Conclude

I really enjoyed learning new insights about what's more to just learning and reading the morals of children's books. What I mean is that before joining this class I've always thought the kind of messages that children books gave were on the surface of the issues. However now I know that there are many in depth meaning for each of these books. It is interesting to find out how heavy the meaning is and how it portrays everyday issues that everyone faces. This definitely provided a unique way of perceiving problems in a rated G form.

Differences in Relation to the Counter Narrative Text

I read the Korean Cinderella story by Shirley Climo. The protagonist of the story, Pear Blossom is a beautiful girl who lost her mother. Her stepmother and stepsister hate her because of her beauty and make her do impossible chores. Luckily, Pear Blossom has the help of Togkabis, magical creatures, to help her accomplish each task. In the end Pear Blossom marries the prince. However, my counter narrative tale will not focus on the step sister who is the 'nice one
 of the story. Whereas the stepmother and the father's daughter to be the 'mean ones' in the story. Furthermore I will not be having neither "Togkabis" nor magic related things in the story rather having the father be that hero for the stepdaughter. 

Community Observations :)

Stepping into a local library and bookstore I was surprised for a few things. I felt as though depending on the location, the rearrangement and the placement of the books are different and the number of copies for certain books were different as well. I chose to only observe he 'basement' of the Barnes & Nobel bookstore in the Teen/young reader and children section because it is a huge bookstore with 2~3 other levels of books. May of the fictional books were portraying either a white or black of both genders. However when i came to the horror and the 'crime' genre books section many of the book portrayed more of the other races. 

So when you entered, the teen fiction books were placed in the center of the room where as the horror and crime fictional books were located on the left wall. When walking in further more of the picture books were on the right and the young readers' novels and newbury award novels were in the far right, in a tight corner space by the restrooms.

In the Young Readers' Section I have noticed that the most diverse range of books are the Newbery Award Winners Novels and in the New Young Release section, although, in their Local Favorites section there weren't many diverse books; only around one or two books were categorized as 'diverse' . Through my observation it seems to be like this because some novels are historically important for readers to be familiarized of what happened in the past. Last week I briefly visited the Barnes & Noble in Rockville last weekend and I noticed that in their Local Favorites section there were books based on different cultures and race. Many areas in Montgomery County are Multiculturally diverse but I believe that areas like Bethesda and Friendship heights it's difficult to look for that highlight issues such as racism or sexism in the Local Favorites Section. In the Children's Section it is a little racially diverse than that young reader's section. The Children's section seems to be sending out a message that everyone is different and each person has their story to tell. There were books that most races can relate to. On the other hand, children's books appear to emphasize on 'sexism'. There were books like What to doodle? GIRL STUFF!, The Girls' Doodle Book and The Boys' Doodle Book..

In the library, I felt that what people called "diversity" were African American folklore or changing some of the original characters into multiracial characters in some of retold stories of fairy tales. I have only noticed that the majority of the multicultural books were only located in the adult section where it had both fictional and non-fictional books, most of which were autobiographies or biographies that would entail or help in a student's paper. I did not realize that there were so few books or it was hard to find books for an asian-american child can relate to. But then again, not many asian-americans live in the same area as where the library is located. 

In these website presents a multiple of other websites that specifically help students who are in need to improving in a certain area of their reading and writing abilities. Also if you search for all-time favorite children's books you would find that many of the website displays for the famous american folk tales, fairy tales and book series.  I've notices that these well-known and most popular books are based off of white and black people. I know I may sound very sensitive of the ethnicity differences but as a child I was always exposed to these kinds of books and always wondered if there were books with asian people in it. So, when I got older I was either bemused or surprised that there were some chapter books that related with the asian culture like A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park. I didn't know that Korean-American authors existed because I had this 'stereotypical' idea implanted that most Asians' occupation were either related to math, science, history (become a lawyer) or the media but never literature. 

http://school.discoveryeducation.com/schrockguide/arts/artlit.html

http://www.ala.org/gwstemplate.cfm?section=greatwebsites&template=/cfapps/gws/displaysection.cfm&sec=19

http://www.grimmfairytales.com/en/main

http://www.pbs.org/parents/?gclid=CL7sm4mTmaUCFRZy5QodEhpfHw

But of course, if you go into a tv show program's website bookshelf it would definitely have a different set of books. It's as though it is the most updated version of the new, old and popular books all in one website.