There is a sprawling and volatile discussion going on right now in America on race and racism. It is a discussion that has been ongoing and rising in crescendo since Phyllis Wheatley penned her gentle early lines in the 1700’s:
Some view our sable race with scornful eye,
"Their colour is a diabolic dye."
Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain,
May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train. (From "On Being Brought from Africa to America")
What in your life has taught you empathy for people of different races and ethnicities?
For me, it was reading. Did you know reading good quality fiction is proven to increase human beings’ empathy? (Not to mention that reading fiction may sharpen one’s mental acuity more than reading a textbook.) I thought about the books that have most helped me to grow in empathy towards other people groups–particularly groups who have been oppressed–and listed those I could remember here. If you want to help your child or young person (or yourself!) grow in empathy, one of the best things you can do is to start them reading.
DISCLAIMER: I have listed the books roughly according to age level, but books are always difficult to categorize that way. I’ve gone with the earliest age I believe could comprehend and enjoy them. The books I’ve labeled “Adolescents” discuss coming of age subjects, and the “Teens and Adults”, adult subjects.
Children
A Lantern in the Window by Aileen Fisher. One of my elementary school teachers read this book to her class for story time. We loved it. Simple and easily understandable to young children, it introduced us to the evils of slavery and to sympathetic Quakers who worked the “Underground Railroad.”
Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis. A nuanced, engaging, powerful story of a plucky black kid in 1936 Flint, Michigan and one of my first introductions to the injustice blacks experienced in the years after slavery. Curtis also wrote The Watsons Go to Birmingham, another great book.
The Didakoi by Rumer Godden has been republished under a new title: Gypsy Girl. I chose to share the image of the old book because I’m sentimental about it. I found it first among the hundreds of books on my parents shelves: an old hardcover book with a story that riveted me. Seven-year-old Kizzy, the “gypsy” girl, sees her home destroyed and her grandmother dead. Alone–terrified, defiant, and exotic–she faces the cruel English world and makes her peace.
Adolescents
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank. Anne is so…human. This young girl and emerging woman, stuffed into a tiny apartment with her parents, older sister, and four other people to hide from Hitler’s death camps, talks about the things we all experience. Fear, anxiety, hope, love, wonder, ambition, annoyance, relational issues, a changing body–all of it crammed into a microcosm of society. Anne talked about things I wasn’t sure were proper to talk about. She expressed the frustration and reality of being human in a way I had never read in a book. She broke my heart.
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. I read this book as an adult because of words of hers I’d found written elsewhere–in an article she wrote on discovering her “otherness.” She wrote, “Then I could speak, shout, laugh from a place that was uniquely mine, that was no one else’s in the history of the universe, that would never be anyone else’s, ever.” Her words gave me courage to write my own otherness. Her book gave me a window into hers. I enjoyed best listening to it on audio book. The words are rhythmic and musical–influenced, she said, by her native Spanish.
Teens and Adults
The Help by Kathryn Stockett. What is life like as a black maid in the South in 1962? I never imagined, before I read this book. Told by three fictional women, two black and one white. Engrossing, humorous, maddening, heart warming.
Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi. This book taught me about the Iranian Revolution, which turned Iran from a progressive, secularizing country to a guarded, fundamentalist one. Can you imagine what it would be to have your freedom to walk and talk in the streets taken from you? To have your clothing choices policed by a morality squad? To have your reading choices limited by the government? University professor Azar Nafisi fought back by forming a reading club with seven female students to discuss forbidden Western classics. This evocative memoir details their experience, and the experience of Iran.
A Thing We Love
This extra large world map hangs on the wall in our living room. Ivan and I both love sitting on the couch opposite and looking at all the places in the world we would like to visit someday. Charlie, of course, would like to come along.
Have you read the series by Mildred Taylor? Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry, Let the Circle be Unbroken, The Land, The Road to Memphis. If you haven’t, I highly recommend them
Janice N.
Thanks for these, Janice.
I second these! I’ve only read/heard the first two, but they are excellent!
Thanks for sharing this, Lucinda!
Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult is one of my favourites. When I look for a fiction book that raises important issues I first want to find an excellent story with a great plot, good pacing, intriguing characters and so on… If an author is able to weave challenging observations and thought provoking comments through such a book in a way that feels organic to the story (e.g. not forced), then, in my mind, that’s a great read!
Totally agree, Holly. Small Great Things is an intriguing title!
Love the wall map!!!
I feel like I grew up wanting to right this wrong in the world. And books played a big part in this education.
“Race” issues are a direct result of evolution-thinking. When we throw away what God tells us in the Bible about history and principle, we are left with this need to order humans on different levels. Diabolical. Please, let it never be among Jesus’ followers.
Our children are avowed Abolitionists- and it helps that we live near a town that was full of abolitionist Quakers and there is so much history to discover. Many houses with secret passageways and stories, great museum. Our children don’t play cops and robbers; they play runaway slaves, slave catchers, and people helping the runaway slaves! Makes a great indoor game! Guess who always wins!!!
That’s awesome! Runaway slaves and slave catchers sounds like a great game.
Thank you for these recommendations, I was looking for children’s books on this for the upcoming school year.
You’re welcome. Happy reading!
When I was in sixth grade our teacher read White Mother to us. It is a true story and made a profound impact on me. Sometimes she would skip portions and I always wondered what they were. As an adult I found the book and read it again. The parts she skipped had to do with things like lynching that she thought were too graphic for our age group. You can read a description of the story here:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32803537-white-mother
Thanks Romaine. I want to order this.
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These are all great recommendations, in the comments as well. I’ll be saving this list and reading them as I can. The adolescent books also….one of my favorite genres.