Author Archives: j.marienfeld

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Little Black Sambo

“Once upon a time there was a little black boy, and his name was Little Black Sambo.  And his mother was called Black Mumbo.  And his father was called Black Jumbo (Bannerman, 2-6).”  It doesn’t take long, the first line of the story in fact, for the reader to realize that these are some unusual names, that come across as demeaning to black people.  To me, these sound like either slave names, or one’s that only an uneducated group would come up with.  These characters are depicted in the drawings as very animal-like in their appearance.

Little Black Sambo was given some very nice clothing and an umbrella from both of his parents, which he cherished.  After this he went out for a walk, in his new gear, when he was suddenly stopped by a tiger.  The tiger threatened to eat Sambo, but Sambo was able to negotiate with the beast and give it his coat instead.  Later Sambo was stopped by three more tigers, one after the other, and he had to give away all of his clothing and his umbrella in order to avoid being eaten.  I felt that this was similar to slavery, in the sense that the tigers took something that did not belong to them and that they had no right in doing so.  Blacks were taken from their home lands and brought to the U.S. to work for free, under horrible conditions.

I’m sure that it wasn’t the author of The Story of Little Black Sambo, Helen Bannerman, intention to have such a dark message.  It was probably meant to be a cute and funny story that a parent could read with their young child, but it dehumanizes black people with the silly names and odd looking drawings.

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Alice’s Transition to Adulthood

Lewis Carroll’s story of  Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is jam-packed with situations in which Alice must make a simple decision.  This “simple” decision oftentimes involves mysterious foods and liquids; and whether or not to consume them.  Alice tends to eat/drink whatever is offered to her just because she was told to do so.  She doesn’t consider the consequences and more often than not has to deal with them.

As Alice ingests these foods she would either shrink or grow by tremendous amounts.  This growth/decrease in size represents Alice going through puberty in real life.  As Alice’s size constantly changes throughout the story so does her mindset.  Alice is not ready to become an adult just yet and regularly cries as she keeps changing from big to small and then back again.

Since Alice cannot  come to terms with becoming an adult and all the responsibilities that go along with that, she shows typical adolescent behaviors.  She is insensitive to the feelings and anxieties of others.  She demonstrates an over inflated sense of self and superiority, when comparing herself to others.  She is also moody, temperamental, and cries in response to change.  At length Alice seems to come to terms with the challenges that she is facing.  She realizes that she is in the middle of a dream and that she will eventually wake up to a new and familiar sense of normalcy.

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“Little Annie’s Ramble”

Little Annie’s Ramble, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is another outstanding example of a children’s story that can be  further appreciated and understood from an adult perspective.  Annie is a little girl that loves a good adventure.  So when she hears that exotic animals from all over the world have been shipped into her town she is immediately drawn in.  Annie and her neighbor, a much older man who has lost a child’s perspective on the wonders of life, head into town with expectations of the fantastic .  They explore the exotic animals, wonder in the colorful displays and each finds a sense of awe in their individual perspectives.

It isn’t until the town crier’s second appearance that the narrator, also the young girl’s companion, realizes that they had left home without notifying the child’s parents.  Each of them was so lost in the spectacle of the circus-she in the present, and he in the past- that reality had been displaced by the marvelous.

Unlike some of the other stories that we have read, I believe that the narrator’s intentions were very innocent.  The old man didn’t want to do anything creepy with little Annie, but instead sought to rekindle his own childlike sense of wonderment that he saw in the young daughter of his good friends.  It was a great bonding experience between an adult and a child.  And, it afforded an opportunity to revisit his own youthful spirit and take a break from his own dreary ponderings  of adulthood.

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Jackson’s Blog “Kiddie Lit” Preface and Chapter 1

The Author, Beverly Leon Clark, underwent an enormous change of opinion regarding her thought on children’s literature.  She mentioned that as a graduate student she “wouldn’t be caught dead reading children’s literature.” (Clark, Kiddie Lit, Preface).  Clark’s friend, who became president of the Children’s Literature Association, was influential in changing her mind about how she viewed that genre of literature.

The author ironically titles her book Kiddie Lit, highlighting the juxtaposition of the word kiddie- a “condescending and more than a little supercilious” term with the abbreviation lit- short for literature, a classic and noteworthy piece of written text (Clark, Chapter 1).  Children hate being referred to as kids, or even worse kiddies, because they feel demeaned.  Likewise, literature, or “lit” as Clark writes, infers higher level, complex prose – something that seems beyond the comprehension and appreciation of children.   By no means is this Clark’s intention from the title.

Another unlikely comparison is introduced when Clark goes on to compare women in patriarchal society to children.  She states the fact that they are both often ignored and overlooked.  However, Clark points out that there is one important distinction to be made about children:  where male children can grow out of childhood the females may grow to be women, yet are stuck in their lesser, societal roles.

Historically, women like children were viewed as “innocent, fragile, temptable, and therefore in need of molding.”  (Acocella, Little People)   Times are changing.  People’s attitudes toward women and children have changed as well.  Likewise, people’s attitudes toward Kiddie Lit have changed.  Clark states “My aim here is not to be comprehensive but to offer comprehensive case studies, in-depth analysis that, in concert, reveal the complexity of changing attitude towards children and children’s literature.” (Clark, Chapter 1).

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Jackson’s Blog on “Little People”

This article goes to great lengths to compare the theories and research of several major sociologists and anthropologists on when we started treating children like children.  At one point they were viewed as mini-adults with responsibilities and roles to play.  Then they became “innocent, fragile, and temptable” beings (Joan Acocella, Little People) who needed protection and guidance.  One might ask- what sparked this transition from independent being, to practically helpless individual?  The author suggests that in reality kids have always been kids.  Society and it’s flaws have determined whether or not they had the freedom to act like children.  Infant mortality, poverty, illegitimacy, religion, even marriage norms all contributed to the quality of life of children throughout history.

I found that I appreciated the author’s perspective and sense of irony when he wrote “while disposing of your child was easy, getting rid of your spouse was next to impossible.” (Joan Acocella, Little People).  After all, what did it matter if one author believed children were too coddled and another disagreed.  Societal factors such as; poverty, fear of social stigma, and religious constraints caused women to abandon or dispose permanently of their children.  And that was okay.  Yet, marriage was to be endured regardless of abuse, infidelity or incompatibility.

Joan Acocella makes sure that the reader not only remembers the continuity or sentimentalist theory, but that historical factors determined the lifestyle of children.