Racism

Children's Literature - Wendy M. Smith-D'Arezzo

Part of Smart Apple Media's "How Can I Deal with…" series, the book portrays a number of situations in which children are treated unkindly because of their race. Each three-page section gives a brief introduction followed by first-person narratives from children's and adults' perspectives. Each section ends with suggestions for what each child can do to make the situation more tenable, as well as a short narrative of what the specific child actually did. Due to the brevity of each section, the solutions are necessarily short and generic. Most include encouraging children to talk to their parents, their friends or another adult. The text is accompanied by realistic photographs of children, their friends, teachers, and parents. Both genders are equally represented, and families of various ethnic and racial backgrounds are shown. While this book may be useful for starting conversations, it lacks depth in its presentation of the situations or the suggestions for resolving the problems. In fact, the final situation seems misleading and counterproductive. It depicts a white girl making racist comments against a black girl. When the black girl's friends stick up for her, the white girl says, "Mel and I both know how it feels when someone makes racist comments." This can easily give children the wrong impression, since the black girl and her friends did not make any racist comments. The reading level is toward the end of fourth grade, which would allow intermediate-grade children to read this book on their own. However, the context and the subject matter are such that they would benefit from sharing this book with a counselor or a parent. The endnotes include a glossary, a list of referencesand an index, as well as notes for parents, caregivers and teachers. Reviewer: Wendy M. Smith-D'Arezzo