I've written before about Singing Wheels--the iconic textbook from my fourth-grade years. It's a kind of Eric Sloane for kids-- a reader-friendly look at life on the frontier in the early 19th century, as a town comes into being with a blacksmith, a sawmill, and a gristmill, adding in time a teacher and a cobbler.
There are lots of line drawing cataloguing the clothes and implements of daily life, as well as color illustrations showing the myriad activities of the settlers--travel by stagecoach, spinning, hog butchering, bridge building, on and on.
I thought it might be good to try it on Josie--she has the reading vocabulary to deal with it--though she may be daunted by the density of the text,
So I began to reread it and almost right away, my woke sensibilities hit (see above) a silly woman having trouble telling her left from her right. Hmm. Okay, I'll let that slide, particularly as the other women in the story are admirable, but I don't like it.
Then Tom asked his father if there were any Indians around and was told "the government bought their lands and moved them west. . ."
Oh, how much double-dealing and misery is dismissed in the sentence. While I'm not sure of the best way to explain to a child the Trail of Tears and the terrible treatment of the Native Americans, I couldn't just leave it at this.
And then there's the chapter where wolves are killing the livestock and the men and boys surround them and kill them all. Yikes!
I know, I know, back then it was a matter of survival for the settlers. Today it's about the survival of an endangered species. Weird how that works.
Still, I think I'll hold off on offering Singing Wheels to Josie just yet.
5 comments:
Even the Bobbsey twins if you think about it. Or the beloved Little House on the Prairie series.
Not to mention all the fairy tales where ugly=bad. And the hero (Jack) is the hero because he steals from the ugly giant.
It's funny we can't squeeze our woke minds back into the tube of mis-written history. Perhaps there should be lots of footnotes added somehow. I'm glad you've decided to hold off on educating a young mind into the subset of those beliefs.
Sometimes it's better to leave such things in the past. Keep Josie focused on the values you and her parents want her to have. I've bought a just- published book for Josie's birthday box that includes history in a context that I hope she will enjoy. It's called Cousins in the Time of Magic, and it's about three very different cousins on a time travel adventure. It's been highly praised for presenting history in a way that kids can understand. It's a text-only book for ages 8-12, and I think Josie is old enough to appreciate it. Maybe it's something the two of you can read together.
That sounds terrific!
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