Ethnic-racial difference in Brazilian children’s literature: an analysis of three contemporary approaches

Abstract

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14244/198271991111

In the current scenario of Brazilian children’s literature production, there is a significant increase in the number of books that address ethnic and racial issues, which may be seen as a likely consequence of the laws establishing the teaching of Afro-Brazilian, African and Indian history and culture at schools. The aim of this paper is to analyze how Brazilian contemporary children's literature has been approaching ethnic-racial issues. Based on the analysis of 22 recent works published in Brazil, three main approaches to ethnic issues were detected. According to the first one, ethnic difference triggers racism on the part of some characters and this works as the narrative conflict. Throughout the plot, the conflict is always overcome, what suggests a clear lesson of goodwill and/or of acceptance of the different. In a second approach, black children characters are placed into narrative plots whose main conflicts do not arise directly from ethnic-racial issues. In these books, blackness is not characterized as an element that triggers conflicts, but it is part of a broader aesthetic intention. The third approach proposes a rather celebratory manner of representing diversity and difference. In these works, the specific issue of ethnic difference is approached together with other issues related to diversity and differences.

Key words: Children's literature, Ethnic-racial issues, Difference.