For my children's book analysis I chose from an array of My First Highlights Hello Magazines. Highlights has been around since 1946, Highlights Hello are aimed towards toddlers, specifically for ages 0-2. Highlights Hello began in 2012. I nanny for a 2 year old boy, Travis, who has over 100+ books on his shelf, but he loves these magazines the most. Each one consists of 2-3 short stories. Travis' parents are both teachers at Antelope; his mother a history teacher and his father an English teacher. Together, they find Highlights Hello to be appropriately diverse for their 2 year old son. 
The first story inserted in this magazine is called Stroller Time. Since these stories are meant for preschoolers, I focused more on the illustrations rather than the words. On the first page alone, I see three different skin complexions. I felt like this was a relevant point to bring up because this is what a preschooler will typically see on a walk through the park.
"Sitting in my stroller, my daddy pushes me..."
I feel like this goes against the stereotypical gender role since a father is out pushing a stroller through the park. The assumption can be made that this could be a stay at home dad, which we don't see as often as a stay at home mother.
1. The baby in pink clothes in both images. Its hard to tell if they wanted us to know that the baby was a girl or not, but this is a stereotype that girls wear pink.
2. In regards to #1, the mother is dressed in green and blue.
3. Even with their darker complexion, we can't be sure of what their ethnicity is but the illustrator did give both mom and baby really curly hair.
But then as I looked further into it, I noticed the lighter complexion and the ways their eyes were drawn.. It looked like they were trying to represent the characters as Asian. I noticed the hat they have on the little boy to me looks somewhat like a rice farmer hat.
Of course I can be looking way too far into this, but I was hesitant whether that was culturally appropriate or not.
Wow Rebecca, good job! I really liked your blog and how your thoughts were very complete and concise. I especially liked the first book, "Stroller Time" because I thought it was nice that it was a dad that was with the child. Like you said you don't see this displayed in the media very often, but it was nice that this book did this! It would be interesting to find out the background of the author(s) and see how that ties into these stories. Thanks again for your thoughts!
ReplyDeleteI think it is great that you chose this as your book blog, I would not have thought about looking in a magazine. I enjoyed hearing the comparisons that you made and seeing this story from your point of view. Personally I liked that the baby dressed in pink could have been a boy or girl...... maybe Highlights is also trying to break down our stereotype of what a boy's/ girl's roll should look like. Great book blog thanks!!
ReplyDeleteHello, Rebecca. I think you did a great job on your analysis! I really liked you shared three different short stories. I enjoyed how you analyze them and agree with you. For second story, you said the baby wears pink but the mom wears green and blue. I would like to add that the mom has long curly hair. Preschoolers think person who has long hair is a girl and who has short hair is a boy. I think the book includes some stereotypes as well.
ReplyDeleteHi Rebecca, I like the magazine that you chose and how you evaluated it. Also I like the idea including a stereotype theme. You gave me a great idea which book to choose for my two-year old son.
ReplyDeleteI love this Rebecca! this brings back SO many memories for me. I remember reading Highlights at my grandparents house, it was one of my favorite things to do! I would climb up onto my Grandpa's lap and he would read these fun stories to me. Thanks for the reminder of that :) this was a great analysis and fun to read!
ReplyDeleteI really like your blog page, you did an excellent job on it. I love the highlights magazines in all stages, and I'm hearing about the hello magazine for the first time, thank you for introducing me to it.
ReplyDeleteYou did a wonderful job at putting this blog together. I don't really see anything you could improve on. The way you posted clear pictures of the books, the summaries you provided and the clear identification of the stereotypes in the books were easy to see. It is interesting to me how they played with stereotypes with children subliminally through these stories, but also defied some norms like the father walking the stroller. I learned that this magazine has been in business a lot longer than I thought.
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