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  • Perihan's Promise, Turkish Relatives, and the Dirty Old Imam
  • Barbara K. Walker (bio)
Perihan's Promise, Turkish Relatives, and the Dirty Old Imam, by Helen Chetin. Illustrated by Beth and Joe Krush. (Houghton Mifflin, $3.95).

At this time in history, when internationalism in children's literature can be a great force for good, books which claim to deal in depth with foreign cultures must be considered from points of view other than the purely literary. Authors, editors, reviewers, librarians and teachers must be alert to expressions and situations which strengthen dangerous stereotypes, and to supposedly factual information which is wrong or misleading.

There have been few books for children which offered to open a window on Turkey, and therefore Perihan's Promise is initially welcome. If the jacket copy can be trusted, it is at least to some degree a reflection of the author's own life. Perihan's parents have been divorced; her mother (an American) is now married to an American in California and her father (a Turk) lives in Canada. If, as appears to be the case, Perihan's mother is the author of this book, her choice of details and of incidents may be examined to determine whether bias is present.

The title itself, incorporating the term "dirty old Imam" is unfortunate in its slickly [End Page 224] commercial double meaning. Granted, there may be "dirty old" imams, just as there may be "dirty old" preachers, "dirty old" priests, and "dirty old" rabbis, but it is unlikely that Houghton Mifflin would have countenanced any of the three latter terms in the title of a child's book purporting to reflect American culture. (And it is open to question how an imam could be literally dirty, since he performs ritual ablutions five times daily). The play on words is used at the expense of national and religious dignity, and at the expense of our children's understanding, since they may never meet an imam at all except in this book.

Alerted to bias, the reader takes note—among many possible examples—of the following: "And, I silently added, that my mother hated it [life in Turkey]" (p. 3); ". . . I thought that, compared to the Imam, Frankenstein's monster was harmlessly clumsy and Dracula merely gallant" (p. 33); "Kadri, Haleh's fiancé. . . . comes to the house almost every day. He just looks over the situation, gives Haleh the once over as if he's making sure all the parts are still there, then disappears" (p. 45); and "There's something I want to tell you about Sukriye, though maybe this isn't the right time. You see, she farts a lot, very loud and nonchalantly. Of course, she can't hear it. But no one else does it like that. At the same time, they never indicate to her that she shouldn't" (p. 48). The book, presented as a diary of a fourteen-year-old American-Turk teenager written during a summer visit to her father's family in rural Turkey, seems rather more a form of therapy for the author than a genuine contribution to children's literature.

As is true with too many American books about foreign cultures, much more emphasis is given to "exotic" features—the sunnet dugunu (circumcision "wedding" [literally, "feast"]), the annual mattress-fluffing, a wedding and elopement, even an earthquake—than is devoted to the day-to-day events that make life in any country real and identifiable to young readers. The tenor of the book, a breathless tone, suggests that Turkey is as sensational and as "far-out" as Perihan herself terms it, and as—alas—most American adults, including teachers and librarians, fancy it to be.

Several expressions dropped in as "explanations" are quite misleading. Two instances will suffice: On page 48, Ms. Chetin says, ". . . twenty-five kurush [like cents]"; actually, there are 100 kurush to a lira, and there are at present 14 liras to the American dollar, so a kurush is less than a tenth of a cent, a considerable difference from the figure given. On page 117, the author states, "He was standing in the mosque yard by the little fountain where...

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