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CULTURAL COMPETENCY AND RESPONSIVENESS * 2 HOURS * LEVEL 2

Mildred D. Taylor and Cultural Awareness

Page 9

Taylor Books and Awareness

Now that we know about worldviews, biases, prejudices, and why literature can help with cultural awareness let’s talk about specifics. Mildred D. Taylor books are some of the most recognizable pieces of children’s literature in the United States.

Not only do they speak volumes to children of all backgrounds but they provide something that is sadly lacking in the literary world. ​
According to the Cooperative Children's Book Center at the School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison, in 2015 there were 3,200 children’s books released by US publishing companies. Shockingly, of those released books only 105 were written by African American authors and 243 were written about African American main characters. To put this in perspective, that makes only 7.5% of books written with African American main characters and 3.3% written by African American authors. 
Mildred D. Taylor is not the only African American children’s author, even with the very small number of African American authors in the US. There are many to choose from which provide picture books for smaller school-age children and chapter books for older ones. Including these books in a school-age program either as a free choice of reading or as required reading with lesson plans is crucial to creating cultural awareness. 
You may or may not have a diverse group of children to work with but that doesn’t mean that cultural awareness is any less important. ​
In fact, having less of a diverse group makes it even more important to be cognizant of cultural awareness. 
The reason is that a culturally diverse setting creates awareness and respect almost naturally. A setting without as much diversity is lacking in that area and should be supplemented. Taylor books and others like it give the perfect opportunity to do this.
The Logan family (the family of main characters in nine of Taylor’s books) are relatable, likable, and realistic. This makes them easy characters for children of all backgrounds to want to read about and follow through their fictional journey. Another aspect of the Logan family’s appeal is that they go through events and situations that actually happened to many people during the Jim Crowe South. The frightening, unjust, and terrible things that were commonplace during that time in American history are interesting and tragic enough to make them desirable. This sounds strange, but children want to read about real events and if they are boring or usual they often lose interest. Mildred D. Taylor books are anything but boring!