Critical Multicultural Analysis of Children's Literature

Language, Culture, and Teaching

by Maria José Botelho, Masha Kabakow Rudman

"Children’s literature is a contested terrain, as is multicultural education. Taken together, they pose a formidable challenge to both classroom teachers and academics…. Rather than deny the inherent conflicts and tensions in the field, in Critical Multicultural Analysis of Children’s Literature: Mirrors, Windows, and Doors, Maria José Botelho and Masha Kabakow Rudman confront, deconstruct, and reconstruct these terrains by proposing a reframing of the field…. Surely all of us – children, teachers, and academics – can benefit from this more expansive understanding of what it means to read books." Sonia Nieto, From the Foreword Critical multicultural analysis provides a philosophical shift for teaching literature, constructing curriculum, and taking up issues of diversity and social justice. It problematizes children’s literature, offers a way of reading power, explores the complex web of sociopolitical relations, and deconstructs taken-for-granted assumptions about language, meaning, reading, and literature: it is literary study as sociopolitical change. Bringing a critical lens to the study of multiculturalism in children’s literature, this book prepares teachers, teacher educators, and researchers of children’s literature to analyze the ideological dimensions of reading and studying literature. Each chapter includes recommendations for classroom application, classroom research, and further reading. Helpful end-of-book appendixes include a list of children’s book awards, lists of publishers, diagrams of the power continuum and the theoretical framework of critical multicultural analysis, and lists of selected children’s literature journals and online resources.

Genres: Nonfiction, Education

376 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2009

About the author

Maria José Botelho, Ed.D., was a faculty member at the Ontario Institute of Studies in Education of the University of Toronto and is currently Assistant Professor of Literacy Education in the Language, Literacy, and Culture Concentration of School of Education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Reviews

[Ebony Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

I use this textbook in my master's level Literature for Children and Adolescents course. While I do not agree with the authors on every topic, this text really has helped my students move beyond nostalgia and simplistic means of selecting and evaluating kidlit for the classroom, lab, and/or library.

[Keren · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first 5 chapters were torture, even though the ideas are interesting. Chapters 6-10 were more interesting. This book would greatly benefit from more practical implications and explicit instructions for how to teach this type of analysis at various educational levels.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned a great deal from this book about history, literacy, young people's literature, and critical reading through the lens of power, race, gender, and class. The shear number of academic citations are well worth diving into too! Many of the concepts were new to me and some were concepts I had heard of but didn't know their origins which was helpful to find so I can reference them.

The book is a dense read. Some chapters were more helpful for me then others. If you are interested in becoming a more critical reader of texts and developing a deeper understanding of the historic and systemic problems in young people's literature, this book and its sources can help you learn more and hopefully inspire you to act on what you have learned.

[D. DeTo · Rating 3 out of 5]

This text does a deep dive into the analysis of multicultural literature. However, I find it very repetitive. I used it one semester in a graduate course and I found it didn't meet the needs of my students. My students are all teachers and teachers are busy people. My students are not researchers but practitioners. They need a more explicit text that summarizes the research and provides them with many more text recommendations that they can bring into their classrooms. I stopped using this text for my class.

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am using this book in my course "Young Adult Literature in a Multicultural World: Focus on Indigenous Texts," and I find it invaluable for helping my students read with a critical lens.

[Edward · Rating 2 out of 5]

The writing style has a lot to be desired: repetitive and unnecessarily wordy. Theoretically dense but the substance is repetitive with enough vagueness to frustrate students. Needs stronger connections to reality.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every teacher should read this book. Yes, it's a textbook. Yes, it's expensive. Yes, there are parts you have to skip because it's too dense. BUT THIS IS A GREAT BOOK AND YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE THAT STUFF YOU DON'T KNOW!!!

[Dana Fontaine · Rating 1 out of 5]

Unbearable.

[Gretchen Hohmeyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book by accident for my MA thesis through a professional development event for my MS degree. Thank you to the thesis gods for smiling upon me this once. Now about those deadlines...

[Sunah Chung · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book introduces the concept of critical multicultural analysis when it comes to studying children’s literature. Since literature reflects dominant beliefs of contemporary society, and contents are socially constructed, it is imperative to read and teach children’s books with critical perspectives. The authors provide affluent examples of critical multicultural literature regarding race, class, and gender. Historical backgrounds of school literacies are also helpful for me to understand children’s literature in the USA. It is good to know that some scholars raise a question that the concept of “multicultural” and “otherness” because it could be considered as a term from white middle class perspective. Moreover, useful resources are provided at the end of the book, including a list of book awards and related websites.