Stories Matter: The Complexity of Cultural Authenticity in Children's Literature (review)

What are the issues of authorship in multicultural children's literature? Who has a right to tell stories about specific cultures? What is "authentic" literature or, for that matter, "multicultural literature"? And who gets to define any of that? These are among the questions that have been central for those who have variously sought to write, transmit, or examine multicultural literature for children. In Stories Matter, editors Dana Fox and Kathy Short have sought to offer "new conversations and questions" (4) on these issues from authors, illustrators, teachers, editors, and scholars. The range of contributors here is matched by the range of views. And, as the editors point out, that multiplicity is heightened by the "continual interaction" as contributors comment on other essays in the collection. Stories Matter becomes textually dynamic both through that intertextual commenting and in the frequently passionate tones of its writers.

Following an introductory essay by the editors and another by Rudine Sims Bishop—who provides an incisive overview and situates the study of African American literature within a historical framework of publication history—the collection is divided into four main sections.The first two of these comment upon three central debates as defined by Violet Harris: "authenticity, insider/outsider views, and authorial freedom" (130). In the first section, authors and illustrators offer a range of their often contrasting personal experiences and viewpoints. "Insider/outsider" positions become the immediate focus in the collection as Jacqueline Woodson, in her essay "Who Can Tell My Story?," states that "You don't have to be a part of my family to understand [. . .]. You just need to have been a part of the experience," (41) and is immediately followed by W. Nikola-Lisa, who argues how his own "negative intercultural experiences" (49) growing up as a white child in the South inform his literary explorations of multiculturalism. Illustrator Susan Guevara later explores the dangers of essentialism and cultural stereotyping, especially by citing her own experiences: how her Hispanic surname was seen by publishers as a marker of cultural authenticity and acceptance by the reading public, yet how she at times was awkwardly received because she does not "have the right appearance for the supposedly culturally authentic stereotype" (52).Deconstructing the various markers that popularly signify notions of "authentic" culture becomes a way for Guevara to unpack the stereotypes that sometimes underpin notions of multiculturalism. In the end, Guevara describes authenticity as somethingnearly ineffable: "the authentic work is a work that feels alive. There is something true from the culture that exists there. I believe [. . .] the emotional intuitive connection I need to have to initiate the work, to be able to walk around in the world of that story" (57). That contributors continually grapple with such definitions shows the complexity of the debate, and "authentic" is defined, variously, as writing within one's ethnicity, as a product of intense research, as "aesthetic heat" (92), as creativity, or as historical sharing.

Because several of these essays focus on personal experience, they are often not theoretically sophisticated, but they do convey the anger and deep divisions between points of view. Violet Harris's essay places this in a cultural context, arguing that the debates are so fierce because discussions about authorship reflect racially defined power structures in the culture itself. What these essays collectively do, at their best, is to show the range of debates and viewpoints, and the intellectual and creative commitment—as well as the ideological stake—of these authors and educators. For someone new to the discussion, the essays provide a compendium of viewpoints. What is less helpful is when the rhetoric devolves into invective; the choice of terminology is at times unintentionally ironic when—in the battle and debate about cultural appropriation—it is itself appropriative. Such is the case as Thelma Seto charges "outsider" writers with "cultural rape" (95), while Kathryn Lasky argues that not allowing "outsiders...