Gender Stereotypes

I was looking for some books that deal with racial stereotypes, so we can introduce the idea of "stereotypes" to G.  We've discussed the idea of stereotypes a little, but I like books as sources of visual and concrete learning when I can find them.  In the process of looking for books, I came across this list of books combatting gender stereotypes.  It looks like a great list.  We've read the Princess Knight book, and it's a fun read with a useful message.  In the book, when a king holds a contest, offering the winner his daughter's hand in marriage, she is upset.  The princess anonymously enters the contest covered in armor and wins.  G has always liked the book since we stumbled on it.  Other books in the list below, look promising as well.

http://humaneconnectionblog.blogspot.com/2012/06/12-childrens-picture-books-that.html

Ganesha's Sweet Tooth

Ganesha's Sweet Tooth
By Emily Haynes and Sanjay Patel

I recently heard about and requested Ganesha's Sweet Tooth from our local library.  The book takes a playful look at how Ganesha agreed to become the scribe of the Mahabharata.  The story mixes in some Indian words (laddoos) with descriptions of a sweet as a "Super Jaw Breaker."  The pictures are distinct and cleanly colorful.  The language is funny and light-hearted.  It's a quick read for GG, a seven year old, but it's a nice way for a kid to learn how Vyasa and Ganesha decided to record the Mahabharata.  One of the authors, Sanjay Patel, also wrote The Little Book of Hindu Deities which we added to our collection a few years ago.  The illustration style in both books is very similar.  This would be a great gift for a toddler or preschool aged kid.


 

Mahabharata

The Mahabharata
By Namita Gokhale

I am just finishing The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni.  Given that I've been married to AA for almost 13 years, and he grew up on these stories, it's amazing that I haven't read a version of it before and didn't know the basics of the story.  It's been a pretty transformative experience for me.  As AA said, "People say that the Mahabharata, the longest story in the world, is a library.  It is not a single story but is a repository containing all the stories."  If one isn't feeling very "universalist," one can alway say it contains all Indian (or ancient/pre-modern) Indian stories.  There are endless variations.  There are many, many characters.  Divakaruni does a great job of introducing a number of characters in a mere 300 pages.  Hers is told from the POV of Draupadi, wife to the Pandavas.  It's made me interested in reading other versions, but it's not a kid's book.

We started reading the Puffin version of the Mahabharata by Namita Gokhale to GG.  She is interested in it, but she's pretty confused about who is who and what their relationship/back story is in the book.  We're not far into it, yet, and she keeps saying, "I don't get it."  We stop and explain, but there are so many characters she's getting confused.  I think the authors could have cut out some of the characters.  While there are arguments that they're still in the story because they're major characters, a book for kids should streamline and make minor or unnamed some of the many, many characters to help kids get their heads around it.  We might have to quit, and start with the comics instead.  While generations of Indian kids have grown up reading Amar Chitra Katha's comic books about the epics, one of the things that bothers me is how skin color is portrayed in them (whitening the good characters, for instance).  We can have conversations about those editorial decisions, but visual images are still pretty powerful.  Such is life.  If anyone has a good version of the Mahabharata for a 1st or 2nd grader who isn't very familiar with the story, yet, it would be helpful to hear about it.

Amar Chitra Katha comics:

Big Red Lollipop and Silly Chicken

Big Red Lollipop
Silly Chicken
by Rukhsana Kahn

I stumbled on this children's book author when I was in our local public library.  I was looking for another book, and saw the last name "Khan," a common Muslim name in South Asia and other places.  The author is a Canadian of Pakistani descent.

GG really enjoys these books.  They're both well written and a bit humorous.  And both books have themes of sibling rivalry (in Silly Chicken, the rivalry is between a girl and a chicken).  The two books have different illustrators, and are set in different countries (Lollipop is set in the U.S. or Canada and Chicken in Pakistan). 

 In Lollipop, the school aged narrator, encounters some conflict with her mother who insists on sending her younger sister with her to a birthday party, which is against the social convention in her circle of friends.  The narrator is frustrated that her mother doesn't understand how birthday parties usually work, and at the end of the book she becomes a mediator between her mother and her younger sister to ensure that her younger sister doesn't make the same birthday party missteps.  The illustrations are beautiful, and the author explores the themes of sisterly resentment and feelings of alienation from not fitting in.


Silly Chicken is a humorous look at a girl's relationship with her mother's well-loved chicken.  The daughter thinks her mother, a widow, loves the chicken more than her.  The chicken comes to a sad end, and the roles then are reversed as its replacement (and offspring) becomes the adored pet of the girl, while her mother feels like the third wheel.  I prefer the illustrations in Lollipop, but this unusual story has some good laughs and is worth reading.

When It's Six O'Clock in San Franciso: A Trip Across Time Zones

When It's Six O'Clock in San Franciso:  A Trip Across Time Zones
by Cynthia Jaynes Omololu

Our dear friends, S & C, gave this to G for her 4th birthday.  It's a book about time zones, and in little vignettes, it shows how children in different cities around the world are spending their time at the same time.  So when it's 6:00 AM in San Francisco, it's the afternoon in London, dinner time in Lahore, and the middle of the night in Sydney.  The stories are just a snapshot of what each child is doing at the given time, but there's enough to make the narratives compelling.  G has become more aware of the abstract concept of time zones from our travel to India.  But this book shows a whole range of time zones from each continent (except Antarctica), and with a nice range of ethnic, gender and nationality diversity.  As she learns to tell time, the little clocks at the bottom of the page will be more interesting.  Already the map at the back of the book, showing the location of each story helps her to grasp the idea that concrete, real people live all over the world and are as fully alive as we are here (a concept that some adults have trouble grasping!).

The Happiest Tree

The Happiest Tree
by Uma Krishnaswami

I really like this book.  It's about a little girl, of Indian heritage, but living in the U.S. who learns yoga to cope with stressful situations.  I like that her parents are supportive and kind.  I like that she learns how to breathe and calm herself down when the other kids get frustrated with her, a lesson that I have had trouble learning as an adult.  I like that she's not perfect (she's clumsy and reluctant to participate in the school play).  I like that my own daughter has expressed interest in yoga, and has participated in it with her dada (grandfather), partly because we read this book.

The Bookshop Dog

The Bookshop Dog
by Cynthia Rylant

I sometimes browse the kid's book sections of thrift stores to see what I can see.  One day, I came across this book in a thrift shop.  I leafed through it, and bought it without actually reading it simply because it contained an interracial relationship.  After I read the book, I liked it even better because the relationship wasn't even discussed as "interracial," but was presented as a natural part of the story.  Those kinds of visual and symbolic representations are important to me to "normalize" my daughter's experience in the world.  It's great when they occur in books that aren't explicitly about interracial relationships, but are presented as natural events in the story.  The book is a decent one in its own right.  It's about a woman who owns a bookshop and is very fond of her dog.  The woman has to be hospitalized for a medical condition (not a serious one), and the friends and acquaintances of the dog all fight over who gets to take care of her while her owner is away.  It's got some great little humorous bits in it as well that make my four year old laugh.  I'd recommend this one.