Both books are valuable as windows into that world.
As a teacher, I like to understand how stories that represent real human experience, rather than emphasize stereotypes or differences, can help children build bridges to other cultures. When I look back on what drew me to the world of books of varying types and genres, I can see that I had a fascination for culturally diverse literature—and I am still drawn to it. Something that has captured my attention in the last few decades is to understand and seek out literature that mirrors different sections of our human society, opening up new vistas for readers in subtle and not just ‘politically correct’ ways. I look for genuine stories that reveal real lives and feelings. Allen Say, a Japanese-American artist and writer, has written on themes like homesickness, the yearning for another place and a sense of belonging, and cross-cultural realities for some ethnic Japanese families in America. These tales are autobiographical in nature. The author includes details about both the cultures in his life—Japanese and Californian—in the margins of the text and within his illustrations. Perhaps the fact that he highlights universal human elements, such as the need for a sense of belonging, helps him connect with the reader so well.
Illustrated books that I read in my childhood were often Russian folk tales. The Famous Five and Secret Seven series by Enid Blyton caught my fancy too, as did the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys series of novels. Much later, I listened to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED talk of 2009 on ‘The Danger of a Single Story.’ Her ideas made me realize that most of the books I had read as a child were set in faraway unfamiliar places. Adichie is a Nigerian writer who had similarly read books that mostly featured foreign children going on adventures and tried to visualize their backyards and hideouts. As she commented so beautifully and poignantly in her talk, those worlds were neither local nor familiar. I had assumed that good stories had to be set in faraway lands and feature characters who were distant from one’s own experience. Why I had assumed this and idolized those worlds was an important question. As an adult, I wondered whether it is important for readers to be able to place themselves within narratives and see their own lives mirrored in literature. Adichie highlights this in her talk with these words:
Because of writers like Chinua Achebe and Camara Laye, I went through a mental shift in my perception of literature. I realized that people like me, girls with skin the colour of chocolate, whose kinky hair could not form ponytails, could also exist in literature.
Tultul Biswas, a key member of the leadership team in Eklavya Foundation, Bhopal, also emphasizes this. While encouraging children to read, she writes, ‘we want every child to feel that the book she is reading is hers, it speaks to her, it illustrates her life, her dreams, her challenges, likes and dislikes, and moreover, it also listens to her. We want every child to experience a sense of belonging in the world of books.’3 These ideas too now shape my understanding, and influence what I read to children or talk about in class, and in turn encourage students to read.
A few years ago, I went on a school excursion to Bhopal and visited the Eklavya Publishing House. There, on the shelves of their bookshop, the students and I found a range of stories that revealed to me the importance of depicting a diversity of cultures, communities and classes in children’s stories. This has also been shared in the most beautiful ways by the authors who, importantly, are themselves from the communities they write about.
Adichie for one has pointed out that reading books about only one type of cultural experience can result in readers seeing other people in a unidimensional way in real life. The Mexican stories mentioned earlier come to mind here. Hence, it is valuable to have more than just one representation of a culture or community, for this provides a rich ground for conversations in the classroom. It struck me that urban readers in India would get a more nuanced view of a child’s life in rural India if they read a book with photographs and not just pictures. Somewhere in the background they would notice the typical settings and livelihoods, and see vignettes from their own lives, their own families. They would absorb these too, even if the more important narrative is in the foreground.
The Why-Why Girl4 by Mahasweta Devi is a good example of this. It is a story about a little girl from the Sabar tribal community who goes about her daily routine. While we learn about her culture from the background of the text, Moyna’s childlike qualities and curiosity are foregrounded in the story. What stands out and appeals to the reader is her urge to ask questions of those around her. Another such rich story is Pongal5 by Bama, a Tamil Dalit writer, which explores the experience of discrimination through the eyes of a child who wonders why his employers will not taste the pongal (a rice dish) made by his parents.
Stories in Different Tales published by Anveshi Research Centre for Women’s Studies directly address the issues caused by conflict between families and discrimination, and show how children navigate these spaces in different ways. Two examples from this series are ‘Friends in School’6 by Joopaka Subhadra and ‘The Two-Named Boy’7 by P. Y. Balan. Characters in these stories who are shown as loving parents are also guilty of misjudging, discriminating against and spurning other people. As we read, we also find out how the children—the central characters—cope with it all in their own way. Endings are often not ‘happy’ ones in which all the threads are neatly tied. There are endings with the possibility that conflict still lurks ahead but offering some sort of resolution for the moment; others ending in death but with a sense of grace; some ending with the realization that there will always be disagreements but that small friendships will remain.
What stands out in these stories is their honesty. They are not just producing a politically correct version of life, not just introducing a character from a marginalized community in the name of representation. They are examples of literature representing diverse experiences and sensitively addressing complex issues. Being true to someone’s life experience or a community while writing about them is a tricky and subtle exercise. As publishers, authors, illustrators, and educators, we want to open new worlds for children, nurture their compassion and empathy, trigger their curiosity, while also doing justice to what is being represented. However, we must continue to remember that every story offers only one slice of a truth and is but one representation of every voice in it.
As teachers, we want children to read books which help them make connections and build bridges. Evaluating books for sharing with children is a task that fascinates me as I continue to discover diverse new literature, select new titles for the school library, and teach my students English Language and Social Science.
References:
1. Eve Bunting, Day’s Work, Clarion Books, New York, 1994.
2. Benjamin Alire Saenz, A Gift from Papa Diego, Cinco Puntos Press, USA, 2008.
3. Shailaja Menon and Sandhya Rao (eds.), Children’s Books: An Indian Story, Eklavya Pitara, Bhopal, 2024.
4. Mahasweta Devi, The Why-Why Girl, Tulika Publishers, Chennai, 2003. 5. Bama, Pongal, Muskaan Books, New Delhi, 2019.
6. Joopaka Subhadra, ‘Friends in School’ in Untold School Stories, Deepa Sreenivas (ed.), Mango–DC Books, Kottayam, 2008.
7. P.Y. Balan, ‘The Two-Named Boy’ in The Two-Named Boy and Other Stories, Deepa Sreenivas (ed.), Mango–DC Books, Kottayam, 2008.