African childrens book


Something makes me very annoyed and pissed off!

Since Leo is now becoming more aware of his surroundings, he is very curious and is busy
 discovering the world. Out of this reason we decided to start reading books for him. The last
 time we tried, he was six months (I thought it was a good idea to start early). Well it didn´t worked 
out good, he wanted to tear the book down and ended up banging on it, it just wasn’t possible.
 I think he's a bit more ready now; he shows an interest in books he looks curiously at the pictures
 and we´re able to catch his attention for some minutes before he would begin to tear the book down.
 A good start, I think.
African childrens book

Oh well, now back to the issue that makes me angry and have left me with a huge disappointment.
 We do have a lot of great books from the Go boken that sends books as the child's grows. I´ v had 
some truly thoughts about this thing about books, and I shortly came to the decision to look for books
 that feature children of color. I really don´t remember having that kind of book as a child. All the books
 I came across as I child were all featuring white children’s having blue eyes, long straight hair that i learned 
to crave for.

I really wanted to see what’s there for us since I never came across it before. With that in mind 
I truly looked forward to shop around for books that portray the world my son lives in. We´ve 
been visiting a lot of bookstores, checked around on the net without any results, despites 
some written in English, don’t think Leo is ready for some English lessons yet.

Very upsetting. But we didn’t give up. After having no luck at the bookstore we decided to check with
 the library, at least they must have some book that illustrates a baby of colour. We searched, searched
 and searched.  No books! Frustrated, I headed to the librarian and asked why they don´t offer such books. 
The librarian gave us some weird explanations.... don’t even want to go into it at this instant. Eventually, 
she looked at me with a big questions mark on her head explaining that probably it’s simply because there 
are no big demand for such books. How can there be no demand for such books is that really the whole 
truth? I mean are there not a single person, any black parents in Sweden demanding
 books that illustrate their brownbaby.

Where are the African Children's Books? Yes, where are they? For what
 I just experienced they are not where they should be, in every child's hands.

Why does it concern me this much; Well I do believe that this kind of books offers an opportunity
 for identification to the reading child, but not only that, by reading the child also get the ability to think 
"beyond" and broader. We need pictures and stories that show our children that they do exist with African 
colours. Just like any other kid. I think it´s extremely important that our children need to open a book and
 see black people. But it´s also extremely important that European children can open a book and 
read about black children to.

Not being able to offer my son this, (not giving up yet) of course saddens me, and it
 also opened up for a reality that no parent wishes their child; that my son already being learnt how to
 live in exclusion. The question is. What are you as a parent doing about it, what´s you’re opinion
 as a parent and how can we make it better?

I am grateful for some book recommendations if anyone managed to get hold
 of one. This post got longer than I expected it to. But now at least I got the chance
 to get out my BIG frustration.










2 kommentarer:

  1. I believe what the librarian answered you is the truth, in sweden there is not alot of black people to start with and you have to ask yourself how many of them read to their childern or are even thinking about what you are thinking. Im saying this because in America or in the UK you can find alot of books for brown kids, and that is because there is a whole lot more black people there.
    so maybe you should try order some books from america or UK. one good author is Rachel Isadora.
    or maybe this could be something that you can take upon and change in sweden, make black people there awear of this and try to change it.

    stay blessed x

    SvaraRadera
    Svar
    1. It´s true that we’re not as many. But I don´t think Sweden can be comparable with the U.S. and UK, which both has a stretched history with blacks. In my opinion there are sufficient African- swedes neither less in Scandinavian that should care more about how our children are valued in the society. Even though there are some books for children of colure in the US. And U.K. they are still battling with this issue. As you state; maybe the problem is that many doesn’t read to their children. And that of course leads to the question why. Why don’t we read to our kids? Sure, it's up to each one to determine that. Reading aloud and sharing stories with your child is a great way to spend time together. Even better, reading and storytelling Helps to promote language, literacy and brain development. This is a good thread to continue on. Thanks for sharing you´re view, i´ll defiantly checkup the author.

      Radera