Pretty sure that The Wheel On The School took an early Newbery award, and it’s definitely worth reading as an adult – particularly recommended for elementary school teachers. Do not neglect de Jong’s great On Peppermint Street.
Minn of the Mississippi by Hollings is a visual treat and a wonderful introduction to the connectedness of the living world
Yet older stuff : Elisabeth Nesbit’s books e.g. Five Children and It
YOU TAKE THAT BACK!
Heads up, though, about Asterix. That stuff is racially troublesome. You go, ok, this one is all white people, which isn’t great but it’s better than the alternative but then BAM surprise caricature idiot black pirate.
Granted, it does give you the opportunity to talk with your kids about how some people draw other people as less than human, but it’s a mixed message when you present it as part of an entertaining whole. And of course women are either babes or housewives, with possible exception of Cleopatra but I wouldn’t bet on it.
Anyway, looking forward to checking out the other suggestions.
I’m not a parent myself, but I’ve recommended The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet and Stowaway To The Mushroom Planet to every friend of mine with kids, and lent out my precious original copies of both books.
It’s unfortunate that the quality of the five book series drops off precipitously after the first two.
1970 here, and similar. I wonder if it was that elementary school teachers picked books they read when they were younger. Also, there was this PBS series where excerpts of books would be read while an artist drew pictures based on them - I seem to remember picking several books to read from the selections there (which tended to be from this era even though the show was from the 1970s)
Heads up, turkeybrain - this stuff was produced in the 60s. People didn’t have the awareness of other cultures and nationalities they have now. The Asterix books are largely populated by whites because their readers lived in a white world, where blacks or Asians, on the infrequent occasions they were encountered, were visitors from abroad. To be sure, the Asterix books engage in charicatures of practically every nation in Europe and beyond - the Germans, Spanish, English, Italians, Greeks, etc. etc. - and does so in a lighthearted way that is more gentle ribbing than derogatory. The black pirate may be a buffoon, but so is the entire crew. And each nation Asterix visits has both its vile and heroic characters. Try looking at it as an example of its era, rather than judging it by the harsh light of contemporary standards - and while you’re at it, you might ponder the nature of cartooning and humor itself, and ask yourself if either is possible without dealing in exaggerated characterization or broad-brushed depictions of people and events.
Did you really just ask me to consider whether or not cartooning is categorically possible without drawing yellow insectile Chinese villains, hook-nosed Jews or darky Black people? Man, you need to get your meds adjusted.
And nope, all races do NOT get dehumanized equally. At absolute best, half of the non-white characters of the week are admirable, or named. At worst, it’s the omnipresent black.pirate,
And and no, I didn’t say “don’t read this shit.” I said if your kids read Asterix, you’re going to want to help them isolate and process the surprisingly toxic parts of it. Or not, if you aren’t interested in kickstarting your kids’ healthy attitudes towards people of color or women.
What I said is that all cartooning is, in some measure, a stereotype. Cartooning is about drawing funny pictures, which by default require exaggeration. There’s a big difference between the way other races are depicted in something like Asterix and the way Asians were depicted by Milt Caniff in Steve Canyon and Terry and the Pirates. I don’t think the run-of-the mill Egyptians in “Cleopatra,” for instance, were any more demeaning than the anonymous Romans that appeared in every strip. And the ENTIRE PIRATE CREW are morons - that’s the joke. Get a grip and off your high horse.
So these French stories existed in a vacuum outside of French colonialism in Africa and Asia?
You seem to be saying that Asterix is not problematic. Are you really saying this? If so, do you also believe it is ok to dehumanize people of color or women? This is stuff I need to know to continue this discussion or end it immediately.
Then end it. You’re saying cartooning and humor is in itself problematic. I’m saying that while there were definitely cartoons and characterizations that were grossly offensive and dehumanizing - Milt Caniff’s portrayals of Asians being an example - to claim that exaggerated, humorous illustrations of human beings are automatically dehumanizing is strident and puritanical. Silly drawings are going to look silly. Are you saying we should only have silly drawings of white people?
And in your initial message, you were most definitely saying “don’t read this shit”
That doesn’t actually excuse anything. Well, okay, if we’re judging pure literary value I do think it’s fair to consider the standards of the time when it was written. Goscinny and Uderzo were decent folks by their own lights, and I like Asterix comics for the most part. But if you’re thinking about what influences you want to expose your kids to, then racism is racism regardless of when it was written.
And the problem with the black pirate isn’t that he’s a doofus, it’s that he’s drawn like a classic racist caricature. If you have a Chinese character with chrome yellow skin, squinty eyes, and buck teeth, that’s racist regardless of the character’s actions.
Look - is the way the black pirate is drawn fundamentally any different from Obelix? No. For that matter, how could the pirate be drawn as a humorous character in a style consistent with the rest of the strip, which you would not take offense at? I doubt it can be done. All the characters are drawn “funny,” and the ones who are foils are presented as even more ridiculous. That’s not racism, that’s cartooning - unfortunately, some hypersensitive types don’t get the difference.
Yes! Obelix doesn’t have enormous fire-engine-red lips.
What you’re trying to say is that there’s nothing inherently offensive about a coal-black character with bulging red lips. It doesn’t inherently say that this character is stupid or savage, as a more ape-like or caveman-like portrayal might have done. And you’re correct about that, and it does make this a less offensive portrayal than it could have been. I don’t actually think Goscinny and Uderzo were racist assholes (as far as I know, at least); they were just, as you say, men of their time following the conventions of their time, and making some darn good comics in the process.
The problem is, symbolism doesn’t exist in a vacuum. There’s nothing inherently offensive about a bent cross, either, but the Nazis’ antics imprinted a meaning on that innocent geometric figure. The specific image of a black dude with huge red lips is racist because it was used extensively in racist contexts. Note, also, that Uderzo’s style generally doesn’t have prominent lips (or, often, any lips at all). It’s only that character who has them. If he had looked pretty much like Obelix except for being black, there wouldn’t be a problem.
Here’s another interesting point: the four main pirates are caricatures of the main characters of the French pirate comic Barbe Rouge. Wikipedia has a side-by-side comparison. Barbe Rouge used a much more realistic style, but the Asterix versions of the three white characters are still clearly identifiable by their prominent features–Barbe Rouge’s beard, Triple Patte’s nose and chin, etc.
The only characteristic the black pirate shares with Baba is that they’re both black. There’s no attempt to caricature the original character’s face. It’s just assumed that being black is his most notable feature, and black comic characters are supposed to have lips like two big red bananas, so there you go.
Actually, Obelix has a huge lower lip - hangs right out over his chin. In fact, lots of the Asterix characters have really fat lower lips - it’s an exaggeration of a fairly common facial feature.
I hadn’t known the pirates were based on another comic. Even so, all the caricatures are pretty exaggerated and ridiculous.
I think the bigger point though, is that the Asterix comics were driven by playing around with the cultural traits of nations and people all over the world - and did so in a way that was gentle and fun - light teasing instead of trash talk, as it were. Rather than dehumanizing, it took as its canvas all of humanity and its various habits, foibles and passions and used them to create stories that celebrated those cultures while making a few jokes at their expense at the same time. I don’t see anything wrong with that. Unfortunately, that sort of thing is completely verboten these days and I think we’re the poorer for it.
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