“Years ago
when I was a little boy, though really not that many years ago,
I’d asked my momma the same question that my little girl Chisani has asked me in this book. I’d looked up into my
momma’s eyes and I’d said ‘how come we’re
different momma, how come I’m different?”
When Stanley Doyle-Wood began the creation of his first work of
children’s literature, Chisani, named after and inspired by his now 16 year
old daughter, he was fueled by the lack of books available for kids
that spoke to and encompassed notions of race and his own family
experience. His goal was to
address the idea that racial difference is often perceived as a
deficit, and that this deficit must be razed or fixed in some capacity. This feeling of being a complete
outsider “can ruin an individual from cradle to grave,”
Stan said.
Stan told me without hesitation that he
intends for his book Chisani “to engage in a very complex issue in
a very simple way.”
He uses children’s literature to capture some of the most
powerful problems in our society and he does so in a beautiful
manner. Both the story and
the watercolor illustrations were done by Stan himself, and the love he
feels for his daughter and the passion he feels for acceptance are
obvious in every word, in every stroke of paint.
When I asked Stan what some of the driving
forces of Chisani
were he told me that “this book speaks to the ways in which a
child is forced to negate her difference and to perceive her
difference.” By this,
Stan means that ideas of whiteness in our current society are
unattainable for a child of color, who is perceived by her peers as
different. In the case of
Stan’s daughter Chisani, this first
became an issue when she was very young in day care, as some of the
other children would not give her candy because of her skin colour.
Stan described “the feeling of such an event as a child
being forced to cut away from herself.”
Therefore, Stan set out to create something
to turn such negative emotions into something positive and wonderful
and above all else, beautiful.
The activism emanating from Chisani
is both obvious and subtle.
The most overt aspect of its progressive nature is that it
features bodies of color.
While it may not seem extraordinary, this is actually an
incredibly rare occurrence in mainstream children’s
literature. This in itself
is a subversive moment in the production of children’s literature
as it undermines the commonly understood tropes and notions which
uphold this subset of books.
To take its activism even further, however,
Doyle-Wood’s Chisani does not focus on its main character’s
race. Instead, this
beautiful book focuses on family and togetherness. This might seem like a strange
technique, that in order for this book to be progressive on the subject
of accepting racial differences, it must then ignore racial
difference. However, his
book is not ignoring such
differences; instead it is using race as a lens by which to view a
larger story. This is the
critical and more subtle part of the text’s activism. Racial difference is not an all-consuming
force which exists in this book, but instead is a part of it. This statement can be further
applied to the population of people of colour
as a whole: a person is not
completely consumed by his/her race. Instead, race and colour are only an aspect of an individual. Chisani is a critically
important example of this model, as it demonstrates its intentions
through such an accessible format as children’s literature.
To make such a text even more approachable,
Stan has developed the self-labeled art of “performed
readings.” Stan tells
me that these performances stemmed from when he used to read to
children in day care services.
At the time, he says there were no books that centered on black
and brown people. Stan
remembers the beginning of his journey with children’s
literature. “First,
we had to get these books in.
But the kids weren’t interested. So, I decided to kick things up
a notch,” Stan said.
“I started to use the book as my prop and would really
engage with the kids.”
Basically, Stan gestures, dances, flails,
yells, sings, points, uses silly voices and demands audience
participation to make any book come alive. “I act out the
stories,” Stan says with a smile. “Whatever I can pick out
of them, and then I try to project a positive racial discourse. Even if
that means picking just one word, I’ll make [the audience] repeat
it, or shout it out.”
By engaging with these characters, Stan
asserts that “the character – a racialized
body – becomes humanized.” This is not just a crucial moment
for art or for children, but is a crucial moment for the global
community.
Chisani is both successful as art and successful as
a tool of activism. This
text lends itself to teaching all kinds of populations and has the potential
to become a force of liberation for children of colour
who are viewing a character of colour as an
independent agent, perhaps for the first time.
I have the intention of becoming an
elementary school teacher and this book will definitely be a part of
the collection which I share with my students. I am very excited to have found
such a wonderful example of these philosophies regarding individual
agency over societal tokenism.
On a more personal note, I, at one time,
struggled to believe that children’s literature could ever
achieve such progressive goals.
However, Stan changed my mind on this issue two years ago, when
I am proud to say that he was my T.A. for NEW 240: Introduction to
Equity Studies. Even then,
he believed in the power of children’s literature to deconstruct
the hegemonic notions of the world today, as he read to us on a
near-weekly basis.
I now feel as though children’s
literature has the potential to be used as a very progressive stage to
educate and reflect on the world’s fluctuating morals and
standards. Stan Doyle-Wood
perhaps summed up this idea best when he said that
“children’s literature can intercept notions of oppression
and rupture the idea of essentializing
difference.”
Stan is confident that we can affirm difference
and identity and perceive diversity as fundamental toward the
achievement of transformative change. “It’s
limitless,” he says, “what you can do with a book.”
Chisani was officially launched at
Another Story Bookshop on October
20, 2006. This book is
available at the following locations:
Another Story Bookshop – 315 Roncesvalles
Ave. (416) 462-1104
Toronto Women’s Bookstore – 73 Harbord
St. (416) 922-8744
Parentbooks – 201 Harbord
St. (416) 537-9499
Young/Eglinton Indigo Bookstore
– 2300 Yonge St. (416)544-0049
Visit www.equitystorybooks.com
for more information.
Stanley Doyle-Wood, equitystorybooks
author and illustrator, is a PhD candidate at OISE U/T.
