My response to "Can you recommend a book about Columbus?"

I get email from people asking me to recommend a good book about Christopher Columbus. Far too many books depict him as a hero. He wasn't, but people in the US ignore the horrible things he did (if they know about them, that is!). Sounds a lot like the way people in the US and elsewhere, too, are responding to the current president of the US. Does ignoring the problems in people like Columbus make it possible for a nation to ignore the problems in someone like trump?

Columbus did not "discover" America. That's an easy error to spot. With that in mind, I'm trying to come up with a critical literacy lesson that teachers can do to help their students develop the skills to read critically. Here's what I've roughed out so far:

First, get as many different Christopher Columbus picture books as you can, from libraries, yard sales, or used bookstores. Old or new, it doesn't matter. They're easy to get from online booksellers.

Second, create a large chart. In the first column, put the title of one of the books and do that for all the others you want to use. You can use as many as you want. This is a group activity. If you have the option of putting an image of the cover in that column, do that, too. The second column will be for the year the book was published (you'll need to do a mini-lesson on where to find that information in the book). The third column will be for a page number, the fourth column will be for notes. The chart might look something like this:

Third, create and deliver a short lesson that teaches students that Columbus did not "discover" America. Tailor that lesson to the students in your particular grade level. You can do this activity at different grade levels--using picture books or chapter books. If you use picture books and your students are 6th graders, you can frame this as "the books your little brothers and sisters will see..." Back (at 3:05 PM Central time) to strongly add that picture books are not only for little children. Thanks to Jillian Heise for reminding me of that important fact.

Fourth, put students in groups. Show them the chart. Distribute the books (one or two per group, depending on how many you have). Tell them to look for the first occurrence of "discover" in the book they will use in their group. Write the page number(s) on the chart. Step back to do an overall appraisal of that data: how many books use it, what year they were published in, etc.

Fifth, ask them about the language used to describe Columbus. Add that info to the 4th column, and then invite a discussion about the findings.

So... that's what I have for now. Have you seen -- or done -- this sort of activity with students? If so, let me know! I bet Jess5th has! I'll ask and see.

Stephen Krensky's CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS

As I write this post, Stephen Krensky's Christopher Columbus is ranked at #1 in e-book biographies for children. The paperback edition is ranked at #3 in historical biographies for children.

I'll start by saying that I don't recommend Krensky's book.

It was first published in 1991 in Random House's "Step Into Reading" series. At first read, you might think the book is ok, but I want to walk through the book, pausing at certain parts. On one page, we read:

There are people on the island.
Columbus calls them Indians
because he thinks he has reached
the Indies.
He names the island San Salvador.
He says it now belongs to Spain.

On the next page, Krensky writes:

But the island really belongs
to the people who live there.

See? Krensky essentially says "wait up Christopher, you're wrong about that!" Sounds good, doesn't it?

Don't be taken in! It might seem like Krensky is giving us something different from the "Columbus discovered America" myth, but... let's keep reading.

Columbus notices that some of the Indians are wearing what appears to be gold, so he pushes on, to look for gold. He visits other islands and:

He meets more Indians.
Most are helpful and friendly.

Most? Who isn't helpful or friendly to Columbus? And why were they not helpful or friendly? Krensky doesn't say.

Skip ahead a few pages to where Columbus is gonna return to Spain:

The ships are already loaded
with many new kinds of food--
corn, potatoes, peanuts,
papayas, avocados.
Columbus has also forced
six Indians to come with him.
People in Spain have never
seen Indians.

Krensky tells us that Columbus is taking Indians to Spain so people can see them? Why didn't Krensky rebut those last two lines, like he did earlier when he said that the island really belonged to the people who lived there?

Skipping ahead again, Columbus is back in Spain where he "is a hero." The last page is:

For the rest of his life,
Columbus never knows
how truly great
his discovery is.
He has really found a new world--
a world that no one in Europe knew about.
It is called America!

"Discovery"? "[F]ound a new world"??? I can hear defenders say "but Krensky says it was new to people in Europe! Leave poor Krensky (and Columbus) alone, you mean woman! You leftist liberal!"

Does Krensky want kids to feel sorry for Columbus because he didn't (according to Krensky) know how great his "discovery" was?! On one page, in one place, Krensky pushed back on the Columbus myth, but everywhere else? He just told the same-old-story!

Krensky's book, as noted earlier, is in the "Step Into Reading" series. Books like it are ones designed to help kids become independent readers. Christopher Columbus is a "Step 3" book. That means it is for kids in grades 1-3. Becoming an independent reader is a powerful moment in a person's life. Books that help with that process can take on a lot of emotional weight. They did for me, and likely for you, too. Go to the library. Get one that you read. See what sorts of strings it tugs as you turn its pages. The frightening thing is that a reader can also develop emotional attachment to the content of books like this.

Even more frightening is the information I shared at the very top of this post. This is a best selling book. It was first published in 1991 (no doubt to coincide with the 500 year "anniversary" of Columbus "discovery" of the "New World") and it still going strong.

Do you know of a book for independent readers, or a picture book, that honestly presents information about Christopher Columbus? Betsy Bird at SLJ says she's just learned of one that might do a better job of telling readers about Columbus. Due out in January of 2015, we'll have to wait and see.

In the meantime, those of you with older or capable readers can get Thomas King's brilliant Coyote Columbus Story. I recommended it in 2006.

If your child comes home today with coloring sheets of Columbus and you want to push back on what he/she was taught, the Zinn Education Project has an excellent page of resources.

Picture Books about Christopher Columbus

Earlier this week, a colleague wrote to me about a new picture book about Christopher Columbus. This morning, I was e-talking with Annette Wanamaker, editor of Children's Literature in Education, about an article in CLE about Columbus! I read it right away.

In "The Columbus Myth: Power and Ideology in Picturebooks About Christopher Columbus," Christina M. Desai shares results of her analysis of depictions of Columbus in picturebooks published since 1992. She looked at a representative sample of over 30 books and found that little has changed. Native peoples are still being misrepresented and stereotyped.

She also points to something very troubling:

In her defense of humanities education, Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities, Nussbaum (2010) warns that, as emphasis on the humanities declines in the U.S., curricula are increasingly designed to advance economic growth. She posits that such curricula will "present national ambition, especially ambition for wealth, as a great good, and will downplay issues of poverty and global accountability" (p. 21). The books examined here certainly exemplify such a curriculum and promote its agenda, by glorifying conquest and profit at the expense of ideals such as human rights and self determination.

That paragraph reminded me of Floca's Locomotive. Though his picture book is about early trains in the US, it is also about conquest and profit at the expense of Native peoples. Locomotive won the Caldecott Medal this year. I found it lacking. Floca responded to my critique.

I think Floca's win and Desai's article tell us how little we've come in terms of a humane society. If you don't have access to Children's Literature in Education, ask your librarian to get a copy of Desai's article. It has a lot to mull over for those of us who read, review, and recommend children's books.

Here's the citation:
Desai, Christina M. (2014). "The Columbus Myth: Power and Ideology in Picturebooks About Christopher Columbus," Children's Literature in Education. DOI: 10.1007/s10583-014-9216-0.