How do we represent the world to our young children?

Long ago in 1971, a young woman wrote and illustrated Mary of Mile 18, a story representing the normal life of the children she was teaching, living in northern British Columbia. She felt it a loss that the children did not see their life reflected in the books around them. Similarly, we now have many books, written with the same intent, by authors, wanting to reflect indigenous life, or black lives, or immigrant lives, and I suppose also LGBTQ life (I don’t know all the add-ons). It is very important for children to see their own lives reflected, but also other lives, to widen their perspective.

If you look into anthroposophy, which is about the only philosophy for life I have found which includes guidance for young children, as well as the whole education system, agriculture, medicine and more within a framework that includes the presence of the inner worlds, we learn something more. Rudolf Steiner brought forth many guiding principles. The three simplest ones will come forth at my next writing.

It offers us another dimension to evaluate our children’s books, aside from also representing our lives as they are.