It is a delight to see the growing number of English children's books that reflect the culture, history, and experiences of different ethnic groups, including but not limited to people of various racial, national, tribal, religious, linguistic, and cultural backgrounds. For those who need to be reassured of the value of multicultural children's books, here is what I witnessed in an undergraduate class this spring. The class was introduced to picture books that portray Asian or Asian American cultures. Among the students were first-, second-, and third-generation Asian American immigrants, who found it a pleasant surprise to see their own cultures reflected in children's books. Except for The Five Chinese Brothers and Tikki Tikki Tembo, they said, not many such books reached them when they were young. Looking back, they wished they could have seen themselves in picture books in their childhood.

Similar to the development of African American children's literature, early multicultural books have been created mainly by authors and illustrators that are "cultural outsiders" - such as in the case of Ezra Jack Keats, a white artist, telling stories of African American protagonists. Then increasing "cultural insiders" joined in, picking up pens and brushes to tell stories of their own people and to present images that are culturally sensitive. Bishop observes in 1991, for example, "unlike the 1970s, most of the books about African-Americans currently being published are written and/or illustrated by African-Americans." (p. 34) The purpose of this posting is not to join in the debate on whether cultural outsiders can create work that are culturally authentic, but to point out a couple of cultural, historical, and factual issues I have observed in a few new children's fiction or non-fiction of Chinese topics. At least two of them are highly acclaimed, award-winning books. To people who are outside a particular culture, some of the confusions may seem minor and not even worth clarifying, but to those who have been nurtured by that culture and have a sense of ownership about it, it is important to see any misrepresentation of or misunderstanding about it cleared.

As will be shown, neither cultural outsiders nor insiders are exempt from cultural errors. Some inaccuracies exist probably because creators have taken artistic liberty, misrepresented fact, but not offered any explanation. So far as I know, no book reviewers have bothered to point out these errors or misleading information in them. I hope educators and librarians who may use these books with children will find clarifications in this posting helpful.

A list of reference books is given at the end for further information.

Young, Ed.
Beyond the Great Mountains: A Visual Poem about China. Chronicle Books, c2005.
(Best Children's Books of 2005, Publishers Weekly)

In this picture book that features paper collage illustration, Young introduces the beauty, richness, and imagination of the Chinese hieroglyphic language system. Pictorial characters in seal style, which has a history of 2500 years and is still in use by calligraphers, are given at the bottom of every page. Readers, young or old, will be challenged to compare the images and the hieroglyph-based characters, and to find the connection between them.

The last two characters Young presents are the "middle kingdom," or the Chinese word for "China." The character "kingdom" that Young shows us consists of a character, which he explains is for "jade (on King's crown)," encircled by a square that represents boundary. This, however, is not how the character "kingdom" appeared in seal style 2500 years ago. Somehow, Young has replaced it with a newer and simpler form that became popular much later. The older "kingdom" consists of a character that has its origin from a weapon name - lance or spear, encircled by a boundary. In Chinese, the etymology of "kingdom" is national defense. The character that is given in the book and its explanation do not match, either. Without further ado, I simply point out that the author has "stir fried," likely with deliberation, the forms and explanations of three "kingdoms:" one that is 2500 years old and faithfully represents its etymology, one that became popular later because it has fewer strokes and thus is easier to write, and one that is in Chinese Simplified style, the current official form in use in Mainland China since the 1950s.

Muth, Jon J.
Zen Shorts. Scholastic, 2005.
(2006 Caldecott Honor Book)
[Education S Collection; CCB] Q. SE. M983z

This picture book cleverly adapts stories of Japanese and Chinese religions and philosophies for a young audience. The stories are eloquently told, and the watercolor illustration captures the Zen spirit of meditation. The cultural issue with the book is that Muth takes pleasure in blending cultural symbols of different countries. A giant panda puts on a loose kimono, holds a traditional Japanese-style umbrella (wagasa) under cherry blossoms (or sakura, Japan's unofficial national flower), and tells two tales about Japanese Zen Buddhas and one tale that represents the Chinese philosophy of Taoism. Even though animals do not usually assume nationality, it is a poor decision to employ a giant panda, the national treasure and peace symbol of China, to act as the spokesman of Japanese culture. Since the author makes little effort to clarify the distinct cultural and national origins of his tales, readers are also left wondering why a story of Taoism is classified as Zen. The author may have decided to mix all these elements of "oriental" cultures on the ground of Japanese and Chinese cultures being related. The two cultures have influenced each other and still do. Buddhism, for example, has traveled first from India to China, then from China to Japan, where it prospered, became known as Zen, and later was introduced to Western countries. The two cultures - as any other two cultures in the world, however, do not identify with each other. It is disrespectful and confusing to mix cultural elements from them.

Two other children's books that use these three stories have paid due respect to their cultural origins and sources. Heather Forest includes them in Wisdom Tales from around the World (1996) and provides detailed source information for each. A succinct explanation of the Japanese Zen Buddhism and its Indian and Chinese origins can be found in the book. The third story in Muth's book tells about an old man and his lost horse. It is recorded in Huai Nan Zi edited by Liu An, a Chinese Taoist who lived approximately between 178 B.C.E. and 122 B.C.E. The story is well-known in China and is the basis of a popular Chinese saying, whose message is that you never know what will happen next in your life. Ed Young has illustrated the same story in The Lost Horse: A Chinese Folktale (1998). At the beginning of the picture book, he provides the original Chinese text from Liu An's work.