April 2000

The list of "One Hundred Books That Shaped the Century" is a great idea. However, one title included, The Five Chinese Brothers (Putnam, 1938) does not belong because it is full of stereotypes. A Chinese-American colleague at the Benjamin S. Rosenthal Library [Queen's College, NY] brought this to my attention.

In 1990, Margaret Mahy published The Seven Chinese Brothers (Scholastic, 1992) as a demonstration of how not to be stereotypic. Back in the days when the Council on Interracial Books was functioning, reviewer Dr. Albert V. Schwartz (Interracial Books for Children Bulletin, no. 3, vol. 8, pp. 3-7, 1977) quoted Nancy Larrick, author of A Parent's Guide to Children's Reading, who omitted the [original] title in her 1975 edition. Larrick said: "Looking at The Five Chinese Brothers more critically, I find I now object to the stereotypes." Many scholarly colleagues hailed this book in the past, while some of us say "hold on!" Is this book similar to the old stereotypical volumes before we knew any better? Any comments are welcome.

I am a librarian and department chair in a public school district in Pennsylvania. Our state has few requirements for staffing librarians or maintaining libraries in public school districts. We cannot find people with library degrees to fill positions. Added to this problem is the all-out assault on public education headed by Governor [Tom] Ridge and enforced by his clueless Secretary of Education, [Eugene] Hickock. Governor Ridge has a broken arm from patting himself on the back, in recognition of his improvements of "rigorous academic standards" for Pennsylvania. Libraries in schools are not mentioned. You're right, the jobs are there, the people to fill them are not. The American Library Association's off the mark, again. If you feel the need for a pen pal just let me know. The truth is out there!

We disagree that the material and discussions "march over... well-trod ground." Other than the William Bennett books, the power of folktales and storytelling in addressing issues of character development is virtually untapped. With the rash of school shootings in America last year, it seems that the material is worth marching over again--by a different route.

We also disagree with the reviewer's statement that our book is "narrower in scope" than William Bennett's books. While his books present a wide variety of folktales to help teach a number of moral and ethical concepts, this alone does not make his books wider in scope than The Moral of the Story. Not only do we provide stories, we detail activities and discussions which can help teachers and parents further the understanding of these concepts. Whereas Dr. Bennett is recognized as a force in American education, he is not a professional storyteller. We are--we have been telling stories nationally and internationally to children of all ages for a combined total of over 37 years. The book was based on our experience with these children, and the evidence that we have seen for ourselves of the power of story to change lives. In the "story notes" which follow each tale, we share activities developed during actual experiences working with kids of all ages, and we recount the reactions and responses of those children. This book is not theoretical assumptions or an academic exercise--it is a practical, down-to-earth, and user-friendly guidebook to using these stories successfully. We also discuss the value and strategies of teaching children to tell stories as a tool for character education--and that is totally new territory.

We hope that librarians and media specialists who dismissed our book because they read that it was simply treading over the same old ground will reconsider. We believe that it provides a refreshing approach to using folktales and storytelling to make character education fun, enjoyable, non-didactic, and remarkably effective.

The Norfolks' letter is twice as long as my largely favorable review. Aside from wanting to toot their own horns at greater length, their major question seems to be about how pervasive this type of material is in the literature. The use of folktales to try to teach values is a well-trod path, stretching back to pre-literate societies. Whether one can "use" any literature to change behavior or to promote a certain point, however, is still and always has been debatable.