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The
Reason for Disability: Causes and Effects in the Construction of Identity
in Contemporary American Children's Books One
of Us?: Disabled Protagonists as Outsiders in German and Austrian
Fiction for Children and Young Adults Other
Voices Regular
Features Reading
Promotion: Keeping the Oral Tradition Alive Country
Survey: The Czech Republic The
Changing Image of Czech Children's Literature: The Inter-War Years
Author
Spotlight: "What's Wrong with Him?'' International
Children's Books of Note Dear
Bookbird Reader, Children with disabilities have a right to equal access to books that will help build language and concepts and provide aesthetic pleasure. In analyzing books that employ sign language, Braille, sense of touch, or pictorial symbols as the primary language of communication, Nina Askvig Reidarson emphasizes that alternative books must combine a profound knowledge of the various types and levels of disabilities with literary and artistic competence. Kjersti Engebrigtsen explains the advantages of using the language of movement to teach blind children to "liberate" their bodies through dance. Sheila Eichhoff describes the work of Blindlib in acquiring, producing, and distributing books for blind and visually impaired children in South Africa in order to promote literacy and the culture of reading. How are characters with disabilities represented in children's books? Are they treated as exotic objects or people with ordinary human aspirations and problems? Are their lives shown to be meaningful without focusing on the disability? Do these books serve a purely didactic or informative role? And who is the audience for these books? In most fictional works, the events are viewed from the perspective of the nondisabled characters, while disabled characters are marginalized. The disabled character generally appears as a one-dimensional stereotype instead of as a complex human being, gains acceptance only after performing a heroic or exceptional deed, and is depicted as a burden to society or is patronized by an idealistic yet naive nondisabled person. At times disability is used symbolically to represent evil. Barbara Haberl examines German and Austrian books that employ the motif of the outsider and misfit to present the reactions of nondisabled characters in their relationships with disabled friends or classmates. Massoud Naseri discusses Iranian books that show disabled people facing obstacles and struggling to grow as human beings. Eve Tal presents literary guidelines for evaluating books about disability, stating that they should be judged by the same criteria used for assessing multicultural books about racial, ethnic, and other groups. In linking the representation of disabled people with multiculturalism and the issue of bias-free books, the debate has broadened to include civil rights and the human value of members of society. Because children internalize the images they see in books and the media, Save the Children, an organization with a long history of working toward a better world for children in need, believes that negative representation "reinforces discrimination and contributes to the barriers which exclude disabled people and deny choice."1 In examining the purpose disabled characters serve in recent books published in the United States, Karen Coats finds that they either boost the identity of another character or deconstruct prevalent notions of identity based on autonomy and self-reliance. Nina Christensen discusses the portrayal of children with Down syndrome in picture books by analyzing text-image interaction, literary elements, role of didactic paratexts, and internal contradictions. Both Coats and Christensen see Nan Gregory's How Smudge Came as a refreshing picture book that presents a universal theme from the point of view of a disabled person. The protagonist emerges as a "real" person who seeks help from her community to find the puppy that was taken away from her. The ending emphasizes the importance of collective action to gain personal autonomy, change social attitudes, and participate in political action. For the past twenty years, IBBY has been building an international community of individuals from diverse fields who are committed to promoting good books for disabled young people. In 1981, IBBY cooperated with the Norwegian Postgraduate College for Special Education (now the Department of Special Needs Education, University of Oslo) to produce the catalogue Books and Disabled Children, followed by Books for Language-Retarded Children in 1985. Both projects were led by Tordis Ørjasæter. These activities culminated in the establishment of the IBBY Documentation Centre in Oslo in August 1985. Since then, the Centre, with Nina Askvig Reidarson as director, has produced numerous book lists and four annotated catalogues and has organized international traveling exhibitions. In 1995, Save the Children and Integration Alliance, a British organization (controlled by disabled people) committed to inclusive education, took a strong step toward communal action by organizing a conference on the media representation of disability, "Invisible Children: Joint Conference on Children, Images and Disability." The participants demanded reform and set a new agenda of inclusion. They stressed that first-hand knowledge contributes to a bias-free representation that will help break down barriers and shatter myths. Franz-Joseph Huainigg, who is featured in our Author Spotlight column, gives readers an insider's perspective on disability, thus enabling them to overcome fear, superstition, and ignorance. He believes that children are curious and that the truth of disability must be discussed openly with them. Human beings are diverse in many ways, and if these differences cause problems, then we must recognize and resolve them. Children's books can help build such a community based on understanding, sharing, and mutual respect. Yours
sincerely, 1. Joyce Connor, Foreword, Invisible Children: Report of the Joint Conference on Children, Images and Disability, ed. Richard Rieser (London: Save the Children and Integration Alliance, 1995), 2. |
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