Children’s historical books can serve many purposes. They can teach children about history, as well as develop emotion and empathy about figures from the past. In “Recreating the Past,” Evelyn Freeman and Linda Levstik argue that children’s historical fiction fosters ongoing process of historical interpretation in which the child is an active participant (pg. 331). From my own experience as a child reading historical fiction, fiction can also help the reader project into another world and develop a contextualized understanding about the past by thinking of one’s self as part of it. While we, as educators, historians, and theorists, recognize that historical fiction cannot be ingested uncritically, historical fiction still serves as an entry point into the past for many children in ways that are more colourful, creative, and emotional than traditional public history or curriculum.
But I question whether children’s history books cultivate an understanding of the past as distinct unconnected experiences, which then act as a barrier for understanding more contextualized history later in life. In particular, with books that present “other” or “difficult” parts of the Canadian past, are these books serving as narrative interventions or intersections into the traditional stories of the nation? Or, in our use and reading of children’s history books, do we unwittingly create and ratify the distinction between Canadian history and “other” histories in Canada?
In a series of three posts, I will explore a selection of children’s books on particular topics of “other” histories in Canada. My intention is not just to critique children’s books, but to deconstruct the semiotics of the historic spaces that get created through this medium. The series explores how these histories are positioned in the nation and how we can use this understanding to enhance our teaching of contextualized and problematized histories of the nation.
It was a CBC Indigenous post on children’s books about Residential Schools that first got me thinking about this topic, so I thought I would begin the series here. Continue reading
Back in 2011, I wrote an article in the Ottawa Citizen arguing that hyperbole didn’t work in Canadian political life. In the midst of the Stop Harper movement, I felt that words like ‘dictator’ were counterproductive. If you want to challenge somebody’s politics, then do so in a rationale, reasonable way that focuses on the issues at hand. In the five years since, our social media dominated #/media/File:Reception_of_the_American_Loyalists.jpg)
In September the All Party Parliamentary Group on Drug Policy Reform in the UK stated there was “