Sabotabby? (Awesome books that aren't for Nice White Ladies.)
I have this mentor who I love, who's kids, both girls, are 9 and 14. These kids know that money doesn't grow on trees and they are Canadian kids, with Japanese and Canadian First Nations heritage.
One of them was telling me about a book she was reading at school, and realized that these kids are old enough for all of the classic kids books we've been holding on to for so long. Madeleine l'Engle? Monica Hughes? Gordon Korman? Narnia? Diane Duane?
And then I had this thought. And I don't know if I'm right or wrong, so I wanted to check with you, my amazing and socially conscious compatriots. Are all these amazing books written for little white kids about little white kids? Throw in some assumptions about secure housing and familial situations for good measure, maybe. Or worse, through in some insecure family situations in which children are none the less having all their needs met and living in comfort and security - and whining about it. So there's both the question of whether these books would be of interest to these girls... and the question of whether, if they were, they would be helping or hindering.
Sabotabby, I know you teach kids, maybe older kids, but still kids, with a wide variety of backgrounds. What do you think of our "childhood classics"? Anything you'd recommend for recreational reading that I might not of thought of? Anything I've listed above that is actually more appropriate then I worry it might be?
It's a piss off that being a white feminist is still tantamount to being a race and class ignoramus. Worse yet when something like favorite childhood novels reach out from the grave to shake priviledge in your face. =(