Children's Literature Reflective Essay

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Prior to taking this class, I knew what diversity was but didn’t realize how much it significance it holds within children’s literature. Over the semester I’ve learned that it is important to represent different cultures without stereotyping in children’s literature. It is important to help children gain a variety of perspectives and see diverse characters being represented while reading and being read to. The textbook for the class states (pg 106) that the influential adults in a child’s life are the people who introduce children to various perspectives included in books. As someone that wants to work with children throughout my life post-college, I want to keep this in mind and try to enrich the diverse content of the books available to young readers. …show more content…
According to chapter four in the textbook, a good multicultural book will accurately and authentically represent diverse cultures. Books can do this by including specific detail that signify the culture correctly. It is important that these details or themes are accurate to the current situations of that book and implemented naturally as well. However, the book should not stereotype by creating characters that represent the diverse cultures explicitly to what is expected of them within the status quo.
Diversity in books shown in many different ways and not just through race and ethnicity. Gender, sexuality, physical or mental ability, family type, and socioeconomic status are just a few other perspectives that could be represented within a diverse book. I read the book Almost Home by Joan Bauer. This tween book represented diverse perspectives from a lower socioeconomic status. It also portrayed the effects of a single-mother family unit with an unstable

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