A word from Noemi Berlus, President and founder of Printakid.
As a child, the daughter of a Haitian father and French Quebecer mother, I never read stories that represented children that looked like me. I started Printakid because I wanted to give my goddaughter, whose mother is Haitian and father is French, a book with a protagonist that looked like her.
Children identify with characters in the stories they read. I remember asking myself why all the kids in my books were white. Black kids were either shown in Haiti or in Africa or else they were often represented as the friends of the protagonist. In these stories, almost always, the moral was “Your friend is different, but that’s okay.” I wondered why people had to work so hard to like me. Why did they need books that said it was okay to like people like me?
I have heard from many parents about how they already change the content of
stories to reflect their child’s reality. Many parents already change the name of the main character in the story to the name of the child or change stories so the child is raised by a single parent. Other parents who struggle with children who are not interested in reading, love our stories because the child immediately identifies him or herself with the characters.
My team and I have read articles, looked-up terms and most importantly, we have involved members of different ethnic groups in every step of our development. We have tried to find terms and to develop illustrations that are respectful. We have had to make some hard decisions and we understand that not everyone will agree with these decisions. Different individuals have different views and what is acceptable to one may not be acceptable to others.
We have really struggles with this issue and I don't think that there is one solution that can satisfy everyone.
On our paper order forms, we did not have the space to put all of the ethnic groups a skin tone may be applicable to. I agree that trying to apply a skin colour to an ethnic group is using stereotypes. Genetics simply don’t work that way. Most of our customers are able to take the terms we give as guidelines and understand the spirit in which these terms are used. For example, some dark skinned Italians who ordered have selected the latino and mulatto options. Most people are able to identify which colour best describe’s the child’s skin tone. Others have used the elongated eye shape characteristic of many Asian groups to represent children who have Down’s syndrome. These terms are not used in the story. They are simply there to help guide aware parents in the selection of physical characteristics that best reflect their child. We then draw very stylized illustrations based on this information. Our choice of ethnic groups to describe physical characteristics was based on what groups are most present in North America.
Unfortunately, some more politically correct words such as mutli-racial, mixed race or métis were too ambiguous to be used. We tried to simply describe the skin’s hue by using descriptions such as light brown, lighter brown, bronze and other colours. However, these were also unclear. People asked “How light is light brown?”
Whether you agree with the use of the terms or not, most people asked were able to accurately predict which illustration went with each term. We tried to balance both respect and clarity in order to provide the best possible product. After all, we want to send our customers books with the personalization options they have in mind.
I know that a child does not necessarily look like their parents. When people see me and my brother with my mother, they sometimes ask us whether we are adopted. This is why, in our Printakid stories, the parent's skin and face is never shown. We refer to the parents in the text but the illustrations do not show them in detail. We do not make that kind of assumption. As we move forward, we may start offering even more options and adding more detailed illustrations of the parents. For the moment, we have found that our order form is already quite long and we have not had any requests from our customers to show more of the parents.
Thank you for your feedback. I really want this product to be a positive experience for people. I appreciate any criticism and advice that can help me get a better understanding of how my company’s stories are received. I want children to have a positive image of themselves. I would be very grateful for any suggestions or comments that might help me do this better. If you have a constructive suggestion on how I can improve the terms used, please e-mail me at noemiberlus@printakid.com . I look forward to hearing from you.
Printakid, a new children's publishing company, is offering customized children's books where you can plug in your kids name and your own name and your kid's friends names, and then they do a mad lib type of thing, and give you a premade story but with your kid as the main character of the book. Honestly... I think that's creepy as hell. I am pretty screwed up as it is, but if i had to read a bunch of books like "A Wacky Christmas" and "In Giddyland" when I was a wee one, starring... um.... MYSELF... I can't imagine the horrific consequences...
A word from Noemi Berlus, President and founder of Printakid.
As a child, the daughter of a Haitian father and French Quebecer mother, I never read stories that represented children that looked like me. I started Printakid because I wanted to give my goddaughter, whose mother is Haitian and father is French, a book with a protagonist that looked like her.
Children identify with characters in the stories they read. I remember asking myself why all the kids in my books were white. Black kids were either shown in Haiti or in Africa or else they were often represented as the friends of the protagonist. In these stories, almost always, the moral was “Your friend is different, but that’s okay.” I wondered why people had to work so hard to like me. Why did they need books that said it was okay to like people like me?
I have heard from many parents about how they already change the content of
stories to reflect their child’s reality. Many parents already change the name of the main character in the story to the name of the child or change stories so the child is raised by a single parent. Other parents who struggle with children who are not interested in reading, love our stories because the child immediately identifies him or herself with the characters.
My team and I have read articles, looked-up terms and most importantly, we have involved members of different ethnic groups in every step of our development. We have tried to find terms and to develop illustrations that are respectful. We have had to make some hard decisions and we understand that not everyone will agree with these decisions. Different individuals have different views and what is acceptable to one may not be acceptable to others.
We have really struggles with this issue and I don't think that there is one solution that can satisfy everyone.
On our paper order forms, we did not have the space to put all of the ethnic groups a skin tone may be applicable to. I agree that trying to apply a skin colour to an ethnic group is using stereotypes. Genetics simply don’t work that way. Most of our customers are able to take the terms we give as guidelines and understand the spirit in which these terms are used. For example, some dark skinned Italians who ordered have selected the latino and mulatto options. Most people are able to identify which colour best describe’s the child’s skin tone. Others have used the elongated eye shape characteristic of many Asian groups to represent children who have Down’s syndrome. These terms are not used in the story. They are simply there to help guide aware parents in the selection of physical characteristics that best reflect their child. We then draw very stylized illustrations based on this information. Our choice of ethnic groups to describe physical characteristics was based on what groups are most present in North America.
Unfortunately, some more politically correct words such as mutli-racial, mixed race or métis were too ambiguous to be used. We tried to simply describe the skin’s hue by using descriptions such as light brown, lighter brown, bronze and other colours. However, these were also unclear. People asked “How light is light brown?”
Whether you agree with the use of the terms or not, most people asked were able to accurately predict which illustration went with each term. We tried to balance both respect and clarity in order to provide the best possible product. After all, we want to send our customers books with the personalization options they have in mind.
I know that a child does not necessarily look like their parents. When people see me and my brother with my mother, they sometimes ask us whether we are adopted. This is why, in our Printakid stories, the parent's skin and face is never shown. We refer to the parents in the text but the illustrations do not show them in detail. We do not make that kind of assumption. As we move forward, we may start offering even more options and adding more detailed illustrations of the parents. For the moment, we have found that our order form is already quite long and we have not had any requests from our customers to show more of the parents.
Thank you for your feedback. I really want this product to be a positive experience for people. I appreciate any criticism and advice that can help me get a better understanding of how my company’s stories are received. I want children to have a positive image of themselves. I would be very grateful for any suggestions or comments that might help me do this better. If you have a constructive suggestion on how I can improve the terms used, please e-mail me at noemiberlus@printakid.com . I look forward to hearing from you.
Posted by: Noemi![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.schemamag.ca/nav-commenters.gif)
at February 6, 2005 12:26 PM
Wow, what a fantastic letter. So well written and considerate, for a good cause too. Noemi is great!
Posted by: Geneva B![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.schemamag.ca/nav-commenters.gif)
at February 9, 2005 06:16 PM
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