Multicultural Children’s BooksMichelle Browning

Ivy Tech Community College

INTASC STANDARD AND RATIONALE

Standard #2 - Learning DifferencesThe teacher candidate uses understanding of individual differences and diverse cultures and communities to ensure inclusive learning environments that enable each learner to meet high standards.

Name of Artifact: Multicultural Children’s Books

Date: February 27, 2015

Course: EDUC 255

Brief Description: This assignment is a slideshow presentation about three multicultural children’s books. The purpose of this assignment is to first identify children’s books with multicultural components, and then to identify the roles of both males and females within each story. Seeing that a book can be multicultural in more ways than just regarding race and heritage is an essential part of this assignment.

Rationale: To document my understanding of Standard #2, learning differences, I have included the Multicultural Children’s Books assignment in my portfolio. I show my understanding of this standard with this assignment in that I am able to identify why the books are multicultural. Also, I am able to pay close attention to the gender roles within the book to be able to notice any differences in how men and women are portrayed to children.

The Blessing CupBy Patricia Polacco

Published by Simon and Schuster Children’s Publishing DivisionCopyright 2013

The story is about the childhood of the great-grandmother of the author, Anna, and the perils her Jewish family went through in Russia during the reign of the czar. The story opens with Anna and her family cowering in their home as the czar’s soldiers came and shook the village. The next morning the mother brought out a tea set which she used to symbolize all of the blessings that God had bestowed upon their family, and that their family was richer than any other because of the blessings they had from God. Her sister had given it to her and even called any tea that was brewed from it “magic.” As the story goes on, Anna’s family soon gets run out of Russia, as the czar ordered all Jews to be exiled. When they made their journey to the border of Russia to head on to a boat to escape to America, the father became ill. A doctor took them in and took care of the father along with the rest of the family, both medically and financially, until the father was safe to travel. However, soldiers came to his door and ordered him to banish the Jewish family from his home. He told them of this news as he gave the entire family tickets and money to journey to America to attain asylum. When the family inquired as to how he got this money he said that he sold his late wife’s favorite Persian rug for the travel fair. In order to show their gratitude, the family left the tea set, keeping only one cup for themselves as “it was all the blessings they would need.” The story closes with the author telling how that same cup has been passed down through her family and on to her own children today.

The Skin You Live InBy Michael Tyler

Published by Chicago Children’s MuseumCopyright 2005

This is a rhyming book which talks about the beauty of the skin each child is born in. The book features both boys and girls of all different ethnicities/races. The story emphasizes the beauty of skin and that no skin is better or worse than any other.

Too Many TamalesBy Gary Soto

Published by G. P. Putnam’s SonsCopyright 1993

This story is about a daughter who is helping her parents prepare for Christmas dinner by making tamales with them. When she notices that her mother set down her diamond ring to knead the masa, she decides she will wear it for just a “few minutes.” Later, she realizes that the ring fell off her finger while she was helping, and now the only place she can think of where it could be is inside one of the 24 tamales! After forcing all of her cousins to help her look for the ring by eating the tamales, she realizes that her cousin Danny probably ate the ring by accident. When she remorsefully tells her mother, she notices that she has the ring on! All of her worry was over nothing, and now she gets to help re-make all the tamales for her family!

List the positive factors and negative factors/aspects of each book

The Blessing Cup

Positive factors: Family oriented, whimsical, tradition is emphasized, doing good for others is emphasized

Negative factors: Mother is always cooking. “Can you cook woman, now that is a question!” This quote is from the doctor to the mother when he took the family into his home.

The Skin You Live In

Positive Factors: Celebrates all skin types, lighthearted tone

Negative Factors: Not very serious, no character development

Too Many Tamales

Positive: Family bonding, importance of taking care of sentimental items, telling the truth in hard situations

Negative: didn’t develop many characters in-depth

Count the number of male characters in the stories and compare this figure to the number of female characters

The Blessing Cup

2 males

3 females

The Skin You Live In

No “characters,” just illustrations of children with different skin tones

33 illustrations with females

21 illustrations with males

Too Many Tamales

6 females

2 males in story, 2 others in illustrations (4 total)

Count the number of times the female is the person who is in charge of the action compared to the number of times the male is in charge.

The Blessing Cup

Mother is in charge of making the “magic” tea. Mother makes the decision to give the tea set to the doctor. Mother and father seem to both decide upon fleeing for America.

The Skin You Live In

There are no females nor males in charge of actions

Too Many Tamales

Mother and father are both in charge of cooking for the family.

Are there differences in the types of activities that the male and female characters are shown engaging in (example – stereotypical situations)

The Blessing Cup

The end of the story mentions the father getting a job in America while the mom stays at home.

The Skin You Live In

Most illustrations show boys and girls engaging in same activity

One page has only girls playing basketball

Another illustration shows a girl getting her toenails polished

Too Many Tamales

Women and men engage in same activity

Boy cousins and girl cousins engage in same activity

Look closely at the illustrations – do they imply differences between the male and female characters?

The Blessing Cup

Only with clothing, (women in dresses, men in slacks) but this is representative of the time period.

The men and women are not dressed better or worse within the same social class.

The Skin You Live In

None on most illustrations

Girls in dresses in a few illustrations

Girls and boys wearing different swimming clothes

Too Many Tamales

Girls/women are dressed in dresses and bows

Boys/men have on slacks

Is the message in each book the same for males and females? If it is different, what is the difference and why do you think the difference was created?

The Blessing Cup

Yes, the message of unity with one’s family is the same for all of the characters.

The Skin You Live In

Yes, the message of acceptance of all skin colors and the appreciation of the skin you are personally born in is the same for both males and females

Too Many Tamales

Yes, the message of honesty and trying to correct one’s mistakes is the same for both girls and boys

Lastly, how and why do you consider these books to be multicultural books?

The Blessing Cup

I consider this a multicultural book because it takes place in Russia with a Jewish family.

The Skin You Live In

I considered this a multicultural book because racial acceptance is the only focus of the story.

Too Many Tamales

This book is considered multicultural because it takes place in a Hispanic-American household.