{"id":107425,"date":"2017-05-04T12:36:56","date_gmt":"2017-05-04T16:36:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=107425"},"modified":"2021-02-09T17:27:13","modified_gmt":"2021-02-09T22:27:13","slug":"look-what-we-found-krista-aronsons-controversial-childrens-picture-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2017\/05\/04\/look-what-we-found-krista-aronsons-controversial-childrens-picture-book\/","title":{"rendered":"Look What We Found: Krista Aronson’s controversial children’s book"},"content":{"rendered":"

Associate Professor of Psychology Krista Aronson has a copy of the children\u2019s book A Birthday Cake for George Washington<\/em> on a shelf in her third-floor Pettengill Hall office \u2014 but she doesn\u2019t necessarily want your child reading it.<\/p>\n

Written by\u00a0<\/span>Ramin Ganeshram\u00a0<\/span>and illustrated by Vanessa Brantley-Newton, A Birthday Cake for George Washington<\/em> tells a fanciful story about two real people: George Washington and one of his slaves, a chef named Hercules whose daughter narrates the tale. Published by Scholastic in January 2016, it was recalled 12 days later over criticisms for its dishonest portrayal of slavery.<\/p>\n

For example, an often-published illustration from the book shows George Washington with his arm around Hercules after Washington has finished eating a cake made by his slave. \u201cIt depicts them kind of arm in arm, smiling at one another with affection, in a manner that\u2019s historically dishonest,\u201d says Aronson.<\/p>\n

\"170504_Krista_Aronson_Book_0047\"<\/a>

Associate Professor of Psychology Krista Aronson uses the recalled book A Birthday Cake for George Washington<\/em> as a teaching tool. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College<\/p><\/div>\n

Aronson is an expert in diverse children\u2019s literature who co-founded the Picture Book Project, a one-of-a-kind collection of 1,500 children\u2019s books in the Bates library published since 2002 featuring racially diverse characters.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is the only circulating library collection of its kind,\u201d says Aronson, who co-founded the project with Brenna Callahan \u201915, who devoted her thesis to the topic, and children\u2019s book author Anne Sibley O\u2019Brien.<\/p>\n

While a stereotypical depiction of a \u201chappy slave\u201d is the well-known cause of A Birthday Cake<\/em>\u2019s downfall, the book helps Aronson teach her students about a wide range of ideas related to diverse picture books.<\/p>\n

For example, there are ideas about \u201cpicture books as historical, social, and artistic artifacts, and the known disconnect between author and illustrator in the picture-book process,\u201d she explains, not to mention “accuracy and authenticity within diverse picture books.”<\/p>\n

\"170504_Krista_Aronson_Book_0011\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The book also provides a platform for discussing the publishing industry and the challenges of publishing diverse books.<\/p>\n

\u201cStatistics indicate that the publishing industry is predominantly, if not nearly exclusively, white,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to evaluate the quality of a diverse book when you don\u2019t share that group\u2019s history, experience and perspective. It\u2019s really helpful in that regard for helping these issues come alive for students.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Birthday Cake<\/em> episode offers a \u201cmoment for everyone to pause and think about what improvements we can make both to children\u2019s literature and the publication process, and that\u2019s what I focus on,\u201d Aronson says.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s talked to Scholastic, and finds that making progress is what the publisher focuses on too. \u201cHow can we do this better next time?\u201d Aronson asks. \u201cI just want the books to come out, and the conversation to continue, and the books to improve.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Psychology professor Krista Aronson has a copy of A Birthday Cake for George Washington<\/em> \u2014 but she doesn\u2019t necessarily want your child reading it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":107435,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[4,234],"tags":[11351,11321],"class_list":["post-107425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-life","category-teaching-education","tag-krista-aronson","tag-look-what-we-found"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/91"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107425"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107425\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":107687,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107425\/revisions\/107687"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}