Authenticity And Accuracy In Children's Literature

Authenticity and accuracy is one approach to ethnic representation in children’s literature that truly challenged me. While looking over the key terms and controversies, before reading further into the discussion, I tried to answer the questions presented to me. “What counts as authentic representation? To what extent is authenticity possible? Who determines whether a text or textual element is authentic or not? How do authenticity and accuracy affect the meaning or composition of texts?” (359) After observing the questions, I got excited to sit down and spill out words of wisdom on the topic, but then I realized I had no clue as to what made something authentic. I began to ask myself more questions, is it important that something is authentic? Will it make a …show more content…
(369) I couldn’t help but struggle with the idea that perhaps missing the bigger picture is beneficial in the sense that it does not so harshly categorize a group. Does a bigger picture truly even exist when, “authenticity can be difficult, if not impossible, to determine, in part because members of a group might have a range of ideas about what qualities or practices are critical to a culture or identity.”(369) Hintz and Tribunella state that, “nevertheless, writing ethnic children’s literature requires thoughtfulness and care, and reading it critically entails being conscious of how readers might contest the accuracy or authenticity of a work and how contested details bear on the meaning of the work.” (369) From what I gathered from the reading is that authenticity, like I mentioned early, is extremely hard to define in an overall picture. Hintz and Tribunella seem to encourage a writer and reader to focus on that particular novel and topic of the novel to achieve the most accurate work and