Racism and Intolerance by Louise SpilsburyMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Are you looking for a gentile way to talk about sensitive topics with little ones. These Children in our World books are an excellent gateway to challenging conversations. "Racism and Intolerance" books is no except. That is why it's my Black History Month pick for 2025.
I loved that this book makes it easy to talk about tough topics.
As a parents with no child care education experience I felt comfortable with the way this book discussed these icky issues with my four year old. She learned some not fun words such as prejudice, racism, passive agression, and intolerance. This opened a discussion about her rights as a person, how we treat people when we are at school and in public, and how no one should ever be treated. As a four year old, she was really curious as to "why" people are so mean to each other. So that opened up a discussion about fairness, and equality.
What I like
I appreciate that this book isn't just black and white. It's brown, yellow, red, and jew too. It shows that these things happen all over the world, including our own back yard and to people who look like members of our family.
The illustrations do a lot of work in these pictures, show both overt discrimination, passive in-tolerance, and passionate hatred and what it leads to.
What I didn't like
I liked most of this book. However, at end some of the suggestions for how to make the world a better place here a little heavy handed. In my opinion the only thing they suggested that most kids can do is be their best selves, treat all people with tolerance, and respect and to try be curious about cultures. However, the book on to suggest that children could sell their own toys to donate to charities. That's a bit much. The book also suggests helping a teach create a world culture day. Such a kid gets beat up at the schools I went to. But they could help a teacher set one up, or suggest one to a teacher. Unless this was a hammy wink-nod at the teacher, I can't image a kid doing this.
Besides that I loved this book.
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