“In Search of Peace”: Refugee Experiences in Children's Literature

Abstract

The authors closely analyzed 45 children's books featuring characters with refugee backgrounds that had been published since 2013. With the concept of culturally sustaining pedagogy underpinning the review, analysis revealed that these texts are rich and detailed, providing a starting point for discussing the global refugee crisis with students, but they occasionally fall short in providing complex, multidimensional representations of characters’ lives and experiences. A majority of the texts analyzed focus on the journey in search of a safe place to live, whereas very few focus on the complexity of making a life in a new place. The findings highlight the importance of identifying texts that provide complexity, dimension, and specificity in depicting experiences of refugee‐background characters across settings. Opening classrooms to texts about the diversity of refugee experiences invites teachers and their students to critically explore the important global issues of migration, equity, and ways of being human.

Lessons Learned from a Review of Diverse Literature in The Reading Teacher (2015–2020)

“…Ward and Warren (2020) analyzed the representation of characters with refugee backgrounds in books for children in grades K‐5 published between 2013 and 2018. They determined that children’s literature tended to be organized by the character’s journey, in which the character and his/her family seek refuge in a new country, or the character’s creation of a new life in the country they have relocated to.…”

Dual‐Language Books as a Red Herring: Exposing Language Use and Ideologies

“…In a pedagogical evolution for more equitable and culturally sustaining biliteracy development (Paris, 2012; Ward & Warren, 2020), the linguistic organization of DLBs must be interrogated. The linguistic typology that we provide is a useful tool for highlighting the ubiquitous nature of the under‐questioned separation of languages in DLBs and the implicit linguistic hierarchy that is a result.…”

“…By providing both languages, but separating them and privileging English over the other language, DLBs are a red herring of English hegemony—a powerful process that can act to silence students’ languages and identities. Questioning this process is a needed change in stance and practice if we are to achieve culturally sustaining pedagogy that makes “teaching and learning relevant and responsive to the languages, literacies, and cultural practices of students across categories of difference and (in)equality” (Paris, 2012, p. 93).…”

Access to Multicultural Children’s Literature During COVID‐19

“…"When children read books that are interesting and meaningful to them, they can find support for the process of defining themselves as individuals and understanding their developing roles within their families and communities" (Hefflin & Barksdale-Ladd, 2001, p. 810). Books as mirrors, in which students see themselves, affirm their identity and their importance in school; books as windows, in which students see others, offer opportunities to learn about others' similarities and differences from ones represented in students' community (Bennett, Gunn, Gayle-Evans, Barrera, & Leung, 2018;Bishop, 1990Bishop, , 1992Gunn, Bennett, & van Beynen, 2020;Gunn, Brice, & Peterson, 2014;Ward & Warren, 2020).…”