Celebration

Peace through internationalism in children's books

Once upon a time, long, long ago. . . . those of us who were children right after World War II found the shelves at our public libraries full of Favorite Fairy Tales Told in France, Favorite Fairy Tales Told in Germany, and even Favorite Fairy Tales Told in India. It was a long series, compiled by Virginia Haviland, the children's specialist at the Library of Congress. In those years war-shaken years, children's librarians wanted to help prevent future wars -- and how better than to make sure the world's children knew each other and appreciated each other's cultures? Internationalism was the multiculturalism of my childhood, and folk and fairy tales were among the most popular multicultural materials available.

Years went by. African nations shook off colonial rule. War raged in southeast Asia. I became a children's librarian at a time when we were quick to buy the occasional fairy tale from Viet Nam (The Toad Is the Emperor's Uncle, by Dinh Mai Vo; Doubleday, 1970) or Africa (Nomi and the Magic Fish, by Phumla; Doubleday, 1972), hoping to familiarize children with non-European cultures.

The Civil Rights movement came, and was followed by the Women's Liberation movement. Our focus gradually shifted from internationalism to multiculturalism, as we became more aware of variations in our own country. The old Uncle Remus stories -- naively treasured by many whites and deeply disturbing to African Americans -- were joined on our shelves by more and more diverse offerings. Two examples among many:

	Virginia Haviland's North American Legends (1979) includes stories collected from Woodlands and Plains and Inuit peoples and African Americans, as well as European immigrants.
	Laurence Yep, in The Rainbow People (1989), retells Chinese stories, some of them set in America. The jacket blurb appeals to multicultural interests: "For years, these whimsical and mysterious tales were, for Chinese-Americans, an anchor to their homeland. Now, reading these little-known tales is a peek through a keyhole into the Chinese culture."

Meanwhile, there was a storytelling revival. Not only children's librarians and teachers, but full-time storytellers were learning material from these new multicultural collections and bringing it to new audiences. A new organization sprang up: the National Association for the Perpetuation and Preservation of Storytelling, or NAPPS. (It has since become the National Storytelling Network, and publishes Storytelling Magazine.) Although many of the new storytellers developed unique material based on their family stories and personal experiences, others still tell traditional folk tales.

The old drive to celebrate multiculturalism and promote world understanding through folklore is still very real. A guide for teaching children to tell stories includes Iroquois, Turkish, and Hindu tales along with the Aesop fables and European folklore to learn (Hamilton and Weiss, 1990). A news item in Storytelling Magazine announces, "Ethnic Storytelling Promotes Cultural Awareness." Roe, Alfred, and Smith, in their 1998 Teaching through Stories: Yours, Mine and Theirs, include a chapter on "Using Storytelling to Promote Understanding of Cultural Diversity." Black, Wright, and Erickson (2001) note that much "folklore was created to instruct the children of those who created it," and advocate its use to counter stereotyped plastic leis and hula skirts that too often constitute American children's images of Polynesian culture.

At the same time, we have become increasingly aware of bruised sensitivities and uneasiness about the role of children's books and folk tales in promoting multicultural understanding.

Sensitivities