Anti-Bias Children's Lit Part 1: Females and STEM Representation
4:15 PM
The most recent school project in my Children &
Diversity class had me searching for an anti-bias children's book to present to
the class. Anti-Bias Curriculum: Tools For Empowering Young Children states
that an anti-biased book is one that promotes diversity in society in "racial, ethnic, gender, economic class, sexual
orientation, and disability." With that simple definition, this looked
like an easy project on paper, but when I set out to find such a book, I found myself underwhelmed by the selection available for
ages 3 to 5.
I read Ish and Grace for
President, which I loved, but found the illustrations for Ish to
be too small for presentation to a preschool classroom, and Grace for
President to be too advanced for preschoolers, despite it being in the
preschooler section. I landed on two books: Ada Twist, Scientist and
Interstellar Cinderella.
I thought these would be perfect, as I was aware of
the lack of females and POC in STEM careers, with only 29% of STEM careerholders being female and only 11% of career holders being POC.
Interstellar Cinderella
First, there was Interstellar Cinderella. I was drawn to IC by its beautiful illustrations by Meg Hunt, and the promise of a feminist and sci-fi retelling of Cinderella by Deborah Underwood.
The book itself is covered edge to edge in
beautiful, colorful mid-century inspired illustrations and a foil
stamped title next to the titular character herself, Cinderella, zooming
through space. The book
opens up to Cinderella’s toolbox on the inside front and back covers, showing
everything Cinderella uses to fix robots and ships. The character design is
easily discernable from the rich backgrounds. Cinderella, while being a girl
interested in science, is not portrayed as masculine or in a stereotypical nerd
fashion. She is pink haired and enjoys feminine yet utilitarian clothing, and
even her space suit features jewels and matching accessories. The author and
illustrator make an understated point that science is not an inherently
masculine field, and to be involved does not mean a girl has to cast away all
traces of what she views as feminine in order to be legitimized in said fields.
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| Some of the best children's lit illustrations I've seen in a while! |
The story starts with Cinderella
dreaming about working on space ships, and dives right into a rhyming tale that
entertains and keeps a pleasant pace. While the theme of Cinderella and some
basic characters remain the same, it is obvious that this story is not about a
girl waiting to be rescued by a Prince from an oppressive life; Cinderella
spends her days working on robots and learning space ship repair for fun. When
the Prince arrives in the galactic neighborhood for a parade, Cinderella is
told she can’t go because the family space ship is too small. She is told to
fix a broken ship and make her own way, but then her tools are stolen…by her
stepmother and sisters.
Her helpful robot mouse sends out a
message to the cosmos, and Cinderella’s Fairy God-Robot arrives with a new
space suit and tools for Cinderella to fix the ship herself, which she does.
She heads off to the parade and arrives just in time, as the Prince’s ship is
broken and smoking. Cinderella fixes the ship and attends an anti-gravity ball,
but like the traditional Cinderella stories, she is also under a time limit for
the evening. She zooms off, leaving the Prince bewildered as to where she went
with only her socket wrench as a clue. He searches high and low for her, and
when he does find her, he asks her to be his bride, but Cinderella states that
she is too young for marriage. Instead, she says she wants to be his Chief
Mechanic, and builds a whole space fleet with her engineering skills, making
her own dreams come true.
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| While this Cinderella cried, Interstellar Cinderella got to work and fixed her own spaceship. |
While I found this rendition of Cinderella
charming, and possibly the closest I’ll ever see of a feminist retelling of the
fairy tale, I was concerned two things, one of them being Cinderella's relationship with the POC Prince.
The Prince had no name and existed only to need help from Cinderella. Teaching
For Change asks that when considering anti-bias books to look at the
relationships between characters, and this dynamic – the POC needing help from
a white person - is considered a trope to look out for.
The second point that I was concerned with were the
stepfamily’s portrayal.
This trio of women aren't given any
development in this book, and are labeled as wicked to give the reader any idea
as to who or what they are. They are portrayed to be conniving and
narcissistic, much as their previous incarnations had been. Wicked stepmothers
and stepsisters is a trope that is exploited in fairy tales and beyond, and
paints a horrible picture of stepmothers being the evil other, unable to hold a
candle to the biological original. That isn't to say that narcissistic mothers
and triangulating family dynamics don't exist. They do, and are a source of
emotional and psychological abuse to children. In a way, Cinderella's nemeses
are a picture of real life instances, but they are not all encompassing.
I was waiting for a spin on this tradition, but
Interstellar Cinderella didn't deliver. I wanted the stepmother and sisters to
be wowed by their youngest sister's intelligence and drive, and to be inspired
by what they once feared. I was waiting for the celebration of mutual female
empowerment, where Cinderella's strengths were honored and in so doing, the
sister's strengths could come to light. I wanted there to be a happy ending
between these four, painting a coming to terms in a tale of female relational
violence. Instead, the evil trio were as dimension-less as ever, and were not
indicative of real people. They were to be laughed at and forgotten.
So, Interstellar Cinderella was not to be presented for this project.
Ada Twist, Scientist
The next book, Ada Twist,Scientist, fared better when it came to meeting Anti-Bias Curriculum’s
requirements.
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| Can we take a moment to appreciate Ada's big bro here? |
Author Andrea Beaty creates a fun,
rhyming story centered around the young Ada Marie Twist, named after the
world’s first computer programmer, Ada Lovelace, and famed chemist, Marie
Curie. The hardbound, jacketed book opens up to lovely illustrations by David
Roberts which are a delight unto themselves.
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| Ada was programming computers before it was cool. |
From the start, it is obvious that Ada is
going to be a handful; she hasn’t got much to say, but climbs and explores to
her heart's content, much to her family’s chagrin. Ada’s first word is, “Why?”
and once it is out, the questions do not stop. Ada wants to know why everything
is the way it is, from why things are named what they are to why there are
hairs growing out of her dad’s nose. She then moves into other questions, and
starts experimenting to find answers to those questions.
Nothing hinders her curiosity, and
she brazenly sets off colorful Mentos soda geysers in her classroom, dissects
her family’s dinner, and perfumes her cat, all in the name of scientific
discovery. Her parents are at their wits end, not sure what to do with their
curious child, and have her take a time out to think about what she has done.
But you can’t stop a thinker like Ada, and she soon utilizes the nearby wall to
draw out the plans for her next experiment.
Her parents realize that when faced
with someone as curious and as determined as Ada, instead of trying to make Ada
change to fit their needs, they needed to change to fit hers. They pick up
books and learn more about science, and encourage Ada to keep on exploring.
I found this to be a refreshing
resolution to the conflict presented in the book, one that I have rarely seen
in children’s books, and less so presented in a way that could be in any way
realistic. Ada’s parents - who reflect possibly many parents out there who don’t
want messes, and possibly think of little girls as not interested in science at
all - realize in a quick and wise manner that their line of thinking needed to change. They could have enforced
rules to keep Ada away from mess-making and science, and handed down
punishments, restrictions, or other authoritarian measures to keep her
“in line”. But instead of a cowed child they possibly would have saddled her with a
lifelong resentment, and potentially caused further problems down the line.
What’s worse, these actions have the
potential of damaging someone as determined and intelligent as Ada, and kept
her from realizing her true potential as a scientist as she grew up, if that continued to be an interest for her.
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| As the importance of STEM gets more awareness, I hope to find more books like Ada Twist, Scientist on the book shelves, for all ages. |
I absolutely loved Ada.
I think it met every single requirement of Anti-Bias Curriculum, and I
was fully prepared to present this book to class, as I was unable to find any
other book like it for preschoolers. Alas, I couldn’t, as it was for ages 5 and
up, and despite a letter from Andrea Beaty herself explaining that younger children still loved the book, I decided not to present it
as it didn’t fit the requirements of the assignment.
So the search was on, again. I
decided to turn towards other themes, but that’s a blog for another day…
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