Blog Assignment #2 INFO 5421 By: Duke Wojcik
Book #1
Illustrations: The illustrations in this book are visibly hand-drawn, especially in the very front and back of the book wherein there are pages that demonstrate each character being drawn. The level of art being applied here is quite simple, so simple that a child reader could easily emulate; and as I'll explain later, this is intentional and more or less the theme of the book itself.
Setting: The story takes place in an obvious imaginary overlay of a child going on a camping trip, with the imaginary theme being medieval times where they are a knight. It's easy to imagine kids imagining themselves as brave knights going on adventures in real life, I know I sure as hell did, so this immediately grabs its young audience.
Content/Themes: As I stated above, the simple art style is intentional. This book focuses on demonstrating to young readers how graphic novels are illustrated. Some panels show the unnamed protagonist performing actions such as jumping and climbing to get from Point A to B with drawn visual cues such as motion lines, with little else happening to distract the reader from it. As mentioned, the front and back of the book feature pages with sketches of each character doing various actions, and encourage the reader to try their hand at drawing them. As a result, this book acts more so as a referential point for potential budding graphic designers. The book's advertised story is the least important part of it.
Reference: Sturm, J., Arnold, A., & Frederick-Frost, A. (2015). Sleepless Knight (Strum, J. et al, Illus.). First Second.
Book #2
Questions and Feeling About: Autism
By: Louise Spilsbury. Illustrated by: Ximena Jeria
Category: This is my Disabilities/Differences book.
Target Audience: PreK-K
Summary: This is a non-fiction book that goes into simple detail about the experiences of children with Autism.
Why I Chose This Book: This was a personal pick for me, as I am on the Autism spectrum. I'm always a tad worried about how media portrays people like me, especially with the alarming popularity of Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory, a character whom I can only describe as the autistic equivalent of Blackface. It's important that kids understand early on what good portrayal looks like, so I picked this up for assessment.
Evaluation: I'll be evaluating this book based on: Illustrations, Language, and Accuracy.
Illustrations: The art style of this book is very soft, which is to say that shapes aren't particularly sharp, and colors aren't particularly loud in presentation. With the target audience being so young, this easiness on the eyes is a good thing so as to avoid potential overstimulation. It happens to be thematically relevant, as autistic people are known for being easily overstimulated, so it can thought of as an example of what an autistic child the reader's age might be able to tolerate.
Language: The language used in this book to describe autistic succeeds in being both explanative and humanizing. It explains how autistic kids might struggle while keeping on the same level of human as other children, in particular by way of asking the child reader how they feel about a subject after explaining how an autistic kid may experience. More broadly however, the book asserts that everyone is different, autism or no, which I think is the most important takeaway anyone can receive from a book like this.
Accuracy: Speaking from my own experience, I can attest that Autism is such a widely varied experience that there's really no one way to accurately portray it, so long as its not stigmatizing in any way of course. So while this book's lack of depth is necessary to introduce Autism to younger children, I appreciate the consequential lack of tropifying attitude that'd show us off like a museum exhibit rather than a group of people.
While I have personal nitpicks with, say, the dime-a-dozen example of autistic people being sensitive to loud noises (because obviously people general, autism or no, must LOVE sudden, grating, loud noises coming out of nowhere😒), the depiction of what may bother or confuse an autistic child and how one may connect with them rather than "help" them as autism is some malady to be cured like a plague, made me breathe a huge sigh of relief. There's even notes to adult readers explaining how one might connect to an autistic child in their care without putting those kids in any boxes, which I especially appreciate.
Reference: Spilsbury, L. (2020). Questions and Feeling About: Autism (Jeria, X., Illus.). Capstone.
Cover: Though it's a common, or at least predictable sight, the use of the word 'rainbow', with it's seven letters each being one of the seven colors of the rainbow is cleverly used. While the use of many people is appropriate for a book about many people, it does feel kinda crowded.
Characters: The 'characters' in this non-fiction book are each and every historical figure whom each have their page that briefly describes their lives and contributions. What I like most is how the figures are likened more so to their actions as people than their LGBTQ+ identities. In modern times, a common pitfall in media representation of marginalized people is writing characters whose only identity is... well their identity, with no humanizing characteristics whatsoever, to the point that it often results in an offensive caricature. To see these people described as LGBTQ+ and celebrated for their contributions is the best way to humanize them.
Language: As I just stated, the language used on each page is descriptive and humanizing of the historical figures being exhibited, sometimes using exclamations in a celebratory manner when discussing their achievements. There are times where cultural context will be given as supplementary informing about gender identity, such as Francisco Manicongo being described as a "jimbandaa", which is simply an Angolan word for a gay man who wears women's clothes. It's a great window into how other cultures view LGBTQ+ issues.
Reference: Prager, S. (May 25, 2020). Rainbow Revolutionaries: 50 LGBTQ+ People Who Made History (Papworth, S., Illus.). Harper Collins.
Book #4
Psalms of Wonder: Poems from the Book of Songs
By: Carey Wallace. Illustrated by: Khoa Le
Category: This is my Poetry book.
Target Audience: Elementary school-aged children
Summary: This book pulls a selection of Psalms from the biblical Book of Psalms and comprises them into five different collections based on a specified theme, such as Joy, Courage, etc. It's a similar vein to a constructed church sermon, and is catered towards kids for that purpose.
Why I Chose This Book: I'm vocally against the idea of teaching religion to children, especially Christianity, knowing firsthand how harmful it can be long-term. However, I've been proven wrong by things before, so I picked up this book to see how it discusses faith in the Judeo-Christian god to young readers.
Evaluation: I will be evaluating this book based on: Illustrations, Content, and Language.
Illustrations: On their own, the illustrations in this book are lovely and peaceful images with soft edges and coloring, fitting for the content it's meant to supplement. But I find that they really didn't do much for the context of the pages, and that they're there just to look pretty. The only profound use of imagery I could find was how the chapter title pages had nature imagery that one could coincide with the chapter's theme, such as a mountain symbolizing courage and a tree symbolizing protection, but even that's up to interpretation.
Content: To better understand what the author is conveying to kids, I consulted a bible I happen to have on my shelf for comparison. For the record, it's a New King James version.
What I found was that the Psalms selected, while reworded more simply for a child to digest, were virtually unchanged in terms of context. I might as well have been reading another version of the bible. Speaking of, one thing my adult bible has over this collection of Psalms for kids is that it actually has read-along references that give some historical and literary context to what you're reading.
Wallace's book just expects it's child readers to either have an adult reading with them to explain to them, as if to have a preacher at a sermon, or to just be happy to be reading about God's ambiguous will that many adults can't seem to decide on how to interpret. This indirectly takes agency away from the child reader as they are forced to seek context for the overcomplicated vocabulary that an adult can interpret for them, making the child vulnerable to potentially ill-intentioned viewpoints being groomed into them.
Language: The language found in this book supplements my argument about the content. The bible has already been heavily scrutinized for it's confusing and often contradictory language, so the fact that little was done to rewrite and/or recontextualize it for child readers is only a disservice.
An example of it being especially jarring can be found in it's version of Psalm 24, particularly Verse 6. My New King James bible reads it as, "This is Jacob, the generation of those who seek Him. Who seek Your face.". Whereas in the Wallace version here, it reads, "This generation seeks God and hunts for your presence.".
Both versions of the passage insinuate that the current generation, not specifically old or young, are seeking salvation through Christian faith, but the Wallace version's phrasing feels more forceful with it's use of "hunts for your presence". An especially young and impressionable child reading that might feel convinced, even frightened into believing that they and their peers should be pursuing faith simply because a vehement passage said so.
References:
Wallace, C. (2023). Psalms of Wonder: Poems from the Book of Songs (Le, K. Illus.). Flyaway Books.
Holy Bible, New King James Version. (1982). Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Book #5
Sex is a Funny Word: A Book About Bodies, Feelings, and You
By: Cory Silverberg. Illustrated by: Fiona Smyth
Category: This my Banned Book entry.
Target Audience: Elementary school-aged kids.
Summary: This is an edutainment book regarding sex ed.
Why I Chose This Book: With sex ed becoming a hotter topic, both in terms of people realizing how important quality sex ed is early on, and in terms of how much abusive adults want to suppress it for various reasons related to control, it's imperative that books like these are top notch and unapologetic in their content. With Robie Harris's It's Perfectly Normal being too old to fit this assignment's criteria, I sought out another sex ed book for kids, and found this one on the ALA's website after searching for banned books.
Evaluation: I'll be evaluating this book based on: Illustrations, Content, and Language.
Illustrations: The art style of this book is very much to it's benefit. It's simple, yet colorful. The amount of colors might overstimulate some, but it comes in handy when differentiating people and objects, which is beneficial for the subject matter. For example: when the book shows images of body parts associated with sex ed, the simplistic art style makes it so that the images achieve anatomical accuracy while not being too visceral for a younger ready to look at- it's not medical school after all.
Content: The book is rich with sex ed subject matter that is briefly, but succinctly explained. I especially enjoy how the teacher character in the beginning explains that learning about your body and sex is like going to a fair, in that it can't all be done in one day and can be either scary or exciting. The various subject matters are touched on just enough that the instruction is clear, but allows the young readers a lot of room to interpret for themselves, with characters asking them how they feel about the subject at the end of a chapter.
The best part is that the book doesn't shy away from it's subject matter. It approaches it's young audience with the topic of sex ed as if it were any other subject to engage with. This is important, as it familiarizes sex ed with children early on, making it far less of an awkward topic. The Netherlands start their sex ed with children as early as four years old, which studies have shown to directly correlate with the country having some of, if not the lowest rates of teen pregnancy, STI's, and HIV (Katz, A. 2018).
The only thing I gripe with this book on is that fact that queer subject matter is almost entirely reserved for the glossary. While the glossary defines specific sexualities and gender terms well, it's still a cursory glance compared to everything else discussed.
Language: Much the book is narrated by child characters, whom thus speak in simpler, but no less informative terms to connect with and engage the child reader. Even when the narration is given a 3rd-person voice that speaks in non-fiction, the language used is never so complicated. More importantly, it never shames the reader for having feelings about the subject matter at all.
References:
Silverberg, C. (July 28, 2015). Sex is a funny word: A book about bodies, feelings, and you (Smyth, F. (Illus.). Seven Stories Press.
Katz, A. (July 19, 2018). Sex ed goes global: The Netherlands. Duke, The Center for Global Reproductive Health. Sex Ed Goes Global: the Netherlands – Global Reproductive Health at Duke
Comments
Post a Comment