The Insider/Outsider Debate:

There has been discussion among the experts as to whether or not a an “outsider” is capable of writing an authentic piece of literature about a group to which he/she does not belong. I must agree with Rudine Sims Bishop in her assertion that “you have to know a culture intimately if you’re going to reflect it accurately in your fiction”. However, I also believe that it would be unfair to make a blanket statement saying that only group insiders have the ability to create quality children’s literature. I believe Debbie Reese’s discussion of outside authorship in Native American children’s literature can be extended to other subsets of diverse literature. In her discussion, Reese claims that “non-Native people have demonstrated that careful research and sensitive writing can result in a quality children’s book that should be part of the classroom library”. Just as not every book penned by a group insider promises to be exceptional, not every book authored by an outsider is doomed to be disastrous.