The youth edition here does not meet the needs of school libraries. “I want, I need more children’s books with Asian, black or Arab characters,” analyzes the librarian at the Thousand Islands School Service Center Lyne Rajotte. The Quebec youth edition is making progress towards diversity, and has not yet satisfied the hunger of school libraries. “Literature does not represent the faces we see in our schools. »Too white again, the children’s book from here?
To meet the needs of the 72 libraries she manages, librarian Lyne Rajotte decided four years ago “to buy 100% of children’s books where a child of diversity appears. This book, we acquire it, good or not. We enter 100% of what is non-white in novelties in our libraries. And we have an even bigger budget than what we find on the market. We never manage to empty our envelope ”.
Is there a market there that Quebec publishing cannot capture? This desire to increase racial diversity in Quebec children’s literature would at least be shared by all establishments in Quebec, according to the president of the Association for the Promotion of School Documentary Services (APSDS), Ariane Grenier.
However, several publishers say they also share this desire. About twenty of them signed a letter a year ago, acknowledging “the imbalance between what has been published and the real representativeness of Quebec society”. A committee for cultural diversity was also set up at the National Association of Book Publishers (ANEL) a year ago.
The objective of this committee is threefold, explains Marc-André Audet, publisher of Les Malins. “Improve diversity in our stories, in our teams of authors, in our teams. “Mr. Audet confirms that in” libraries presently, there is certainly more demand than supply. So much the better for racialized authors in Quebec, whose voices are not heard enough at the moment. There is some catching up to do ”.
The publisher continues: “When we look at the color of our novels and covers, of the authors, of the teams, that it does not sufficiently resemble the color of the people that we meet in the streets of Quebec. Between the pages either: Rachel DeRoy-Ringuette had carried out in 2016, for the University of Montreal, a study on the diversity in Quebec children’s literature. Out of 200 titles for 0-11 year olds that she had studied, 18% contained characters of cultural diversity. Of these, only 8% of them actually had an “active” role.
However, in 2018, a study by the Center de transfert pour la rire educative du Québec indicated that “students with an immigrant background (first and second generations) globally constitute more than a quarter of students in Quebec (27%). , and more than 50% of those in Montreal schools ”.
And five years later, diversity in children’s books? ” My feeling, without data, specifies that which teaches future teachers, it is that there has been an evolution. My observations suggest that there are more diverse characters today. “
Have the stereotypes, which she noted very much in 2016, given way? “What we saw at the time was that characters from diverse backgrounds were often behind the scenes. “
Learn by the same
“I have the impression that there are more characters of diversity in the foreground now,” says Mr.me DeRoy-Ringuette. But are these characters offered to experience ordinary things as well? Or if they are always found in exoticization, or segregation, racism, or themes specific to their only diversity? It would be important to know that. “
It is that diversity, explains Mme DeRoy-Ringuette is a tool for learning to read. The specialist is based on the critical analysis of multiculturalism in children’s literature made by Bothelo and Rudman in 2009. “They say there, summarizes the specialist, that there are mirror texts, in which you recognize yourself. Gateway texts that lead you to act for social justice. And window texts where you observe the other. “
For the very beginner reader, “it is important to recognize oneself, and to recognize the other”, because the distance can obstruct understanding. “The problem, if there are a lot of white characters, it’s that children from diverse backgrounds don’t recognize each other, and are always in an observation. “
Damn blueberries
Chantal Lalonde, vice-president of Scholastic Canada editions, which took a marked turn towards diversity more than a decade ago, adds. “Children need to identify with what they read. Little ones, when we read our Comtesse de Ségur, we were miles away from what was happening there. I remember very well not understanding what I was reading, and that the blueberries were blueberries, and that I did not know if it was a fruit or a flower… ”
This direct recognition that helps learning may explain why school publishers have a head start in integrating diversity into their content, according to several specialists. The textbooks, created to meet educational objectives, must also meet the criteria of the Ministry of Education, underlines Ariane Régnier of the APSDS.
Textbooks must therefore be free from discrimination and stereotypes. The characters must maintain egalitarian relationships with others and be presented generally in interaction. And “people who have characteristics different from those of the majority must be well represented”.
“Literary publishers don’t have to go through this process,” recalls Mme Régnier. “The desire to better reflect our clientele, our students, has been present for a long time,” says Lyne Rajotte. “We were ready in the library long before publishing houses and authors started to include diversity in their books. But it’s a movement: we don’t all move at the same time, but we all move in the same direction. “
The editor Marc-André Audet also believes it: “Things are called to change, we see it with the success of Michel Jean and Isabelle Picard, and the authors of the First Nations. I hope we will start receiving more manuscripts from racialized authors. There are probably plenty of people who have never considered the possibility of being published in French in Quebec, and who do not know that we would like to read them. “