Sunday, October 4, 2009
The Rabbits' Wedding
The Rabbit's Wedding, written and illustrated by Garth Williams, is a beautiful children's book whose theme touches lightly on interracial marriage. As silly as it seems, some people view this as controversial, because a white rabbit and a black rabbit get married. For children, I hope this story is just a story about two rabbits who love each other and get married. We are all different, but that does not mean we can't love each other because we're different. It would be nice if we could read stories like this to our kids, and simply integrate it into their schemas of how the world looks, that families and couples are different everywhere you look. I think that it would be pretty hard for a parent to have a complaint about this book honored, at least in Iowa City, because isn't the goal of a well rounded education to show kids new possibilities? I think that as teachers sometimes it's important to choose books like this, but to not necessarily exploit the book for messages; just make it a book to be read and shared to kids, let it become part of their schema. The message can sink in over time.
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I agree with you completely. I think that all too often lifestyles, people, and things that are outside the “norm” are not represented in a normal context. For example, in most books, the parents are of the same race. In books that this is not the case, the topic of the book will probably be interracial marriage. There aren’t very many books in which the couple just happens to be interracial but that is not what the book is about. It seems like in this book it just happens that the bunnies are two different colors, and I agree with you that it is just good to read without necessarily trying to take a message from it. I also agree with what you said about schema, and I think it is a little bit upsetting that this book is considered controversial.
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