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Summer Reading: Recent Children's Books on Human
Rights
By lynmiller-lachmann on 2009-06-30 11:46:10
School's out, and kids look forward to two months of playing outdoors, going to camp, and working at summer jobs. I
remember reading political thrillers under the covers with a flashlight as one of the high points of my summer camp
experience--the perils of car chases pushing aside at least temporarily the perils of mosquito bites. I always approached my
required summer reading books with the question, "What is so important about these books that our teachers would ask us to
devote part of our vacation to reading them?" So with the thought of "What is so important about these books?" I offer some
suggestions for young readers that explore human rights and nonviolence. These are not "heavy" or arduous books to read,
by the way. In fact, all are beautifully illustrated titles for elementary and middle school age readers that can be appreciated
for their visual quality, read straight through, or sampled in small bites. December 2008 marked the 60th anniversary of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Two recently published picture books celebrate this document. You may wonder
how one would explain this document to children. Fortunately, Amnesty International has created a young person's version
of the Declaration, which translates the concepts into language understandable to children from age seven or eight onward.
For instance, Article 4, "No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all
their forms," reads "Nobody has any right to make us a slave. We cannot make anyone else our slave."
[caption id="attachment_935" align="aligncenter" width="258" caption="Universal Declaration of Human Rights in
Pictures"] Pit he __ [/caption] We Are All Born Free: The Universal Declaration of Human
Rights in Pictures (Frances L Lincoln, 2008) combines this simplified Declaration with illustrations by acclaimed and
emerging artists from around the world. The book begins with award-winning British artist John Burningham's fanciful
illustration of children jumping on a trampoline. The well-known South African children's author/illustrator Niki Daly uses
balloon-like people with sharp teeth to portray Article 4. African-American artist Jan Spivey Gilchrist, a multiple winner of
the Coretta Scott King Award given by the American Library Association, opts for realistic human faces inspired by classical
images. Australian artist Frané Lessac contributes her signature primitive style. In many cases, animals stand in for humans
—cats as predators, birds symbolizing freedom, an apologetic dragon who has made a big mess, and a jungle full of curious
critters who illustrate “the right to our own way of life and to enjoy the good things that science and learning bring.” In all,
this is a whimsical, varied, and appealing way to convey a serious topic to young children. The child-friendly illustrations
show that the way we treat each other in our daily lives is a microcosm of the way all the world's people are treated. For
children entering fourth through seventh grades, Every Human Has Rights: A Photographic Declaration for Kids (National
Geographic Books, 2009) features National Geographic's signature photo images of people around the world, past and
present. Approaching readers at various levels of understanding, each page contains a one- or two-sentence excerpt from
Amnesty International's simplified Declaration, photo captions that explain the concept in more detail, and a poem written
by a teenager, the winner of a nationwide competition sponsored by the ePals Global Learning Community. For example, the
double-page spread for Article 4 contains the sentence, "Nobody has the right to make you a slave," with captioned photos
of child workers in a carpet factory in India and on a cotton plantation in Peru. There is also a short poem by a 13-year-old
girl titled "Unheard Words." Finally, for readers at the middle school level, acclaimed author/illustrator Anne Sibley O'Brien
has teamed up with her son, Perry Edmond O'Brien to create After Gandhi: One Hundred Years of Nonviolent Resistance
(Charlesbridge, 2009). There's an interesting backstory here. Anne has devoted her life to peace and environmental activism.
After the September 11 terrorist attacks, son Perry enlisted in the military, over his mother's strong objections, and served a
tour of duty in Afghanistan. Perry's story in the Afterword of coming to write about peace after having served in a war is
honest, eloquent, and insightful, and it shows that no matter what we say to them, children have to find their own way. The
book can be read straight through, explored by topic, or used as reference. It presents 16 individuals or groups that resisted
occupations, dictatorships, racial discriminations, and other forms of injustice through nonviolent means from 1908 to the
present. The O'Briens begin with Gandhi himself and his early activism on behalf of foreign-born residents of South Africa.
The other chapters feature Thich Nhat Hanh in Vietnam, U.S. civil rights activists Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr., Australian Aboriginal civil rights activist Charles Perkins, Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu in South Africa, César
Chavez, Muhammad Ali, Mairead Corrigan and Betty Williams, the Madres of the Plaza de Mayo, Aung San Suu Kyi, the
student activists of Tienanmen Square, Vaclav Havel, Wangari Maathai, and the millions of people across the globe who
demonstrated against the impending war in Iraq on February 15, 2003. Having been part of those February 15, 2003
demonstrations (in New York City) I was moved to find my small efforts depicted in a book for children. And, yes, many of
those efforts were unsuccessful--not only the demonstrations that failed to stop the war, but the Tienanmen Square protests,
the 20th anniversary of which we remember today. However, the O'Briens remind us, and explain to children, that nothing is
ever wasted--nonviolence sets an example, and it often takes much time for seeds to bear fruit. In the Comments section,
please let us know if you've read a good book for peace lately.
