Slippery Slope or Solid Ground?

After reading Marc Aronson’s “Slippery Slopes and Proliferating Prizes” and Andrea Davis Pinkney’s “Awards That Stand on Solid Ground”, both published in The Horn Book Magazine, I felt compelled to response to these readings.

In his piece, Aronson questions what these “proliferating” awards will mean for the readers of these texts. He poses an important question, “If you have to be black to win the award, do you have to be black to appreciate the award winning book?” I would argue that the answer to this question is, absolutely not. We shouldn’t be confined to reading to reading about people “just like us”.

I was astonished at how few awards were presented to black authors, 3 Newberys in a 97 year period. When thinking about the “ratio of black to white winners” it is hard for me not to see merit in awards that recognize marginalized populations. Although I agree with Pinkney’s assertion that “these awards are a gateway to progress”, they are not an absolute solution that will help incorporate underrepresented populations into children’s literature.

In my opinion, as long as the work that is being honored is a quality piece of literature, there is no harm in branching out our recognition.