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  • Reflections on Multiculturalism in Canadian Fiction for Young People since 1950:A Contribution to National Identity Formation
  • Grit Alter (bio)
Richter, Miriam Verena . Creating the National Mosaic: Multiculturalism in Canadian Children's Literature from 1950 to 1994. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2011. 354 pp. €75 hc. ISBN 978-90-420-3351-1. Print. Cross/Cultures: Readings in the Post/Colonial Literatures in English 133.

Miriam Verena Richter's Creating the National Mosaic, the first book-length study of multiculturalism in Canadian children's literature, offers a comprehensive and detailed account of the development of "Canadian cultural policy with regard to children's culture and literature" (59). Richter frames her literary observations with a discussion of the larger context of Canadian national identity formation to reflect on the ways in which political, literary, and cultural developments are intertwined, especially as they pertain to multiculturalism. Proceeding on the assumption that Canadian children's literature has driven the development of official multiculturalism in Canada, which in turn has influenced children's literature published after its official declaration, she identifies key moments or stages in the development of multiculturalism. These stages allow for an understanding of the complex roles Canadian children's literature has played in political and social developments.

Richter skilfully interweaves the historico-political development of multiculturalism and the expansion of an infrastructure for children's books in Canada. Significantly, she expresses antipathy toward discourses [End Page 178] that rely on a static definition of Canadian national identity while at the same time acknowledging, with Jerry Diakiw, that "an overall national Canadian identity exists" (31). In support of her argument, she draws on Diakiw's list of commonplaces that "all Canadians, regardless of geographical or cultural origin, can recognize as Canadian characteristics" (31): Canada's wilderness; its diverse and distinctive nature; its determination to uphold democratic values; the presence of a universal social safety net; its national commitment to equality in all respects; its status as a nation of immigrants, with English, French, and Aboriginal roots; its strong economy; its cultural traditions in the arts, sports, and popular culture; and its international reputation as a peacekeeping nation (33). Richter affirms that "[n]ot every Canadian will identify with every single constituent, but everyone will find some they can relate to" (31). Along with these commonplaces, Richter successfully brings Pierre Trudeau's White Paper of 1971 and the Canadian Multiculturalism Act (CMA) of 1988 into conversation with a selected group of books that cover almost five decades of writing for children in Canada. Richter, a German scholar living in Germany, sees "nation" as one of the underlying categories that contribute to a person's identity formation. One of the main interests of the Association of Canadian Studies in German-speaking countries, which includes more than 650 members, is the impact multiculturalism has had on the arts, history, geography, and women's and gender studies in Canada. Canadian iterations of multiculturalism are particularly striking from the perspective of those of us who live in Germany, a country that is becoming more and more multicultural itself. As is the case in Canada, the increasing multiculturalism in Germany is beginning to be reflected in its literature, including books for young people.

I am interested in multicultural young adult fiction from the perspective of the field of teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) in Germany. Nowadays, TEFL puts the development of intercultural communicative competence at the forefront of its pedagogy. This entails an approach to learning about other cultures that acknowledges and is aware of their distinctiveness, in contrast to the "facts and figures" approach of a few years ago. My personal research within this field involves implementing multicultural Canadian novels for young readers in teaching English. I look specifically at representations of multicultural characters in texts that move beyond viewing them as problems or victims and that focus on the complexity of internal and external identity problems; in other words, texts that resist focusing on racism and prejudice as central aspects of the marginalized character's identity, without neglecting issues of racism. The novels I review after my discussion of Richter's study are chosen within this scope.

To explore the first stage of multiculturalism in Canadian...

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