People

Title: People

Author: Peter Spier

Illustrator: Peter Spier

Picture book for ages (approximately) 5 and up

Rating: 1 of 5 stars

Summary:

This is a non-fiction picture book about the people of the world. It gives examples of how all people are different either because of what they look like, where they live, what they eat, or who they worship.

Opinion:

This is probably one of the worst picture books I have ever read. First of all I like picture books to be timeless. I like to be able to read a book 30 years after it was published and be able to still connect with it. This book begins on the first page with outdated information (the number of people on earth now, a.k.a. 1980, and the number of people who will be on Earth in year 2000) which causes me to lose interest right away. If I were the author I would have written that page differently. You can stress there are lots of people without giving actual numbers and years. What does the number four billion mean to a child anyway, or to an adult for that matter. It is an unfathomable number, you can’t imagine it or relate to it, it’s too big. Next, it shows people from non-American cultures all in traditional dress and housing, focusing on the stereotypical look than the actual look. For instance, how many Native American people still live in a teepee? I would have to say exactly none. So why do they show a teepee as a place where people live? How many people actually still hunt for their food with spears and bow and arrow? Very few, but every non-white culture was shown hunting that way and eating straight from the animals carcass while the French and other European cultures were shown sitting at tables with utensils. Another issue was the jobs page. All the European cultures were shown doing glamorized jobs such as astronauts, entertainers, and soldiers while people of non-European decent were shown pulling (white) tourists in carriages or working in fields. The color of the poor people was distinctly darker than the color of the wealthy people and on the language page he has several American Sign Language letters shown incorrectly. Finally on the “heroes” page out of over 30 people Spier chose to recognize only two weren’t white. Instead he chose to feature European conquerors that took land from those less fortunate than themselves and chose to say they discovered it. The only good part about this book was the final two pages, which I did like. The illustrations posed two worlds, one in which all people, buildings, cars, and lifestyles were the same. The picture was dull and lifeless. The second showed a street with many different people, buildings, cars, colors, occupations, etc. This picture was full of life and excitement.

I think the concept Spier was going for is good, teaching children to embrace differences, but he went about it in a totally convoluted way. I would never use this book in my classroom. It reinforces stereotypes that are hard enough to get out of kids’ heads. Whether intentional or unintentional it promotes a certain race and lifestyle, namely, White upper-class American. I would not consider this book to be quality literature.