Children and Religion: Interfaith Families and Children's Books

February 2011 | Vol. IX No. 6 One Civilized Reader Is Worth a Thousand Boneheads Children and Religion: Nancy Berg Professor of Asian and Near Eastern Languages and Literatures Interfaith Families and Children’s Books Ken Botnick Professor of Art The Center for the frank account of a teenage girl’s Director of Kranzberg Book Studio Humanities is approach- journey toward sexual maturity, Gene Dobbs Bradford Executive Director ing the fifth anniversary but the titular Margaret is also a Jazz St. Louis of its Children’s Studies religious seeker, visiting syna- Elizabeth Childs Associate Professor and Chair of Minor, and this spring gogues and churches in an effort Department of Art History and I’m teaching a new course to understand the spirituality Archaeology Mary-Jean Cowell for the minor: “Children that her Jewish father and Chris- Associate Professor of Performing Arts and Childhood in World tian mother have tried to avoid. Phyllis Grossman Religions.” My course Today, the mechanics of Mar- Retired Financial Executive Michael A. Kahn devotes a few weeks in garet’s “sanitary napkins” are Attorney, Author and turn to each of the world’s outdated, but her spiritual quest Adjunct Professor of Law major religious traditions, is still very relevant, which may Zurab Karumidze Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia but that does not always explain why the novel was reis- Peter Kastor reflect the religious reali- sued just last year. A handful Associate Professor of History and American Culture Studies Program ties of children, at least in of recent YA novels (Praying to Chris King the United States. More A.L., The Mozart Season, Sam I Editorial Director than a quarter of married The St. Louis American Newspaper Am) have followed Margaret’s Olivia Lahs-Gonzales American adults have example, portraying a search Director chosen a partner with a for religious identity within an Sheldon Art Galleries Steven Meyer different religious affilia- interfaith family as part of a Associate Professor of English tion, so it’s clear that a lot of American children coming-of-age narrative. Joe Pollack are exposed to more than one faith within their Writer For younger children, there is now a sizable families. I myself was part of that demographic Anne Posega literature of picture books devoted entirely to Head of Special Collections, Olin Library as a child, and I still have to explain Granddad’s the Hanukkah-Christmas interchange, gener- Qiu Xiaolong Christmas tree to my Hanukkah-celebrating ally with goodwill toward all. Many of the Novelist and Poet family every December. Fortunately, the same Joseph Schraibman entries in this category are too didactic for my Professor of Spanish approach works with both my kids and my stu- taste, but I enjoy Margaret Moorman’s Light Henry Schvey dents: for a day or two, I haul out a short stack The Lights (1994), which uses beautiful illus- Professor of Drama of children’s books that deal with interfaith Wang Ning trations and simple words to describe a family Professor of English, Tsinghua University childhoods. where both Hanukkah and Christmas traditions James Wertsch Marshall S. Snow Professor of Arts and When I was growing up, there was exactly are celebrated. It’s when the story goes beyond Sciences one volume in the children’s section of the local Hanukkah and Christmas that things really get Associate Vice Chancellor for International Affairs library that addressed interfaith questions: Judy interesting, though. I especially admire James Ex Officio Blume’s controversial Are You There God? It’s Howe’s award-winning Kaddish for Grandpa Edward S. Macias Me, Margaret (1970). Blume’s breakthrough in Jesus’ Name Amen (2004), which presents Provost & Exec VC for Academic Affairs Gary S. Wihl young-adult novel is probably best known for its a young girl’s efforts to deal with her Dean of Arts & Sciences President’s Week Lectures with Princeton University Historian Sean Wilentz Andrew Jackson Abraham Lincoln Ulysses S. Grant Last year the Center for the Humanities, in partnership 2. Abraham Lincoln: This lecture focuses on Lin- with the Interdisciplinary Project in the Humanities (IPH) coln’s connection to democracy, nationalism, and and University Libraries, sponsored the first President’s slavery and argues that Lincoln entwined democratic Day lecture with historian Patricia O’Toole speaking on nationalism with adamant antislavery by the time he Theodore Roosevelt. This year the Annual Humanities was inaugurated president in 1861. In taking issue Lectures Series, jointly sponsored by the Center for the with the idea that Lincoln initially prized the Union Humanities and IPH, will feature three lectures on U.S. presidents by noted Princeton historian Sean Wilentz to over antislavery, the lecture will pay special attention be given during the week of February 21, 2011. Wilentz to Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address. is the author of The Rise of American Democracy: Jef- Wednesday, February 23, 5pm, Formal Lounge, ferson to Lincoln (2005), The Age of Reagan: A History, The Women’s Building, Washington University 1974-2008 (2008), Chants Democratic: New York City 3. The final lecture focuses on and the Rise of the American Working Class, 1788-1850 Ulysses S. Grant: (1984), Andrew Jackson, part of the American Presidents’ Grant, one of the most reviled presidents of the nine- series edited by the late Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. (2005), teenth century. In coming to his (partial) defense, and most recently, Bob Dylan in America (2010). the lecture will examine Grant’s version of demo- Wilentz’s three lectures are as follows: cratic nationalism amid the violence of Reconstruc- tion, with particular reference to the Ku Klux Klan 1. Three Presidents—Andrew Jack- Andrew Jackson: Act of 1871. son, Abraham Lincoln, and Ulysses S. Grant—were the most important political figures amid the three great Thursday, February 24, 5pm, Formal Lounge, political transformations of the mid-nineteenth century: The Women’s Building, Washington University the rise of party democracy, the triumph of an American All lectures are free and open to the public, please nationalism that repudiated secession, and the aboli- call 314-935-5576 to reserve a seat and receive a park- tion of slavery and pursuit of interracial democracy. All three men contributed to advancing the democratic ing pass. Short readings accompanying the lectures are nationalism that brought about slavery’s eradication and at: http://cenhum.artsci.wustl.edu the experiment of Reconstruction. This opening lecture lays out these propositions and then examines Jackson’s connections to democracy, nationalism, and slavery, culminating in the nullification crisis of 1832-33. Tuesday, February 22, 5pm, Formal Lounge, The Women’s Building, Washington University book of the month by Gerald Early Review of with whom he played make-believe that ultimately led to Peter Pan (Neverland: J.M. Barrie, the Du 1. The Great White Father and for whom he became guardian Mauriers, and the Dark Side of Before the release of the 2004 when their stylish mother, Sylvia Peter Pan) filmFinding Neverland, it is quite du Maurier, died at the age of 43 in By Piers Dudgeon likely that few Americans knew 1910, three years after her husband, who James Matthew Barrie (1860- Arthur Llewelyn Davies, had died Pegasus Books, 2009, 333 pages 1937) was. To be sure, everyone in an appalling death from cancer of including index, notes, appendix, the English-speaking world knew the jaw in 1907. How Barrie—this and photos his great work, Peter Pan, the play odd man who was barely five feet, (1904) and the novel (1911), and three inches, the diminutive son of some may have connected this work a lower-middle-class Scots weaver, to Barrie’s name. But few people not handsome, not stylish, not Brit- actually knew who he was, andfew ish public school (although Captain could name anything else he had Hook certainly was), not Bohemian written (he was a highly produc- a la the du Mauriers, not conven- tive playwright and novelist who tionally professional middle-class wrote, among other works, The like the Llewelyn Davies, not even, Admirable Crichton, a noted play at times, especially well-tempered that was made into a film in 1957), (although like many of us he could and most no longer knew the story be exceedingly charming when he of how Peter Pan had come to be felt the need or the urge to be)— written although for a time that was wound up the father to five children well-known: the story of Barrie and to whom he was not related by the Llewelyn Davies boys, whom blood or marriage, despite being he met in Kensington Gardens, disliked or at least seen as suspect with whom he developed a rapport, by both the Llewelyn Davies and Children and Religion: Interfaith Families and Children’s Books continued from page 1 grandfather’s death genre, and they are likely to appeal to a wider audience. set against a back- What’s still missing from my list are interfaith children’s drop of both Jewish books in combinations beyond Judaism and Christianity. and Christian Despite the increasing diversity of the American reli- mourning customs. gious landscape, I’ve found only one picture book about a Several very good Muslim-Christian family, and that was written as part of a books tackle cul- dissertation. I welcome further reading suggestions, either tural and religious for me or for the Center’s collection of children’s literature. issues simultane- Meanwhile, my family will be resorting to TV, where the ously: in Natasha family of PBS’s Sid the Science Kid celebrates Hanukkah, Wing’s Jalapeño Christmas, and the African-American holiday Kwan- Bagels (1996) zaa—but only as setup for an episode about the science of Pablo must decide temperature change! whether to bring his mother’s pan dulce or his father’s challah to school for International Day, and in Deborah Wendy Love Anderson, who holds a Ph.D.

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