We Don't Eat Our Classmates, by Ryan T. Higgins 

Rating: An Otherwise Lovely Book 

An adorable kindergartener, who happens to be a Tyrannosaurus Rex, learns empathy. Book includes several inclusive and ground-breaking details but also, ARGH, portrays Asian-American kids with slits for eyes. 

This charming and funny book is one of the reasons that I decided to start this blog. It's really sweet, and has a great message, and even has an illustrator who worked to be very inclusive - but also includes one fairly glaring racist detail, as well as several of the usual omissions and arbitrary gender messages.  

Pros: 

- There are clearly kids of different races and religions portrayed in this book. There seems to be a Jewish kid wearing a kippa, a kid who might be muslim wearing hijab, and kids with skin of different shades of beige and brown. There are two kids who seem to have textured hair, one in puffballs; there is a kid who seems to be a kid of size, and kids who look like they might be Latinx or Native American. While most of the characters seem to have names that seem to come from the white American/European traditions that fill most American picture books (Karen, Griffin, Mrs. Noodleman, etc.), there is also one kid with the last name "Omoto," which seems to me to be Japanese in origin. This rings as inclusive to me (but I'm not Japanese, so I am definitely open to correction here.) There is also a kid named "Rotem" and another kid named "Eben," which I know as Hebrew names. 

- Penelope Rex is presented as a little girl dinosaur, but she is not overly presented with feminized details like pink lips or enormous eyelashes. She looks refreshingly physically gender neutral for a female character in a picture book. (As opposed to, for instance, these old Mercer Mayer chestnuts where the girls are always wearing enormous ribbons in their hair.) There are also several other female-presenting people in the book who are wearing blue, brown, red, and other colors that aren't pink.

- The book has some fun moments where we learn that Penelope loves ponies "because they are delicious," and other dinosaur-related takes on preschool themes.

- Penelope learns empathy.

Cons: 

- William Omoto - the only kid with an asian-sounding name - has slits for eyes. One other unnamed character has eyes that are sometimes presented as slits and at other times round. The rest of the characters have round eyes at all times. This is super not OK. 

An illustration from "We Don't Eat Our Classmates," showing a kid in a kippa, one in hijab, and kids with varied textures of hair and varied skin tones. Note the slits for eyes on "William Omoto" on the bottom right. 

- While Penelope is not presented as physically female-signaling, as I mentioned before, she is wearing pink. There is one other other female-presenting kid in pink, and there are no boys in pink. 

- The parent dinosaurs are drawn as differening along the lines of traditional gender expectations: the mom dinosaur wears pearls, and the dad has large "masculine" eyebrows.

If you share this otherwise lovely book with kids, here are some inclusive discussion tips: 

1) Point out that for some reason the illustrator used the old racist idea that Asian and Asian-American people have slits for eyes, which is racist and not ok. 

2) point out the other inclusive details, like the hijab, kippa, and skin tones, as positive examples of drawing a classroom the way classrooms really are, with lots of different kinds of folks. 

3) Point out that there are no visibly disabled kids in this classroom other than the kid who wears glasses, and talk about ableism by omission, as well as hidden disabilities. 

4) Point out that the parent dinosaurs are divided by gender using signals (pearls and facial hair) that American humans expect, which is kind of silly and arbitrary, since they are dinosaurs...and is also silly and arbitrary even for humans! Girls can have hairy eyebrows and boys can wear pearls, and also, some families have two moms or two dads or three parents or just one parent... 

- toreyanna

 What tv shows and movies have I been recommending during the pandemic?

Like the rest of the country, and much of the world, my family has been watching a lot more screens over the past year. Here are two kid-friendly shows & movies that stood out for me! 

Netflix: The Prom. 

Rating: A Lovely Movie! 

Fabulous Queer-Positive Musical With a Racially Diverse Cast, Plus Who Knew That Keegan Michael Key And Kerry Williams Could Sing*??

• Summary: A feel-good musical that has not only a racially diverse cast but also a terrific pro-queer storyline.  
• Appropriate for ages: I had absolutely no problem showing it to my 9-year old, and I would definitely consider it for even younger kids.
• There are a few moments that I chose to explain to my kids:
• In the song "Breathe," we hear the words "People suck in Indiana." It's worth explaining to younger kids that this character is having a hard time and being treated very badly, but that in general we don't judge folks from where they come from. At the same time, there are a lot of anti-queer laws in Indiana that give people permission to act the way they are acting in the movie, and so it makes sense that our heroine is experiencing a lot of homophobia. 
• In the song "We Look To You," Keegan Michael Key's character complains that his pay is "emasculating." Eye roll.
• James Corden's character has some self-loathing around his own appearance and sexual orientation, and uses some derogatory terms about himself. I don't remember all of them, but at one point he says, "Who cares if you're a big old girl? Just go out on that floor and twirl!" It's definitely worth reminding kids that while JC's character feels bad about being fat and feminine, there is actually NOTHING wrong with either of those things. The problems are society's fatphobia and misogyny. 

*I know, Jingle Jangle as well. But before THAT. 

Netflix: Finding Ohana. 

Rating: A Lovely Movie!

Indiana Jones meets The Goonies but MINUS the racism and sexism...! Whoa - if we watch this cool new movie instead of the old ones, did the 80s even really happen? 

Finding Ohana is AWESOME. It's set in Hawaii with a largely native Hawaiian and/or native American cast and, just as importantly, two BIPOC women at the helm. My kids found this totally thrilling. (And I am clearly not the only person who saw that they were drawing inspiration from these two movies - Ke Huy Quan is in ALL THREE OF THEM!)

• I haven't yet gotten to watch the whole thing but as far as I saw, and as far as I could tell from my white lens, it seemed culturally appropriate, respectful, and also not promoting of toxic masculinity. 
• Like most of the media in this world, it has no queer folks, and I didn't catch any disabled folks either (unless I missed something).

As always, folks, if I missed something important, please let me know in the comments or through a message!