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Multicultural Literature and the Politics of Reaction by Joel Taxel - 1997The social climate of the United States of today is dramatically different from that
which gave birth to multicultural children’s literature. Conservatism’s rise to political
ascendancy has sharpened the contentious “culture wars?that surround virtu-ally
all aspects of American culture. One important dimension of today’s conservative
movement is a backlash against the multicultural movement. Conservative
defenders of the traditional literary canon, for example, see multicultural literature
as a threat to the very fabric of Western civilization. Within children’s literature circles,
charges abound that advocates of multicultural literature are ignoring traditional
literary values and are focusing instead on ill-defined notions of “political
correctness. ?This article explores this complex issue and the challenges it poses to
those concerned with the creation, production, distribution, and consumption of
children’s literature. The discussion addresses questions that speak to the very
nature and function of children’s literature: its status as art, as entertainment, as a
source of role models and ideology for children’s “impressionable?minds. Also discussed
is the relation between the politically charged question of whether books about
African Americans are to be written only by African Americans, books about Native
Americans by Native Americans, and so forth, and the freedom of writers to write
without restriction.To view the full-text for this article you must be signed-in with the appropriate membership. Please review your options below:
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- Joel Taxel
The University of Georgia
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